Men Explain Lolita o Me

[Joseph Tracy]

> 
> On Dec 21, 2015, at 3:08 PM, john bove <malignd at gmx.com> wrote:
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> 
> 
> 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.

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