What is /lit/'s take on Lolita?

>>8433834
It's style is impeccably gorgeous, hilarious, ironic, and horrifying all at once; it's the most famous, accessible and also one of the best transgressive novels ever.

>>8433834

I could relate to Humbert

I found it interesting that Humbert's obsession ,once fuffilled,turns into dullness and apathy. Too often what we want in life are built from gossamer walls of wish fulfilment and are whisked away by the reality of attainment.

>>8433834
Just read the opening few lines really and you'll get it

>>8434256
This. I pitied him so much when he want back to her years later and begged her to come with him but there was no hope that was going to happen. Until that point, He doesn't realize how he's damaged her and she wants absolutely nothing to do with him except monetarily.

>>8434390
>"Don't touch me; I'll die if you touch me."
Don't think i've ever felt so instantly overwhelmed by a novel tbqh

>dat scene where HH drives on the left side of the road

guy was a nutjob

>>8433844
>transgressive

There's no denying the moral stir this book caused in its day. But whenever I read Sade I'm struck by how tame Lolita is in comparison. Within the first thirty of pages of the 120 Days of Sodom literally hundreds of children aged 10 to 16 are kidnapped, tortured, and sexually abused by four French aristocrats... after most of their parents are killed before their eyes no less.

Factor in that Sade is writing over a hundred years before Nabokov, and Nabokov's mantle as literary provocateur seems disappointingly unearned.

>>8434499
The notable thing about Lolita is that Nabokov insisted it was not smut. Academic types read it, not people who were looking for erotica.

>>8434499
Comparing Nabokov to Sade
Ur retarded

>>8433834
I've always found Nabokov overwrought. He is too much of a writer's writer to ever be truly great.

>>8434505
I'm pretty sure only academic types read Sade today, lol.

>>8434513
>comparing the transgressive content of two artists considered transgressive

Uh yeah that's what I'm doing

>>8434499
What makes it transgressive isn't Humbert's depravity, but the fact that Nabokov has us empathize with him in a way that has us look at how we value the subjective voice in other supposed love stories. It's a novel about perspective more than anything else.

>>8434549
Right, but not in its day. Some would even say Lolita broke that barrier for other works to enter into the academic discourse.

>>8434557
>It's a novel about perspective more than anything else.
I guess you could say the warped perspective is the key device of the novel (although many of Nabokov's novels use the same device to different ends.

But there is so much more packed in there. Lolita is not a "one trick pony." One of my favorite contrasts is that HH is a self-superior European, but the scenery of his story is pure Americana.

>>8434557
Sade is deeply invested in the "perspective" of his libertines, half the times his texts read like philosophical justifications. The reader is actually supposed to sympathize with the tyrannical aristocratic sadists.

Sade is touted from Simone de Beuvoir to Foucault for preempting Freud by a hundred years. His novels go further than any of his contemporaries in exploring the "unconscious" and the psychological basis for our actions and desires.

What puts Sade over the top is his appeal to universality. Nabokov protects his reader by positioning Humbert as an eccentric, unique enough to not pose a moral threat to even the most sympathetic reader. Sade has other aims entirely, he wants to expose and even provoke the potential for all his readers to behave in just the same way as his Ducs and Durcets.

>>8434559
Sade had an even more exclusive audience than "academics" in his day, though. How many people do you think were literate in revolutionary France?

>>8434579
>Sade had an even more exclusive audience than "academics" in his day, though.
Ok. I don't think we are really disagreeing about anything.

Maybe there is something to be said for the fact that Lolita had to be first published in France.

>>8434579
>Sade is deeply invested in the "perspective" of his libertines, half the times his texts read like philosophical justifications. The reader is actually supposed to sympathize with the tyrannical aristocratic sadists.
The difference is that Sade isn't anywhere near as successful at it as Nabokov is. There's a sort of empathetic umbilical cord between Humbert and the reader that cannot exist in Sade's work simply because Sade not only does a poorer job of articulating the emotional motivations of his protagonists, but he takes the depravity too far. Humbert is afflicted. Sade's libertines are unfeeling and amoral.

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>>8434557

anybody who Lolita and felt sympathy for humbert needs to get their head checked.

>Nabokov has us empathize with him

no buddy, you did that all by yourself.

>>8434907
You're either a troll or a sociopath.

I'm truly sorry if you read Lolita and felt a burning ethical hatred toward Humber the entire time.

>>8434912
NO jerk off, i had a boner through part 1 but still... its OBVIOUS nabakov was giving humbert his voice because that was the only thing going for him. Other than that, the story is essentially one about a psychopath who distorts reality and murders people so that he can have sex with a helpless orphan.

>tow you were reading it and weeping for Humbert

you need to wake the fuck up

>>8434933
It's not what the story's about, it's how Nabokov presents it through his narrator. Humbert is the ultimate unreliable narrator. He's so good at his job at being an unreliable narrator, and his desire is articulated so beautifully throughout the book, that most readers begin to form an empathetic (or at least sympathetic) view of him.

>>8434933
shitpossed

>>8434958
NO.
Nabokov is making a parody. A parody of love stories, crime novels, erotica, first person narratives- and MOST BRILLIANT OF ALL- he's making fun of you- the thrift reader. The kind of consumer that chews up books looking for easy answers, or to escape from your own life to see things from someone else, as if that was even possible. he's making fun of literature, psychology, the human race.

wtf were you reading lol

>>8434961
saved 08/25/16(Thu)00:18:26

Lolita totally wanted it

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>>8434958
>>8434973

I DUNNO HOW ANYONE COULD READ LOLITA AND SYMPATHIZE WITH HUMBERT. NOT ONCE

>This was an orphan. This was a lone child, an absolute waif, with whom a heavy limbed, foul-smelling adult had had strenuous intercourse three times that very morning. (p140)

>When, during our longer stops, I would relax after a particularly violent morning in bed, and out of the goodness of my lulled heart allow her – indulgent Hum! – to visit the rose garden or the children’s library… (p160)

>Thrusting my fatherly fingers deep into Lo’s hair from behind, and then gently clasping them around the nape of her neck, I would lead my reluctant pet to our small home for a quick connection before dinner. (p164)

>… and her sobs in the night – every night, every night – the moment I feigned sleep. (p176)

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>"I entered a plane of being where nothing mattered, save the infusion of joy brewed within my body."

>>8434964
I like your post, but none of it contradicts what I said. In fact, I basically already said the same thing here>>8434557
>that has us look at how we value the subjective voice in other supposed love stories.

The creation of that empathetic relationship between Humbert and the reader is the method of Nabokov's satirization. Nabokov gets us to form an empathetic bond with the man playing the trope of the unrequited lover, except in this novel that lover also happens to be a monster. That's what make it more transgressive than Sade to a modern reader, which was my original point.

>>8434978
All of this is from part 2 you mong. There's a tonal shift after the first rape

>>8434991
ctrl+c, ctrl+p

>If one responds to the authors false scents and specious lines of play and believes that Humbert's confession is sincere and that he exorcises guilt then one not only has lost the game to Nabokov but most likely is not faring too well in the "game of worlds, one's own unscrambling of pictures. Satire is a lesson, parody is a game.

Your idea of Lolita being transgressive because the author molests you into sympathizing for Humbert is an ugly and misleading reading of Nabokov's intentions. Its a puzzle, you were tested, you failed.

>>8435014
Yes, I do have a copy of The Annotated Lolita. And no, I don't believe that the interpretation it advances is the only valid one, or that it's necessarily completely indicative of Nabokov's intentions. Plus, as any decent writer will tell you, an author's purpose often even eludes them.

Humbert is manipulative, but the notion that either his lust, or his proffered excuses aren't coming from a place of sincere feeling is fucking ridiculous. Lolita isn't just a literary exercise.

>>8435021
HUBERT ISNT REAL
lololololololol

>>8435022
Sorry, i'm not a post-modernist. That's not how I view literature.

>>8435021

>decent writer will tell you

lol

>an author's purpose often even eludes them

uh, no. sorry. maybe thats true for a quack like beckett but not nabokov, not lolita

>>8435024
>That's not how I view literature.

down the rabbit hole you return

/lit/ approved fap material

>>8435030
kek
top quality

>>8435025
Interpreting one's own work is usually just a process of post hoc rationalizations. When you have geniuses like Nabokov, they tend to be more aware not just of form (which even the shittiest author needs to be aware of), but of the emotional and psychological bases of inspiration for its creation. But even then, no one is aware of the exact synaptic origins of every single one of their ideas; and no one is responsible for the epigenetic life of a novel long after they've written it.

I also enjoyed the book

>>8435037
>intellectualizing

Nabokov knew what he was doing. He was doing a lot of it. Only his hundreds of notecards spell them out in english or russian or humbertish, w/e

>>8435045
fuck you

try searching for it on imagefap

>>8435051
Why?

>>8435047
Not to sound like a post-modernist, but how does that matter, really? Most people reading the novel don't have access to those notes, and there's no possible way of knowing either that everything Nabokov intended was in those notes, or whether or not what resulted came directly from his initial intentions. I think art is process a lot of the time, but I also don't believe in art's complete demystification. There's still something mysterious to it, even to its creator.

>>8435070
No. Not to the author. Not the poet. Not to the artist. The process is a metamorphosis, true. An ode to life, touché. A mystery- not quite. What develops in the developing is the developmentation of development. Between spaces of death the clockmakers play.

I liked it.
I liked the way humberts mind =/= reality. The so much highbrowed, smart, wittfull guy, who is a mere introvert. The brilliant mind who doesn't accept he's normal.
And that he doesn't accept it to the end.
Understanding how humbert had all the cards, and just played them wrong.
Happy end. I guess.
Nabokov played it well and misslead quite a few people as it seems. I like how people don't question humbert, as they indentify with him.

>>8435080
Hi Derrida

>>8435086
Hi

>>8433834
i wouldnt be caught dead reading this book. no matter how much i want to read it
how'd you guys do it?

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>>8434978
>that third quote

>>8434499
Yeah, but children were more than okay to fuck when Sade was writing. Innocent, maybe, but they fucked.

>>8435199
>caring for the opinion of strangers
In plain site like a boss

>>8434528
Have you tried some of his other Novels that are more playful in tone, specifically Invitation to a Beheading, or Laughter in the Dark (great dark comedy), I think these might give you a different perspective on Nabokov

>>8435199
Even if you're going to be a pussy about it, it's not like you have to read it in public.

>tfw you can't enjoy the horrifying grotesque nature of Lolita because it makes you want to jack off

>>8433834
Arguably /lit/'s favourite novel, and rightly so. It's magnificent.

>>8435199

I was reading it when my brother and his gf came over. She asked what I was reading: "Oh uh it's a book about a guy... It's about a pedophile."

"Oh..."

I'm a retard though. I couldn't come up with a better description on the spot even though it was my second time reading it.

>>8433834
It's difficult to explain with words but I'll try.

It's good. It basically transcends most works in how they try to across as unbiased pure epics and end up being a 1:1 racist allegory - Nabokov doesn't even fucking pretend it's not what it is.
>Who is the "good guy" and "bad guy"? Dolores is clearly far beyond her years in her scheming. But Humbert is the one with the actual power. Who did the most damage and in what way?
>Are pedophiles still human? Are they worthy of being treated like other people in spite of their disposition? What IS pedophilia?
>Themes of how those who've committed a crime struggle with any form of contact with authority and even understanding what is really happening
>Themes of fantasy and wish fulfilment; about how some fantasies should stay that way; the aftermath of these kind of situations and how generally it's not planned for; the context of murder
I've certain I've done a really bad job with that. It's not as simple as "Hurrr I empathize with Humbert"; it goes deeper - his jokes are funny; he's witty. Massively egotistical and a naive cunt but he feels likeable in SOME way and you forget that he's not even extant. I don't even think the book itself is particularly shocking or transgressive; there are fucktons of other stuff where children are gored or raped en masse. That sort of thing happens in real life; this very day in one country or another. Lolita is deeper; more probing. I think it's not really that much about pedophilia and more about the psyche of the (then-modern) man.

On the subject of pedophilia, though, I think we need more works looking at it. I personally believe that pedophilia stems from the exact same psychosis as homosexuality and literally all fetishes - they're not "disorders" so much as they are ingrained (whether learned or genetic), and thereby pedophilia is the last "great taboo" in our society (not that we can eventually legalize pedophilia, but that we need to stop kneejerk-reaction demonizing pedophiles based on a factor they cannot control). But that's a subject no longer relevant to this thread.

>>8437562
WRONG

>>8437713
>You don't read the book the way I read the book
>so did you even read the same book?
BTFO

>>8437562
>sympathising with pedophiles
>comparing gay people to pedophiles

>>8438682
>treating humans with mental issues as if they are worth less than humans without mental issues

>>8438712
>gay people have mental issues


OH BOY HERE WE GO

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>>8434933
murders people?

>>8439047
At no point did that post imply that gay people have mental issues
You said "gays > pedophiles"
That's treating humans with mental issues as if they are worth less than humans without mental issues

>>8439047
This is /lit/. You are supposed to be able to read.

>>8438682
They're both mentally ill, so yeah.

>>8438682
>pedophilia is illness
>homosexuality isn't
What can lead to such disparity if not the ideology?

And, strictly speaking, Humbert isn't a pedophile, since Lolita is pubescent.