Men Explain Lolita To Me

Tue Dec 22 03:46:28 CST 2015

Re " the point being made" below: Reading or misreading anything may have some negative consequences with or without identification with the characters....and that broader context mentioned only exists in the real world in certain places so....such statements about its male ( and female) readers will ( almost) never be falsifiable therefore will always be tautologically " true". 

Everywhere I go, I see both sexes splaining books against the author's plain text. read Rachel Cusk on her book club experience ( guardian, findable); recent stuff on so many ( largely females ) " splaining " Harry Potter to J. C. Rowling; even Ursula LeGuin telling Ishiguro why he misused a genre...IMHO. 

The way it is. that many men talk down to women is a sociological truth in the West I know, just as the fact that men in general interrupt others more; that men speak of " I" more than " we" in general; that men, in general, are less in touch with emotions than women; that men kill more than women; that men spit and women don't; and one can go on. 

Sent from my iPad

> On Dec 21, 2015, at 4:39 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Dec 21, 2015, at 3:08 PM, john bove <malignd at gmx.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Sent: Monday, December 21, 2015 at 3:01 PM
>> From: "john bove" <malignd at gmx.com>
>> To: "Joseph Tracy" <brook7 at sover.net>
>> Subject: Re: Men Explain Lolita To Me
>> 
>>    •  
>> "At that time the book was first received as an erotic fable, even by many critics."  I would be intersted to see examples.
> From wikipedia article about the novel Lolita:
> Lolita is frequently described as an "erotic novel", both by some critics but also in a standard reference work on literature Facts on File: Companion to the American Short Story.[2] The Great Soviet Encyclopedia called Lolita "an experiment in combining an erotic novel with an instructive novel of manners."[3] The same description of the novel is found in Desmond Morris's reference work The Book of Ages.[4] A survey of books for Women's Studies courses describes it as a "tongue-in-cheek erotic novel".[5] Books focused on the history of erotic literature such as Michael Perkins' The Secret Record: Modern Erotic Literature also so classify Lolita.[6]
> 
> More cautious classifications have included a "novel with erotic motifs"[7] or one of "a number of works of classical erotic literature and art, and to novels that contain elements of eroticism, like… Ulysses and Lady Chatterley's Lover".[8]
> 
> 
>> By the way, Merriam's definition of fable:
>>    • a short story that usually is about animals and that is intended to teach a lesson
>>    • : a story or statement that is not true.
> 
> Brilliant, you caught on that I was not referring to Aesop style animal stories but using the term to loosely refer to works of fiction. I am not alone in that usage.
>>    • Well yes, Lolita is fiction, so you're correct to that extent.
>>    • "...  literature that casts women as less than human. "  Are you suggesting that VN sees women as less than human, or that he has created a fictional character, HH, that does?
> He definitely created a fictional character who regards women as erotic fantasies and objects of manipulation and who exhibits no sense of the persona of the girl he has abducted. VN put the female character in that role for his own reasons, and neither I nor Solnit are saying VN regards women as less that human. The point being made has to do with the natural likelihood that women readers will identify with Lolita/Dolores and this  may have some negative consequences if it does not take place in a broader context where women are fully valued as equal, thoughtful, and having a right to probe at male presumptions. Unfortunately, when Solnit does this it exposes exactly those presumptions to the embarrassment of several male writers.
> 
>> In one case idioitic, in the latter case .. well, idiotic too.
>>    • The truth ["the truth"?] is that it appears that for much of his life Nabokov also expressed a low opinion of women writers." (Please see Lectures on Literature re Jane Austen.]  
> I got this as a quote from Nabokov in the Wikipedia article about him. 
>>    •  
>>    • "On the other hand, I and many others are not fans of Nabokov."
>>    •  
>>    • Well that certainly recommends you as an objective critic.  And really like "and many others ..,”
> The phrase” many others" is drawn both from experience in lit classes and from the numerous examples of critical reaction to his work offered in Wikipedia articles. I personally read Lolita and Ada and that was enough for me to know that while I appreciated his skill, it wasn’t my cup of tea. The point of saying that was to disclose that I am not an entirely objective critic as you say. Neither do I hate or despise him or his work. 
> 
> I am generally skeptical of attempts to rate or objectively and definitively understand art.
> 
>>    • 
>> 
>>    •  
>>    •  
>> 
>> Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2015 at 8:35 PM
>> From: "Joseph Tracy" <brook7 at sover.net>
>> To: "P-list List" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Subject: Re: Men Explain Lolita To Me
>> Paul, I just want to say that I have followed your posts on this thread and have decided I probably reacted too much to the way you were phrasing your thoughts in my earlier response and the image it evoked for me. Language is so hard both to control and to read accurately.
>> 
>> I agree that most readers today will be more sensitive to the harm done by what Nabokov calls the "wretched person" of HH. We also know that incest and pedophilia are more widespread and damaging than was admitted in the 50’s. At that time the book was first received as an erotic fable, even by many critics. The critical ideas have changed, but I think that Solnit makes a strong case that many men, both academics, and others still have a distinct inability to hear respectfully and accurately the critical reactions of women writers and social observers to literature that casts women as less than human. For one who really enjoyed this and other of her Essays and who is regularly delighted by good women writers, this is simply lost pleasure and lost opportunity to see the world more fully.
>> 
>> The truth is that it appears that for much of his life Nabokov also expressed a low opinion of women writers. On the other hand, I and many others are not fans of Nabokov. To me his lucid prose is like a beautiful invitation into a world and story construction where I simply don’t care to spend my time. Many smarter people also love Nabokov. To each his or her own.
>>> On Dec 20, 2015, at 5:04 PM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> It's about the travels of a foreigner through America. It's a very funny place. The acting out of HH's attraction for Lo must sustain that mood. The objective awfulness is something we're not suppose to notice. At least at first.
>>> 
>>> But back to the original question, I don't suppose most likely readers today are unaware of the harm such goings on would do to a young girl. (Not so sure about the late 50s). And it's possible for most people to read the book as it was written and enjoy it for what it is. Of course there are plenty who can't.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 3:32 PM, john bove <malignd at gmx.com> wrote:
>>> To read Lolita and come away with the idea that all VN is after and demonstrating with HH is a fictional demonstration of a quest for pure power, is -- well, it misses almost everything.
>> That word "all" is your word. It adds something that isn’t there.
>> HH’s obsession with controlling Lolita and equally with controlling his own version of her image in the book he is writing seems to me to contribute to what Nabokov might be saying both about power over others, and about the power of narrative projected by an unreliable source. And that question of the possible dangers of narratives that exclude all points of view fits comfortably with what Solnit is writing about by describing how that dangerous power is egged on by still common presumptions of superior male ability and knowledge.
>> 
>> I personally think it hard to escape that Solnit is also going up against Nabokov’s aesthetic role for literature . She makes a case that art affects life and comes with the responsibility of how it does so. I can’t imagine a valid challenge to this, The idea of separating art and life is like separating humans and language or humans and our habit of making. Art is Us.
>> 
>>> Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2015 at 1:58 PM
>>> From: "Mark Kohut" <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>>> To: "Paul Mackin" <mackin.paul at gmail.com>
>>> Cc: "Ray Easton" <raymond.lee.easton at gmail.com>, "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>> Subject: Re: Men Explain Lolita To Me
>>> We prosecute for pedophilia because the law knows it takes some maturity to become an adult and sexuality is too fully involved with our being to be overwhelmed by an adult. It is pure power then.
>>> HH kidnaps her. HH's obsession is a hope for total control.
>>> 
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>> 
>>> On Dec 20, 2015, at 11:42 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> According to Wikipedia Nabokov expert "Brian Boyd tries to let Humbert off the hook on the grounds that Dolores was not a virgin and seduced Humbert in the morning of their hotel stay."
>>> 
>>> Wonder how he came to that conclusion. Haven't got his book.
>>> 
>>> On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 10:56 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Should include acknowledgment of the damage done, the publisher may have thought.
>>> 
>>> On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 10:28 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> maybe the publisher demanded some sort of acknowledgement of the transgression
>>> 
>>> On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 9:28 AM, Ray Easton <raymond.lee.easton at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> What I find genuinely remarkable in what you say is this:
>>> 
>>> I will repeat, in his self-recognition scene... he realizes that he destroyed Lolita's childhood. ( major critical question is whether that scene is deep enough, whether it suffices for a book-length pedophilia obsession.)
>>> 
>>> 
>>> "A major critical question" -- really? Once one has adopted a standpoint from which one demands that the work justify itself according to some external moral standard, surely the matter is already settled. *Nothing* could possibly serve as justification. The idea that a "self-recognition scene," however powerful, could justify the "pedophilia obsession" is abhorrent.
>>> 
>>> Ray
>>> 
>>> --------------------------
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Then we learn LOLITA has died in childbirth, at 17, birthing a stillborn girl. To me, assuming some traditional values to family, motherhood and new life--see The Grapes of Wrath--this is a heartbreaking fictional presentation of the normal life LOLITA is never to have.
>>> 
>>> Re my last remark. Nabokov sez somewhere--that Paris Review interview?--that the rarest thing in life ( or fiction) would be a couple living out a normal life together without much thought of such institutions as religion, as any State, etc. I think of this in how VN ends LOLITA.
>>> 
>>> a--and, esp in later readings, I was always conscious of VN's hyperbolic but real hatred of that Viennese Witch Doctor ( and all institutionalized psychology that followed) and consequent ruination of much fiction that left real-world sense perception, loving appreciation of all the beauty, all the subtlety of our real world for sophomoric " explanation" of character(s). Common human understandings and their actions are how we know fictional creations, I think he would--has?--said. for most fiction ( although he also patterned into his fiction certain themes more cleverly than about anyone else).
>>> 
>>> I think I'm done now.
>>> 
>>> Sent from my iPad
>>> 
>>> On Dec 19, 2015, at 4:19 PM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> The discussion was about art and its destructive effect upon young women, specifically art like Lolita, which portrays male libidinous domination over a prepubescent girl. HH isn't invented out of the whole cloth, but is an exaggerated expression of male sexuality. I don't think I'm wrong here. I of course don't say men in general are pedophiles, but men nevertheless recognize a bit of themselves in HH. That's why they can't turn their eyes away. And by presenting Lolita herself so inertly and somewhat comically, the author takes attention away from what the poor girl must surely be suffering.
>>> 
>>> I think young women shouldn't be SHIELDED from the book. It won't harm them. It might give them an inkling of what they'll be dealing with. It might even make them more sympathetic. Rebecca S does speak of harm done males by and under the present dispensation. Of course I may be wrong, but there's nothing horrifying about my opinion.
>>> 
>>> PS Women DO need to be shielded from rapists. Pepper spray or a dagger long enough to reach the heart.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Sat, Dec 19, 2015 at 12:42 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>> “Better if they could learn to say Ho,ho, ho so that’s what the big babies need”
>>> If I understand you. That is just as creepy and shitty as all get out. Do you really mean that? Also, neither Solnit Nor Becky said anything about shielding young women. This article is not asking for protection; it is boldly and smartly questioning male presumptions that overlook the natural response of women to writing that ignores their dignity and value.
>>> 
>>>> On Dec 18, 2015, at 4:39 PM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> No doubt art and life work together in a positive feedback reinforcement. But in the case of the male libido, and the part domination plays in it, I don't think it's something young women need to be shielded from. Better if they could learn to say, Ho, ho, ho, so that's what the big babies need. Actually I think they sense it anyway, from a fairly early age. Not a very balanced solution I'll admit but it's the best I got.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> P
>>>> 
>>>> On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 3:20 PM, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com> wrote:
>>>> Advertising works for a reason. “Glamorous” actors/characters smoking in movies had/has an effect. Seeing blacks almost entirely in low-status positions (real or fictional) has an effect. Women never seeing women as good bosses had an effect. Of course art has an effect - lol - Sometimes artists actually want to say something about the world or their perception of it.
>>>> 
>>>> The thing is, imo - heh, there are at least a couple levels of effect - one is a cognitive response and another is an emotional response. The emotional can be subconscious - I don’t know if that’s true about a cognitive response.
>>>> 
>>>> In reading Blood Meridian I find the language to be so excellent I can overlook the violence. Reading Lolita I can appreciate the language and understand this is a great novel on a cognitive level. But even so I have an emotional response to HH justifying his abuse of a 12-year old girl. I have women friends who were totally unable to get through the violence (much of it against women) in Blood Meridian - their emotional response was too strong. These same women read crime novels with horrible abuse of women and children but the perpetrators are always presented as completely sicko bad guys - never "justified” by anything else.
>>>> 
>>>> How many men read and appreciated A Little Life? - Great writing. lol - (sex abuse of boys) Of course Yanagihara is certainly no Nabokov and yes, A Little Life is emotionally manipulative. Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings was a much better choice for the Booker winner.
>>>> 
>>>> Becky
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> On Dec 18, 2015, at 10:54 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> I agree with what you say, I think. I am not going to reread Solnit to see how I have misread her. What I remember is DANTO arguing that art/ literature must have some effect or it wouldn't be art and the State wouldn't worry about some examples of it.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Dec 18, 2015, at 1:43 PM, Peter M. Fitzpatrick <petopoet at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I suppose that subjectively, one could say that "this piece of art has profoundly engaged me and I, personally, will act differently from now on." That is different than a blanket statement that "Art makes Life". One could cite Hitler's efforts at book burning and banning of "degenerate art" as perhaps strong examples of art making a big difference in a culture. I still think that Art, with a capitol A, has to take a back seat to the Allied Forces noble efforts to destroy the Third Reich in making the world a better place. Yes, the Allied bombers made special efforts to avoid bombing the great cultural artifacts in Europe. We do value art, literature, music, etc. I think it is a mistake to think that they therefore gain an equal status with "Life" as, a general concept. Not individual lives, or even a large group, but Life, as an abstract category of existence.
>>>>>> I grant that in a metaphoric or poetic sense, "Art makes Life" can be true. I think it is a mistake to think that we use "Life' as a barometer of how we regard the value of a piece of Art, which I think Solnit was implying. Art can change the world in manner you suggest, but so can weather, food, and major economic indicators. The idea that Art, by itself, has an overarching claim on our life world than any other category, to me still rings false. It has en elevated value, to be sure. But the minute Art becomes a social program, we are stuck with phenomenon like Communism's Socialist Realism.
>>>>>> "
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 12:14 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> Okay, I'll be ridiculous. Not the first time. I'm not going to address
>>>>>> the largest implications of the question as you do.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> i'm going to take small philosophical baby steps. If "art makes life"
>>>>>> is at least partly true for one person. And that person acts
>>>>>> "better' because of it, then the statement is true.
>>>>>> If "art makes life' is true of more than one person and they act
>>>>>> better because of it, then the statement is true and somehow the world
>>>>>> is different because of that therefore.......
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> One question is How many are so effected? And what does it lead them
>>>>>> to see and do differently? And how does that matter in your largest
>>>>>> questions.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 1:02 PM, Peter M. Fitzpatrick
>>>>>> <petopoet at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> I would only take issue with her final assertion that "art makes life".
>>>>>>> I am none too sure about the truth of that, especially in our modern era,
>>>>>>> where access to means of expression are at an unprecedented level, at least
>>>>>>> in Western societies. More than one author has despaired at the idea or hope
>>>>>>> that they could possibly change society through their writing. The
>>>>>>> Mapplethorpe controversy could be read as an effort to battle gay rights as
>>>>>>> much as artistic expression. Picasso's "Guernica" is a masterpiece, but I
>>>>>>> have serious doubts if it ever changed any country's views on the use of
>>>>>>> technological weapons that do not discriminate between combatants and
>>>>>>> civilians. James Joyce and William S. Burroughs helped to change obscenity
>>>>>>> rulings in American, perhaps, but I don't think this is what Solnit means by
>>>>>>> "art makes life".
>>>>>>> Plato wanted to banish the poets, assuredly,so that his
>>>>>>> philosopher-kings could priviledge reason and law over emotion and
>>>>>>> imagination. I believe Heidegger had a lot to say on this aspect of our
>>>>>>> cultural heritage (even if he was prone to utter idiocy in other areas,
>>>>>>> notably fascism). Perhaps this is another aspect of Solnit's piece that
>>>>>>> raises questions to me - why does it seem so humorless, intellectual, if not
>>>>>>> a little unclear on what she does privilege in literature? That she uses
>>>>>>> this charge of "lack of humor" to chide others does bring her own seeming
>>>>>>> lack to the foreground, at least to me.
>>>>>>> "Lolita' is provocative, original, and must strike some note that is
>>>>>>> essentially true to readers - books do not enter the "canon" of modern
>>>>>>> literature through any other mysterious vetting process than reception and
>>>>>>> response. Solnit can criticize it as much as she likes, it isn't going
>>>>>>> anywhere. Generally, my main criticism of her piece is that it too strongly
>>>>>>> influenced by modern literary studies efforts at de-construction and
>>>>>>> Derridean disdain of the "phallo -centrism" of the so-called "Logos".
>>>>>>> Somewhere in there, I think men are supposed to feel bad. My own zen moment
>>>>>>> in modern literary critical studies was when we were covering Lacan's
>>>>>>> interpretation of Poe's "The Purloined Letter". I suddenly realized that I
>>>>>>> could read Poe's short story one million times and I would Never, no, Never
>>>>>>> see whatever it was that Lacan was seeing there.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 11:06 AM, Charles Albert <cfalbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Thesis?
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Or long exhausted trope?
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> love,
>>>>>>>> cfa
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 11:52 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Typical of Solnit: witty,engaging, sharp but balanced, and a pleasure to
>>>>>>>>> read. Many of the responses seem to prove her thesis with unexpected ease.
>>>>>>>>>> On Dec 17, 2015, at 3:50 PM, Matthew Taylor
>>>>>>>>>> <matthew.taylor923 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> Thoughts on Rebecca Solnit's latest?
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> http://lithub.com/men-explain-lolita-to-me/
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> -
>>>>>>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>>> 
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