Men Explain Lolita To Me
Kai Frederik Lorentzen
lorentzen at hotmail.de
Sat Dec 19 10:58:01 CST 2015
Your answer is difficult to relate to.
So let's just clarify that last point:
> Gottfried being raped by Blicero doesn't negate Bianca being raped by
Slothrop.
Nobody talked about "negating."
On 19.12.2015 16:26, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
> Maybe boys in Sweden read Pippi Longstocking (do they?), but the books
> aren't widely read by either girls or boys anymore, and were certainly
> not read by the boys I grew up with back in the 60s. Personally, I
> couldn't stand them.
>
> Nowhere in her essay is Solnits exhorting anyone to read books by
> women and people of color. The essay is about women readers and their
> potentially different perspectives on male characters.
>
> Gottfried being raped by Blicero doesn't negate Bianca being raped by
> Slothrop.
>
> Laura
>
>
>
>
> Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>
>
> Laura:
>
> > Does anyone here truly believe that boys all over the world would
> have become obsessive fans of a "Harriet Potter" series? <
>
>
> How about Pippi Longstocking?
>
> > I know there are claims that the Bianca episodes are "thematic," and
> that male children are sexually abused in GR, but it all seems a
> little too obsessive on Pynchon's part. <
>
>
> Well, there is Gottfried and he's certainly not less important than
> Bianca.
>
> My more general points here are:
>
> Is not identity politics, no matter whether it relates to gender or
> ethnicity, always alien to art (including literature)? Art as such has
> nothing to do with democracy. We can and should improve the
> possibilities of people who, for reasons of being discriminated against
> because of their gender and/or ethnicity, do not have enough societal
> space to utter their aesthetic and political concerns. But there is, let
> me be perfectly frank on that, no moral obligation to like literature by
> women or people of color just because they are what they are. Period.
> Me, for example, I deeply enjoy the poetry of female writers like
> Ingeborg Bachmann, Elke Lasker-Schüler, Sylvia Plath, or the incredible
> Emily Dickinson (who, together with Georg Trakl, is for me the greatest
> poet on Earth!), but I rarely read prose written by women. And you know
> what? I do not even feel bad about it. Life's too short for reading
> along the standards of political correctness. (Women whose prose I like
> include Djuna Barnes, Pauline Réage, or Ingeborg Bachmann).
>
> Regarding the issue of child abuse in literature, I have to say that
> here the actual standards of political correctness are harder to ignore.
> When we talk about Nabokov, a hint to "Ada" is necessary, too. There is
> that passage about the brothel chain were they offer girls who have not
> even reached teenage. And stuff like that appears all over the best of
> world literature! Could Hamsun's "Pan," could Thomas Mann's "Death in
> Venice," both doubtlessly documents of the aesthetization of child
> abuse, be published in the 21st century? Should they? I have doubts
> about that.
>
>
> On 18.12.2015 19:18, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
> > Did it occur to anyone that Solnits wrote this essay for women
> readers? I didn't find anything she said particularly new or
> earth-shaking, though it was well-phrased. Certainly nothing that
> should have ignited this hysterical, hostile response.
> >
> > She says: "... the western world has held up a mirror to them [white
> men] for so long—and turns compliant women into mirrors reflecting
> them back twice life size, Virginia Woolf noted. The rest of us get
> used to the transgendering and cross-racializing of our identities as
> we invest in protagonists like Ishmael or Dirty Harry or Holden
> Caulfield." Is that really controversial? Girls all over the world
> were thrilled with Harry Potter. Does anyone here truly believe that
> boys all over the world would have become obsessive fans of a "Harriet
> Potter" series?
> >
> > Suppose a black male writer had made the same points about white
> readers, male and female? Would he be described here on the list as:
> "An angry [replace "bint" with some moderate racial epithet] with a
> bludgeon looking to make [his] bones Arkansasing the justifiably
> celebrated work of a dead white guy"? or "Great Googly Moogly but [he]
> is an insufferable, sanctimonious,
> hyper-inflated-with-a-sense-of-self-importance piece of work."?
> >
> > Much as Solnits doesn't like being "mansplained" to, I think there
> are men [not all men, as Solnits makes perfectly clear in her
> essay]who really can't hack having a woman stating an opinion they
> disagree with, and they pretty much flip out when they encounter it.
> >
> > I do think the essay is inconsequential in the sense that it was a
> response to the hostile response to a previous essay she'd written.
> She's a columnist, and has to churn this stuff out quickly. If she'd
> sat down to write a long, thoughtful literary analysis of Nabokov's
> work, this would not have been the result. Dammit, Jim, she's a
> cultural critic, not an academic literary professor. Sure, the phrase
> "privilobliviousness" is cringe-worthy. I guess she was just fed up
> with using the phrase "white male privilege" and wanted to save
> herself the two taps of the space bar it entails. Harpers doesn't have
> a huge readership, and most people are blithely unaware of the minor
> flame-war her essay launched.
> >
> > Do Brits and Yanks have different perspectives? Do black American
> and white Americans have different perspectives? Do men and women have
> different perspectives? Yes.
> >
> > Some female perspective:
> >
> > I've been extremely uncomfortable with the number of instances where
> Pynchon blithely depicts men having sex with girls, or just generally
> sexualizes young girls. Not just poor Bianca, but Lucille in V., the
> youngest Boer daughter in M&D, Merle joking about how young Dally
> should have sex [don't have the page-reference handy], and Japonica
> Fenway in IV. Nothing in BE (maybe Jackson's teenaged girlfriends made
> it too embarrassing to write about?). I know there are claims that the
> Bianca episodes are "thematic," and that male children are sexually
> abused in GR, but it all seems a little too obsessive on Pynchon's
> part. GR is still my favorite book, though. I identify with Slothrop.
> >
> > My mother adored Anna Karenina, and wore through a number of copies.
> But she decried the ending. She could pinpoint one sentence where the
> book "turned." Don't have the exact quote, but it involved Vronsky
> looking at "the dying woman," i.e. Anna. From then on, my mother said
> that the reader was distanced from Anna. Though Anna didn't die in
> that scene, Tolstoy had sentenced her to death. My mother mentally
> rewrote the final scene: Anna goes to the railway station and takes a
> train to Paris to start a new life. The End."
> >
> > I consider Kubrick one of the greatest directors of all time (who
> wouldn't?). But I've only seen Clockwork Orange once. In the theater,
> there was laughter during the Singing In the Rain rape sequence. My
> male date felt he had to "explain" what Kubrick was conveying in the
> scene. I didn't then and I don't now give a flying fuck what Kubrick's
> intentions were - I will never, ever watch that again.Life's too short
> to put myself through that kind of pain. I've seen 2001: A Space
> Odyssey (not what you'd call a chick flick) probably about 15 times.
> >
> > What this shows is that feminists [Solnits, me, my mother,etc.] can
> call out sexism where they see it, even in their favorite works of
> art, but still understand its context and appreciate, or even love the
> work it's contained in.
> >
> > Final question: Who here has seen Diary of a Teenage Girl? I
> consider it the best film of the year. How would the story play if
> written from the man's POV?
> >
> > Laura
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> >
> > From: matthew cissell
> >
> > Sent: Dec 18, 2015 4:39 AM
> >
> > To:"kelber at mindspring.com"
> >
> > Subject: Re: Men Explain Lolita To Me
> >
> >
> >
> > I don' think it inconsequential, on the contrary the conversation
> and topic strike me as quite important. I just don't think it's the
> best way to procede, in part because dehistorcizing the novel and then
> generalizing the male comments and extending them to all men is not
> accurate or useful.
> > No nerves struck here, just incredulous that this is what gets over
> the bar. Where is Simone De Beauvoir? Or even bell hooks?
> > One may sympathize with her experience and sentiments, but that does
> not gain agreement.
> > What do you think of the piece?
> > ciaomcps I'm not wearing my panties right now, still in my nightgown
> which does get rumpled sitting in this chair.
> > On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 5:37 AM,kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
> > With so many guys getting their panties in a twist over an
> inconsequential essay, it seems the writer must have hit a nerve.
> > Laura
> >
> > Mark Thibodeau wrote:
> >
> > Punishing myself by reading this latest Solnit on men "explaining"
> > Lolita to her and I've come across what must be the most painfully
> > awful neologism of an era and a medium that is stuffed to the bursting
> > with awful neologisms: "privelobliviousness". Sweet Christ what a
> > mediocre, one-track mind this person has.
> >
> > J
> >
> > On Thu, Dec 17, 2015 at 10:00 PM, David Morris wrote:
> >> HH wasn't empathetic because he was obsessive. One usurps the
> other, ergo
> >> failure. HH failed in scores of other traits for the same root
> cause. The
> >> beauty of Lolita is HH's ability to elist our empathy with his
> obsession.
> >>
> >> David Morris
> >>
> >>
> >> On Thursday, December 17, 2015, John Bailey wrote:
> >>> Solnit praises Lolita and calls it "that masterpiece of Humbert
> >>> Humbert’s failure of empathy". Which someone would Arkansas my work
> >>> that way.
> >>>
> >>> On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 1:11 PM, Charles Albert
> >>> wrote:
> >>>> An angry bint with a bludgeon looking to make her bones
> Arkansasing the
> >>>> justifiably celebrated work of a dead white guy?
> >>>>
> >>>> Don't see that every day.
> >>>>
> >>>> If you want a truly stimulating and exquisitely balanced
> investigation
> >>>> of
> >>>> the same question I recommend Byatt's Possession.
> >>>>
> >>>> love,
> >>>>
> >>>> cfa
> >>>>
> >>>> On Dec 17, 2015 8:59 PM, "John Bailey" wrote:
> >>>>> If you approach pop literary criticism with the same standards you
> >>>>> expect of Kantian philosophy you may end up with a reasonable amount
> >>>>> of stomach trouble.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 12:24 PM, Tommy Pinecone
> >>>>>
> >>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>> I had originally extended that message to cover that point but then
> >>>>>> decided
> >>>>>> to take it away.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> To show the weight of thought that needs to go behind a conclusion.
> >>>>>> Kant
> >>>>>> is
> >>>>>> astoundingly painstaking, as you likely know. That's why I
> >>>>>> recommended a
> >>>>>> short introduction, the excerpts can be shocking to someone not
> used
> >>>>>> to
> >>>>>> it,
> >>>>>> it is an education you are not likely to find anywhere else apart
> >>>>>> from
> >>>>>> first
> >>>>>> hand in Kant. I could just as easily recommended some of
> Aristotle's
> >>>>>> work,
> >>>>>> but Kant is more illustrative of the point.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Wittgenstein's big ideas and posthumous work are constructive in a
> >>>>>> similar
> >>>>>> way.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On 18 Dec 2015 01:09, "Danny Weltman"
> >>>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>>> What in Kant's first critique do you find helpful for hitting
> on "a
> >>>>>>> fast
> >>>>>>> track way to make someone who is uneducated aware of the blatant
> >>>>>>> flaws
> >>>>>>> in
> >>>>>>> certain ideas and movements that are just unsustainable, and
> somehow
> >>>>>>> having
> >>>>>>> their day the past few years?"
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> On Thu, Dec 17, 2015 at 5:03 PM, Tommy Pinecone
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>>>> This is why I make it a deliberate priority not to go on
> Twitter or
> >>>>>>>> to
> >>>>>>>> follow any new intellectual voices.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Every time it is some unfamiliar, alleged authority voicing a
> loud
> >>>>>>>> opinion that's appointed a flashy title; for some reason
> Twitter is
> >>>>>>>> frequently mentioned along the way.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> I hope the majority of you can see through this pettiness. It's
> >>>>>>>> unfortunate that we are swamped with the hack work and profound
> >>>>>>>> blanketed
> >>>>>>>> hate in modern academia, it is however a fortunate thing that we
> >>>>>>>> can
> >>>>>>>> merely
> >>>>>>>> look away and concentrate on human issues instead of coining new
> >>>>>>>> derogatory
> >>>>>>>> terms and stirring up the rabble with a short article.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> I often wonder how different these outlooks would be if these
> >>>>>>>> people
> >>>>>>>> were
> >>>>>>>> introduced to literature in a different way, free from
> ideology and
> >>>>>>>> identity-that is an unbiased, philosophical way. I make it a hard
> >>>>>>>> point with
> >>>>>>>> any aspiring student to start off with a short introduction to
> >>>>>>>> Kant's
> >>>>>>>> primary Critique and a short introduction to Wittgenstein's
> >>>>>>>> thought;
> >>>>>>>> no
> >>>>>>>> doubt it is an anomalous approach, but it's a fast track way to
> >>>>>>>> make
> >>>>>>>> someone
> >>>>>>>> who is uneducated aware of the blatant flaws in certain ideas and
> >>>>>>>> movements
> >>>>>>>> that are just unsustainable, and somehow having their day the
> past
> >>>>>>>> few
> >>>>>>>> years.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> We shouldn't have to pause to think of these things when
> there are
> >>>>>>>> bigger
> >>>>>>>> issues than female characters not being put in the center of the
> >>>>>>>> stage. What
> >>>>>>>> if I wanted to pen an article on how I wasn't happy with the lack
> >>>>>>>> of
> >>>>>>>> empathy
> >>>>>>>> Beckett shows in all of his works, to individuals of both genders
> >>>>>>>> no
> >>>>>>>> less?
> >>>>>>>> Sure, the circumstances are different here, but not dramatically.
> >>>>>>>> It's
> >>>>>>>> simply absurd. I struggle to believe these type of things when I
> >>>>>>>> see
> >>>>>>>> them
> >>>>>>>> being taken so seriously by so many. Makes one feel hopeless,
> >>>>>>>> especially
> >>>>>>>> when these are still the early years of the internet and the
> >>>>>>>> loudest
> >>>>>>>> voices
> >>>>>>>> are reaching aspiring students through social media poisoning
> their
> >>>>>>>> nascent
> >>>>>>>> opinions and thoughts.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> On 17 Dec 2015 20:51, "Matthew Taylor"
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>>>>> Thoughts on Rebecca Solnit's latest?
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> http://lithub.com/men-explain-lolita-to-me/
> >>>>> -
> >>>>> Pynchon-l /http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> >>> -
> >>> Pynchon-l /http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
> > -
> > Pynchon-l /http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> > -
> > Pynchon-l /http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=nchon-l
> >
> >
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
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