One of the greatest books of all time makes 50SoG look utterly puritanical.

[sir pball]

It's unquestionably one of the top 10 English works of all time - and it's an unvarnished, unapologetic story of a predatory pedophile who kidnaps and repeatedly rapes, over years, an eleven-year old orphan.

Of course, it's also unquestionably better written than Fifty Shades, but that's a very low bar. I'll unabashedly say it's my favorite book ever, full stop...but why should we celebrate Lolita while panning Fifty Shades? And yes, I've read both.

Also will be going to sleep shortly so this is a drive-by, but we're all intelligent here so I'm very interested in the responses.

[joeglow3]

1. Does it teach that the 11 sticks by him and they fall in love

And live happily ever after?

[sir pball]

3. Oh, I don't think the messages are equivocal

But Humbert Humbert never apologizes and always plays the victim. Lolita was just too sexy. It should be objectively sickening, but it somehow isn't...you almost feel bad for him.

[kickitup]

12. "Almost" is the key word. Nabokov allows for an understanding

of Humbert but his unapologetic behavior doesn't allow for an embracement of the character or for forgiveness.

What's sad is that the audience had so much trouble separating the narrator from the author, so Nabokov, from what I understand, had to live with people thinking he was a perv.

[cemaphonic]

17. and by the end, even Humbert comes to understand that all of his self-justification

is just rationalization, and that he is a terrible sad person that has done irreparable damage.

As for Nabokov, there seem to be a lot of people who don't get that good writers have good imaginations and can write convincingly about fucked-up weirdos without being all that weird themselves. Iain Banks had a funny anecdote about being pressed by a fan to fess up to a dysfunctional childhood because said fan would not believe that Banks could have written The Wasp Factory without it being somehow autobiographical. Banks eventually pulled his mother over and she confirmed that he was a really happy, cheerful kid. Steven King used to get this a bunch too, but I think that he gets interviewed enough in the mass media that most people understand that he's a pretty friendly, optimistic guy that just happens to have a good imagination and a fondness for monsters.

[moriah]

4. Nope. So far the only things teaching that...

.... are stupid fairy tales and teachers marrying the students they raped so they don't have to testify. Gaggg....

[joeglow3]

8. And FSOG

[moriah]

16. No, "Ana" leaves Christian, for good at the end of the series.

No happily ever after, thank God.

You may be thinking of Twilight?

[joeglow3]

32. Ummm, have you read the books?

She marries Christian and has two babies, Teddy and Phoebe. They have a house with no torture room (but keep the apartment, just in case). They live happily ever after.

I don't know what you are thinking of.

[one_voice]

44. That's the way I remember it too. n/t

[moriah]

55. Go submit your corrections to Wikipedia....

... I'm sure the page gets vandalized a lot.

[joeglow3]

66. I think you are speaking about the end to book 1

She leaves him at the end of book 1. However, in book 2, he steps up his stalking right away and convinces her she should stay with him. Like I said, it is a sad story about if you stick with your abuser long enough, you WILL fix them.

[redqueen]

37. lol

[moriah]

2. I have to say I do worry for anyone who gets off on "Lolita" or other representations....

... legal or illegal, of sex with children. Because, like, it's... children, and sexy feelings about children are one of the few times I'll judge anyone for what gets their motor running. Because again... it's children.

That being said, while the subject matter is disturbing, not talking about child sex abuse just fosters it.

[sir pball]

5. Getting off on, and writing a damn good book, are two entirely different things.

I think that goes back to the "have you read it" argument - cuz Lolita is far, far from erotica. I probably should have asked to restrict this to people who have actually finished the book..

[moriah]

6. That's the reason why I tried to make it very clear....

... that what I worried about was anyone who *did* find it erotic, not anyone who found the book to be an interesting commentary. Or a disturbing commentary, which was more the way I saw it. The things you say about Humphrey that almost make you feel pity for him are the same things that make me want to smash his skull in -- no, a kid can't be "too sexy" unless there's something wrong with the adult, and it's far too often that yes, abusers play the victim to the hilt.

[Warpy]

7. "Lolita" was well written

"50SoG" is not. That's the main difference. The same goes for books like "Justine" and "Lady Chatterly's Lover." The kind of erotica that middle class morality feels most objectionable is not the point here. The line between trash and literature is pretty clearly defined and has little to do with whether or not the subject matter chronicles a descent into sexual madness. It has more to do with how well it's written.

It's why banning erotica never works. If it is a literary treasure, people will continue to read it.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

10. Having read both "justine"" and "Lolita" but not 50,

I suppose I can't comment but frankly, at 63, I really don't care anymore.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

14. Curious about your opinion. Do you think De Sade just had

a different approach to conventional Moree's or was he just a twisted fuck? No pun intended. I've wondered about that ever since I read the book. So much of what we find acceptable is based on what current society tells us is acceptable. I found much of the book abhorrent but I think that a lot of that is because I was taught to think that way.

[Warpy]

18. Well, only a twisted person could have come up with that stuff

but my reading of it was that it was more satirical than anything else, that he was determined to outrage as many stuffy people as he could, something he succeeded quite admirably doing.

I'm afraid my attitude toward kink of all types is "whatever floats your boat, I'll just paddle my own canoe, thanks." I mind my own damned business and as long as on one demands I join the dubious fun, we're cool unless people are ending up in the hospital.

ETA: I'm older than you are and my sex drive has been stuck in neutral since I turned 50. I'm still neither attracted to or outraged by kinky stuff.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

22. Didn't see it as kink when I read it

but I'm not very good at nuance, I just think havng a discussion with sombody who has actully read the book is amazing'

[Warpy]

23. Yeah, but I read it too long ago to remember many particulars.

so the discussion that has already happened is about it unless I slog through it again, something I'm not particularly motivated to do.

I just remember finishing and thinking it was more likely a poke of his finger into the collective eye of middle class morality rather than a history of his own perversion put into novel form.

[hfojvt]

38. I cannot believe anything by Nabokov was well written

I thought Ada was unreadable and did not get very far into Lolita either before just wanting to kick the narrator's a$$.

Neither of them struck me as particularly well written. With Ada, quite the opposite.

The other two, Justine and Chatterly, I haven't read.

[Warpy]

49. Yes, Ada sucked. I didn't bother finishing it, either.

However, Lolita was very well written. Your reaction to Humbert is proof of that.

You wanted to kick his arse. I wanted to shake him until his teeth rattled and fell out. That was rather the point, he was a self deluded prat who was overdue taking a long trip with the imprint of the front third of someone's right shoe on his trouser seat.

The difference between a good book and a great book is that a good book is a fun read while a great book is often something you need to kick and claw your way through but which sticks with you afterward. By that standard, Lolita is a great book, a first person account of the delusion most pedophiles have to maintain if they act on their kink.

You're supposed to react negatively to Humbert. He's a very unlikable character.

[hfojvt]

61. I didn't bother to finish Lolita though

No point reading a tale told by an idiot.

But I didn't finish The Brothers Karamazov or War and Peace either.

I used to read a lot of books back in the day, especially when I owned the bookstore.

Finally read The Great Gatsby a couple years ago, didn't see what was so great about that either.

I would strongly reccomend NOT reading Hemingway too, from the three of his that I read. Lead there by a college course in "modern literature". Same thing about "The Good Soldier" and "As I lay dying". I don't remember being impressed by either of those, although I just saw them on a list of great books.

I see Catch 22 on a couple of these lists too, which I had to work through. I still think I like "Picture This" better than 22, and it appears to be unregarded with only "Something Happened" rating a mention when he died, and I thought "Something Happened" was just horrid, absolutely horrid, even without finishing it, and I think the ending is even more horrid.

[kickitup]

9. Well, I don't know that readers come away from

Lolita going, "OMG, that got me so hot and I want to try it. Honey let's try it." At least I hope they don't!

It's been a while since I read Lolita but I think certain parts of the book made me ill. If I recall correctly there is a part where she is sick with a fever and he takes her anyway and enjoys how hot she is.

I guess you could say that the male character in Lolita is not depicted as a romantic hero while the male lead in FSOG is held up as one even though many see his actions as manipulative and self serving as well.

This should be good - thank you for starting it and can't wait to hear what others say.

And if I haven't remembered Lolita correctly I apologize.

I would very much like to know your opinion of the movie version with Jeremy Irons.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

20. why that version over the James Mason Version, just curious ...

Last edited Wed Jul 30, 2014, 11:53 AM - Edit history (1)

and Lolita is 14 in the film ...

Lolita (1962)
152 min - Drama | Romance - 12 June 1962 (USA)

A middle-aged college professor becomes infatuated with a fourteen-year-old nymphet.

Director:
Stanley Kubrick
Writers:
Vladimir Nabokov (screenplay), Vladimir Nabokov (novel), 1 more credit »
Stars:
James Mason, Shelley Winters, Sue Lyon

Humbert Humbert, a divorced British professor of French literature, travels to small-town America for a teaching position. He allows himself to be swept into a relationship with Charlotte Haze, his widowed and sexually famished landlady, whom he marries in order that he might pursue the woman's 14-year-old flirtatious daughter, Lolita, with whom he has fallen hopelessly in love, but whose affections shall be thwarted by a devious trickster named Clare Quilty.

[kickitup]

24. I haven't seen the James Mason version, but I've seen the Jeremy Irons one.

I remember thinking that I could see Jeremy Irons playing a believable Humbert Humbert and so I was curious. I have a bit of crush on Irons but evidently he's a big sexist. But the accent and slight growl he produces at times is hard to get over and I'll admit it.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

35. Okay, because I have seen the James Mason one. I will have to see this Jeremy Irons now

for a comparison. No crush on Jeremy or James either so maybe I can be unbiased in my opinion about the two films. I did not even know about the Jeremy Irons version until this thread. Shelley Winters was good in her role in that film.

color vs black and white, too.

[kickitup]

57. I will try to find the James Mason version as well. And then I need to read the book again.

After I somehow manage to read Infinite Jest. My son has been after me to read that, and I look at the size and put it off, because right now I do good to read an article in a magazine.

I'm going to watch the Irons one again too. You can watch deleted scenes at youtube - This is one I find interesting because it seems to capture 1) her awareness of her effect on him, 2) his struggle to polish the turd that is his relationship with her, 3) that the relationship is in fact wrong as is demonstrated by the uneasiness concerning the police officer.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

60. I absolutely hate that DFW commited suicide. I think his best work was yet to come. He is entirely

TOO wordy for my taste but, I think he would have learned to self edit in his later years but, now we will never know.

Just read a biography about DFW last month ...

Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace Paperback – August 27, 2013
The acclaimed New York Times–bestselling biography and “emotionally detailed portrait of the artist as a young man” (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times)
Since his untimely death by suicide at the age of forty-six in 2008, David Foster Wallace has become more than the representative writer of his literary generation—he has become a symbol of sincerity and honesty in an inauthentic age, a figure whose reputation and reach grow by the day. In this compulsively readable biography, D. T. Max charts Wallace’s tormented, anguished, and often triumphant battle to succeed as a novelist as he fights off depression and addiction to emerge with his (... click on link to read the rest ...)

more at link:
http://www.amazon.com/Every-Love-Story-Is-Ghost/dp/0147509726



will save video for after I see the movie ... Don't want to go in with pre conceived notions ... but, thanks for the link.

[MADem]

30. That link isn't working.

Perhaps at the time the film was made, the age of consent was lower in some states and the censors somehow imagined that to be a mitigating factor?

IIRC, that movie made it to the Catholic Church "Do Not Watch This Filth" (or whatever they called it) list. That list was consulted by people of ALL faiths to know which movies were "good" or not. If it was on the list, the theatres were packed.

I know some states still have some VERY young "marriage with parental consent" ages. In Alabama, fourteen year olds can marry with parental consent. In NH, with parental consent and a judicial waiver, a thirteen year old BRIDE can marry (grooms have to be fourteen, gee whiz) --not quite as bad as some places in the Middle East, where nine and ten year olds are dragged down the aisle, but it's still nothing to boast about.

http://www.usmarriagelaws.com/search/united_states/teen_marriage_laws/

[Tuesday Afternoon]

34. link is now fixed, thanks. n/t

[Warpy]

26. One thing I took away was the capacity Humbert Humbert had for self delusion

along with the lack of boundaries that prevented him from seeing Lolita both as she was and as a separate human being. Where he saw youth and innocent sweetness and a malleable creature he could mold into the perfect woman was a rather crass teenager, sexually precocious even before he arrived on the scene and completely unfaithful to him in their time together. For Lolita, he was a meal ticket and a way to get away from home and prolonged childhood, finding out about her mother's death rather late in the game.

In fact, when he reconnected with her, married and pregnant and trying to talk money out of him, his eyes finally opened to what she'd been all along, only he thought she had been changed by the man who had "seduced" her away from all the plans Humbert had for his little dolly.

I don't remember being particularly outraged or nauseated by the story, only that Humbert Humbert was a total fool and fantasist and I wondered how the hell he'd been able to achieve anything in life except, oh, right, he was male. Romantic hero? I wanted to shake him until his teeth all fell out in an attempt to wake him up.

After all, the one character in the book who makes the fewest real appearances is Lolita, herself. The book is about a fantasy that overtakes reality and attempts to smother it, Lolita's true self being a large part of that smothering's target, as the book was written as Humbert's diary in prison (for killing Quilty, not statutory rape).

I've also thought that Lolita's subsequent death in chidbirth was a continuation of the fantasy, that since she killed his fantasy, his fantasy would then be that she was dead, too.

The movie wasn't terribly faithful to the book but it wasn't a bad movie, at all. Sue Lyon was magnificent as Lolita as she allowed the audience to see Lolita's reality even as Humbert rejected it in favor of his dream.

[kickitup]

33. I really need to read it again but aren't there instances where he sees her body maturing . . .

in subtle ways and laments it, knowing she's losing the childlike qualities he's sexually attracted to? And I think he buys her pads because she's bleeding - but it's not from menstruation but from trauma and they continue on their "merry" way? I'm just trying to recall the times my stomach may have turned a bit and I think that was due more than anything to how it is all presented so matter of factly, and not because of any graphic depiction.

[Warpy]

46. Oh, yeah, he wanted to freeze her into a childlike state forever

because grown women were far too fleshy for his tastes.

And yes, anything that didn't fit his fantasy was treated matter of factly or ignored.

[sir pball]

68. Um, he loves her no matter what. Read, please.

Funny to be dragging this thread up so much later, but I was discussing my favorite single line ever written at the bar earlier, then realized it would tie quite well into this. I have an almost photographic memory, yes. Anyway.

For my money the best single line in English history is (and I said this at my wedding, for the record)..

"..and I looked and looked at her, and knew as clearly as I know I am to die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else."

The rest, and probably equally as beautiful, would be:

"She was only the faint violet whiff and dead leaf echo of the nymphet I had rolled myself upon with such cries in the past; an echo on the brink of a russet ravine, with a far wood under a white sky, and brown leaves choking the brook, and one last cricket in the crisp weeds... but thank God it was not that echo alone that I worshipped. What I used to pamper among the tangled vines of my heart, mon grand peceh radieux, had dwindled to its essence: sterile and selfish vice, all that I cancelled and cursed. You may jeer at me, and threaten to clear the court, but until I am gagged and halfthrottled, I will shout my poor truth. I insist the world know how much I loved my Lolita, this Lolita, pale and polluted, and big with another’s child, but still gray-eyed, still sooty-lashed, still auburn and almond, still Carmencita, still mine; Changeons de vie, ma Carmen, allons vivre quelque, part o nous ne serons jamais spars; Ohio? The wilds of Massachusetts? No matter, even if those eyes of hers would fade to myopic fish, and her nipples swell and crack, and her lovely young velvety delicate delta be tainted and torneven then I would go mad with tenderness at the mere sight of your dear wan face, at the mere sound of your raucous young voice, my Lolita.”

In the bitter end, Humbert loved Lolita with absolutely no condition nor restriction. That's what makes it an epic and not just pedo-porn.

[sir pball]

43. I'm not a particular fan of either of the movies, TBH

Half of the appeal of the book, of Nabokov in general, is the writing itself which of course can't be put on the screen. That being said I do think Jeremy Irons played Humbert exceptionally well, and if I had to choose, it is the better of the two films.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

50. Jeremy Irons better than James Mason? ... interesting. Jeremy is very good though in the roles I

have seen him ...

Yes, I am going to see this version for myself to decide.

[Prophet 451]

11. I can think of two reasons

Firstly, Lolita is far, far better written. Yes, that is a reasonable criteria. I would even say it's a defendable premise. I write porn (I don't call it erotica, it's porn) stories and sell them on Amazon. I would never compare my works to, say, Lady Chatterley's Lover. I would like to think my works are better written than most porn, I even use two of them to share the basics of Luciferian thought. But they're not Of Human Bondage.

Secondly, at no point in Lolita are we ever invited to sympathise with Humbert. Humbert is a bad man and, while the book never points out his evil He-Man-style, his badness is amply illustrated throughout. Granted, there are no entirely good characters in the book (Apparently, Nabakov's publisher complained of this) but Humbert is never once presented as an admirable man. His imprisonment and presumed execution are depicted as entirely deserved. Fifty Shades , on the other hand, presents a severely dysfunctional (and, at times, abusive) relationship as something to sympathise with and aspire to.

[BainsBane]

13. A key example of how good writing

means a great deal with it comes to books. Also as someone mentioned, Lolita is an allegory for old Europe and Young America.

[redqueen]

40. I read an annotated version which presented it as being about exile.

Beautifully written, but hard to read in those parts where he abused her.

[cemaphonic]

15. Well, Lolita has it's share of panning and detractors over the years too,

and its original publication in the US was under a publisher that mostly did pornography, since none of the more reputable US publishers would touch it. And you don't have to look too far to find people even today making the claim that it is a defense of pedophilia.

Two key differences as I see it:

1)As you say, Lolita is in the top tier of English literature, and 50 Shades is (reputedly - I have not read it) upjumped fanfiction that would have never seen the light of day pre-internet.

2) The point of 50 Shades is titillation. I don't buy the argument that socially unacceptable behavior in escapist entertainment invariably leads to an increase in said behavior in real life (I'm fond of video games, and see that line of reasoning applied to them all the time), but I can understand why people would think that way. Lolita isn't titillating at all - other than all of the quirky roadside Americana, I'd say that the overall tone of the novel is pretty sad.

[kickitup]

25. Gustave Flaubert was taken to court over Madame Bovary.

[pnwmom]

19. Lolita is NOT one of the top 10 English works of all time. Hogwash.

But it is much better written than 50 Shades.

The phone book is better written than 50 Shades.

[sir pball]

27. You're right actually - it's generally one of the top five.

http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/ - fourth.

http://thegreatestbooks.org/ - third.

http://www.toptenbooks.net/top-ten-works-20th-century - second.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/2011/0519/The-top-10-books-of-all-time/Lolita-by-Vladimir-Nabokov - fourth

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/2681.Time_Magazine_s_All_Time_100_Novels - thirteenth, not top 10 but still in good company.

Sorry. I know you find the subject matter so abhorrent and disgusting as to dismiss it out of hand, but y'all really oughta try reading it.

It's one of the fucking pinnacles of English-language writing. Sorry the subject matter disgusts you, I'm not a major fan either...but it's pretty clear you haven't read the book.

[pnwmom]

28. I read it decades ago and I'm not going to read it again. No thanks. n/t

[sir pball]

47. It's a free country.

Try Ada, it's just as well written but won't offend the sensibilities

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

54. Pft.

This dismissal of everybody who doesn't agree with one as dismissing things out of hand is silly.

I've read it, and I found it mediocre at best. As, indeed, I find many of the so-called greatest books in English. I'd put it on a par with Moby Dick - yet another book I consider to be overhyped. I certainly wouldn't call it a 'pinnacle of English language writing', although I'd have to see what criteria they were using to judge what constitutes 'greatness'.

[Dreamer Tatum]

63. Your view is in the minority. nt

[JI7]

21. Lolita is a very well written book

[defacto7]

29. The Bible?

Nope, not English, but it's pretty close in everything else, though it and 50sog are about equal and just as boring.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

36. The Bible was my first thought, too.

[intaglio]

31. I don't "celebrate" Lolita

any more than I celebrate the racist works of John Buchan or Rudyard Kipling and the misogyny, fascism and child sex fantasies of Robert Heinlein.

50 Shades is a book, not a particularly well written book, and deserves no more approbation than "Walter, My Secret Life,"

[Tuesday Afternoon]

39. Most definitely better written but, not sure it makes FSOG look More Puritanical by comparison.

Interesting angle, I have to admit. Thanks.

[redqueen]

41. It doesn't, not at all. nt

[Tuesday Afternoon]

42. Yeah, but ... it made for a good sensational Subject Line ... gotta give it credit for that. n/t

[sir pball]

45. "Puritanical" may have been a poor choice of words - I mean to say the sexual abuses in 50SoG

Pale in comparison to the sexual abuses in Lolita, IMO at least.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

48. fair enough ... I would have compared/contrasted with wording it

emotional abuse vs. physical abuse ,,,,

and ...

still not sure which would be which or, is it even moot to discuss worse vs worse.

Kind of like discussing which tragedy is worse than another tragedy.

[redqueen]

51. No because these tragedies are completely different.

Humbert Humbert is never portrayed as a romantic lead. He is a villain. Pure and simple.

In 50SoG the abusive asshole misogynist is presented as a romantic lead. His abuse is portrayed as if it was romantic. This does not happen in Lolita.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

53. well, in that regard then I would think Lolita to be the more "puritanical" because it takes a

moral stance.

[CanSocDem]

52. Reminds me of another movie...

...that came out in the late 60's that shook Americas moral fibre to the core. LIFE magazine devoted its July 4th editorial to denouncing a movie that questioned the false piety and sexual hypocrisy that made up American culture. It was called Myra Breckinridge:


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066115/

Some things you just can't talk about with Americans.


.

[Cleita]

59. That was based on a book of the same name by Gore Vidal. eom

[newcriminal]

56. Have any of you read

The Collector by James Fowles.

Very well written and disturbing.

[Cleita]

58. I always thought the Old Testament of the Bible

was porno on steroids. It's got all kinds of sex, rape and even incest in it.

[LanternWaste]

62. Literature versus typing...

"...but why should we celebrate Lolita while panning Fifty Shades?:


Literature versus typing. Two wholly different constructs...

[Zorra]

64. A lot of rap/hip hop makes FSOG look like a radical feminist manifesto. nt

[Orrex]

65. The subjective quality of the work doesn't seem central to me

That would be about as arbitrary a distinction as any that I can imagine. Why should the permissibility of subject matter depend upon the perceived quality of the work? That seems elitist, and it comes across as an effort to restrict access to the discussion only to those who achieve a certain level of expertise in their expression. Who gets to be the gatekeeper?

I'm not saying that all works are of equal quality, but rather that the quality of the work shouldn't be litmus test for whether the work can engage a certain subject or employ a particular style.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

67. Kinda like comparing Shakespeare's sonnets to advertising jingles.