Taibbi on Humbert (Sort of) TK Newsletter

Tue Aug 10 17:56:55 UTC 2021

Which Nabakov novel had the unfortunately “plain” daughter commit suicide
after her blind date treats her badly one night?  Was that Shade’s daughter
in Pale Fire?  Anyway, N treats the “Plain Jane’s” suicide as less than a
tragedy. Maybe even inevitable for one so I’ll-fated as to be born a homely
female.  My point being that I think it is a mistake to assume that Nabakov
was at all “woke.”  I think he had his own dark predjudices towards women
and gays and others less mentally gifted than himself.  So I think his
Humbert might actually be his own humorous naughty alter ego, NOT someone
to be morally vilified.

David Morris

On Tue, Aug 10, 2021 at 11:30 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> STOP MISUNDERSTANDING ME.......stop telling me what I am....argue
> objectively.
>
> You have never been able to read me correctly......
>
> I LOVE LOLITA.....one of the greatest masterpieces of our time.......I did
> not say I agreed with Wood who also thinks it a great slightly-flawed
> masterpiece.
>
> On Tue, Aug 10, 2021 at 11:27 AM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>
> > So you don’t like Taibbi, as you don’t like so many progressive voices
> who
> > fail to simplify the world to CNN morality and Democratic party lies. Not
> > too surprising.
> >   Unfortunately as a writer with clear bias you are indulging straw man
> > logic, reading unexpressed thoughts into the words of the person being
> > verbally flogged. Taibbi DOES NOT  say or even imply, " that he
> (Humbert) is
> >  *supposed* to be a likeable narrator…” He says "How can I like Humbert
> > Humbert?". And he is saying this after many readings. This is not an
> > attempt by Taibbi at a literary critique or essay on Nabokov or Lolita.
> > Reflections on Lolita and Nabokov and  what makes an interesting
> character
> > are a personalized and internalized jumping-off point for a discussion of
> > media morality and cancel culture and how we treat character issues.
> >   You don’t like Lolita but claim to revere Nabokov, I don’t like either
> > and don’t feel required to do so to be literate. Taibbi does like the
> > writer and Lolita which is only one of Nabokov’s works that have a
> serious
> > fascination with sex with children. Lolita drew the fascination of  the
> > american letters community as an inquiry into character, into maleness,
> > into manipulative games, and into language itself. It simultaneously
> drew a
> > huge crowd as something with the appearance of sophisticated eroticism,
> > thus  enlarging the interest of the literati, and also drawing in a lot
> of
> > the playboy crowd and young men and women who wanted to be in the know.
> I
> > would suggest part of Taibbi’s use of this work was to show both sides of
> > the drawing power of sex: first,  as a common ground of public
> fascination,
> > and second as a common ground of moral debate and how that fascination
> has
> > become so central to public morality while the planet burns, nations are
> > starved, the treasury is looted, and insanely immoral wars are propagated
> > by the same media.
> >   To me the heart of the article is the moral comparison between the
> > questionable substance of the sex allegations against Cuomo versus the
> much
> > more devious and destructive isssue with Covid in nursing homes. He is
> not
> > negating  that groping and abusing power is behavior that cannot be
> > tolerated, but asking why are far more violent and destructive actions so
> > easily tolerated?  Here he is talking about something in this weird
> > political culture that is substantive and  worth writing about. The essay
> > was far more interesting  and nuanced than your petty attack.
> >   In the end I think you only succed in illustrating Taibbi’s point about
> > the oversimplifications of cancel culture and skewed moral judgements.
> > "Poor Matt”? His career as a writer is impressive because he is funny
> > thoughtful and able to clarify complex realities. I doubt he qualifies as
> > poor in any sense.
> >
> >
> > On Aug 10, 2021, at 5:05 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Taibbi is as wrong as he has been lately about almost everything. Why is
> > worth a discussion but not by me today--or probably ever.
> > TRUTH: .....Humbert's evil is FINALLY being seen by more and more, not
> what
> > he writes......mention it
> > in a room or zoom of women and good readers as I did in my film class
> about
> > a good movie influenced by Lolita (w the sexes reversed) .......read the
> > early intellectuals who wrote of *Lolita* as *a love story*, even in *The
> > New Yorker.*.......Read the next generation of critical responses, such
> as
> > by the real good Michael Wood, who argues that the crucial scene where
> > Humbert realizes he's a monster doesn't fully work. ......I will refute
> > narcissitically as well. In my first reading, college, a freshman, but
> not
> > for a course, I had serious trouble liking Humbert from the get-go--she
> is
> > twelve!---thinking then as stupidly as Taibbi still thinks that he is
> > supposed to be a likeable narrator....
> >
> > MT: "No story can survive an unlikeable narrator" ---has he not read
> enough
> > great literature or is he just naively stupid? *Journey to the End of
> > Night, Cabot Wright Begins, American Psycho, Houllebecq and
> more....*C'mon,
> > why do we give Taibbi a pass with this stupidity? Because he once pointed
> > out the real unsaid
> > in our world? ........Superficial literary twitter of common readers is
> > full of folks saying, about almost any book...."I didn't like the
> > character(s)".....so, it was a bad book or not worth
> finishing......That's
> > Matt's base of judgment it seems....
> >
> >
> > "With Cuomo as with anyone else in the Internet age, the important issue
> > isn’t right or wrong, but whether or not he’ll survive."
> > Wrong, wrong. See everyone, every almost every woman reacting in real
> > time......They are all over my twitter....
> > 2 aides resigning with only their own pressure.....(to answer another
> > overgeneralization of Taibbi's)
> >
> > AND don't get me started on another writer failing of so many who
> criticize
> > social media in his way---with generalizations based on THEIR social
> > media.....
> > In its very being, twitter is what you make it; how you curate it....all
> > these "twitter takes; twitter says"  are simply wrong (unless he's going
> to
> > get TOTAL analytics which are still almost impossible to obtain WITH THE
> > POSITIONS in the tweets known. I. E.. the nature of positive or negative
> > responses need measured by their content. )....Everyone's twitter;
> > everyone's Facebook is unique and is curated by one's notions of what one
> > wants to see/hear)
> >
> > More bullshit from Taibbi:
> > "Morality in this sense has become a pass/fail exercise, with everyone
> > divided into just two categories, viable and disgraced. Which of the two
> > one lands in depends entirely on how high levels of public disgust and
> > emotion reach at the peak of viral mania, versus how entrenched the
> target
> > is or isn’t. "
> > Let's see, like General Kelley?..... Steve Bannon?....Sen Frankel?, who
> > bowed out of the Senate for the good of the party, he said....The Dixie
> > Chicks....lots of others.....
> > his line blots out ANY acting on a principled morality, so damn
> > self-justifyingly cynical; so loaded since, of course, almost every
> famous
> > person will fight to keep their fame/power/fortune...I say this is hardly
> > the "morality' of most people in this world, this country, of course, but
> > he isn't talking about them,  just generalizing falsely for his paid
> > articles...
> > Belated thought: look at his "relative" Glenn Greenwald, fully disgraced
> > and still viable to refute his two simple-minded categories from another
> > direction
> >
> > MT" It’s a quirk of literature that readers will cheer the Acapulco
> > polysyllable dives of a child rapist but find the same style pompous in
> the
> > diary of an inoffensive emigre professor."... ....MORE WRONGNESS:
> Humbert's
> > pompousness is raised to the level of pedophilia self-deception while
> > Pnin's is simply a way of living and being seen. H's charming pompousness
> > is part of the meaning; Pnin's charmlessness is part of his.
> >
> > MT "Nabokov, who famously despised the “literature of social intent,”
> might
> > have puzzled at the effectiveness of Humbert as a narrator but surely
> > didn’t worry about it."
> > MK: Where does he come off with this? Where is the allusion from N's life
> > or writing  to support this arrogant attempt to read N's baroque mind?
> The
> > mind of a hardly predictable genius?.."might have puzzled at"......Yeah,
> > wrong....my understanding of Nabokov, the man who created and solved
> chess
> > puzzles and writing puzzles, is that the usual meaning of "might have
> > puzzled at" has no traction....he worked without real worry about getting
> > his words, characterizations, right not, not NOT
> > "puzzling [as if he wasn't sure; he who said in response to E. M.
> Forster's
> > remark that sometimes his characters took on a life of their own, NEVER
> > his....they are like galley slaves rowing as I want them to...[paraphrase
> > but the metaphor is exact]....
> >
> > Poor Matt......who has lost his whole subject matter and has never gotten
> > literature, it is obvious....
> >
> > On Mon, Aug 9, 2021 at 9:59 AM Allan Balliett <allan.balliett at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> https://taibbi.substack.com/p/tk-newsletter-on-good-people-and?r=2pty3&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=email
> > --
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> >
> > --
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> >
> >
> >
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