/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15062787]

Am I supposed to be affected by reading this book?
I thought it was a fascinating book and yes, obviously he is morally disgusting but I see people talking about how disgusted they were and traumatised by reading it and I just can't understand why or how.
Is there something wrong with me?

[Anonymous No.15062794]

>>15062787
not really. I felt like the whole point is that you can sympathise with and even like someone whos morals you find revolting and disgusting.

[Anonymous No.15062795]

Not really, it's just a novel. Maybe if you had been diddled or something it would bring up bad memories, but it's still just a book.

[Anonymous No.15062804]

>>15062787
i was under the impression nab is praised strictly due to his prose

[Anonymous No.15062918]

>>15062804
by midwits, perhaps. this is an amazing novel and should be read and studied by everyone. there’s a lot to learn about structure and storytelling here

[Keynes No.15062924]

>>15062787
The prose is great and stuff; but it's just a book, people make too much of a fuss over it for no reason.

[Keynes No.15062932]

>>15062918
the only problem is that it has a ton of filler though; at part 2 there comes a moment that the author just keeps talking about meaningless inane stuff like what he saw and his thoughts on the american midwest and stuff, or some characters and some of his ideas that bear no meaning to the main plot whatsoever, and doesn't bring anything new to the reader's experience. This is the only problem with the book, if you take out the plot itself it is extremely simplistic, and just by the fact that Nabokov's style is grandiose doesn't justify the book's length.

Maybe I'm just saying this because I have already read it and reread it, but we can agree that there is some amount of pages in the book's 2nd part that could be scraped off completely and make little difference.

[Anonymous No.15062957]

>>15062932
wrong. it has zero filler. just say that the opening of pt 2 bored you because the plot didn’t progress in its usual fashion, it’s ok

[Keynes No.15062978]

>>15062957
What about the character that he is, the burly fat man that he plays chess with, do you remember his name and his influence on the plot?

What about the woman that he dates after Lolita leaves him, do you remember her name?

What about the other children of the school Lolita goes to? Do you remember the names of even a single one of them?

What about the comments on Humbert's abilities to play Tennis and his commentaries on life in midwest America? Do they have any considerable effect on the plot?

No? Then it's because it's filler.

[Anonymous No.15062994]

>>15062978
perhaps you should stick to mass-market potboilers. may i recommend james patterson? he’s probably had three books out this year already

[Anonymous No.15063048]

>>15062787
Some people find it impossible to believe that Nabokov was telling the truth when he wrote in the afterward that Lolita "has no moral in tow". They view "having a message" as an integral part of a work of art and judge art by the message it transmit and the lesson it teaches, and thus are completely incapable of appreciating Nabokov's art, or, indeed, great art. To quote Nabokov once more:

"For me a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm."

[Anonymous No.15063158]

>>15062787
Lolita is Nabakov's worst book. I don't understand why people always love to discuss this peace of shit of a text. You can't even consider it a novel. It reminds me of an edgy essay on pedo's and introspective bullshitting - as if the reader is supposed to think something. Well I didn’t care to think anything other than what bullshit I was reading. Just an old fart who lost all his inspiration and had to write something controversial to stay relevant. Why hasn't anyone ever started a thread on Ada - is it too long of a read? Go fuck yourselves

[Anonymous No.15063171]

>>15063158
ada is a mess. lolita is a masterpiece. you’re just being a tryhard

[Anonymous No.15063198]

>>15062978
lol

[Anonymous No.15063216]

>>15063158
What are you on about? Stay relevant in whose eyes? Prior to Lolita, Nabokov was a fairly obscure writer (unless you were in the habit of mingling with Russian émigrés) who was struggling to make ends meet.

[Anonymous No.15063250]

>>15062932
i hope you don’t mind if i disregard literally every opinion on what is good and bad writing from a guy who started a piece with
>She holds her wooden pencil between her fingers as hard as she can without the pencil breaking between her hard-pressed fingers.

[Anonymous No.15063265]

I liked Pale Fire. Was thinking of trying Lolita next.

[Anonymous No.15063274]

>>15063265
absolutely do it anon!!

[Anonymous No.15063326]

>>15062787
Nonono, you're supposed to self insert as Humphrey anon, thats the proper way to enjoy it

[Anonymous No.15063475]

>>15062787
No it’s only the hypersensitive faggot millennials and zoomers that claim they were traumatised it incredibly disgusted by it. The same people that wouldn’t be able to get through American Psycho or something and would claim it’s traumatised them

[Anonymous No.15063883]

>>15063216
Nabakov had to write the next american bestseller. Simple, funny, dramatic and edgy.. He even said himself that he simplified his writing so that it would be more accessible for Americans. Americans don't have taste - they just like to talk, especially on controversial subjects that they know just enough on.

Every Lolita thread is a reminder that is /lit/ overrun by amerimutts who have no class or taste for art.

[Anonymous No.15064190]

>>15062787
It's a joke! Go back and try to read the opening sentence with a straight face. That's meant to be the clue as to how to read the rest. (I grant that a LOT of readers don't see the joke, which is Nabokoff's failing)

[Anonymous No.15064229]

>>15063883
Where did he say that? I mean, I'd imagine that making it more accessible to Americans, if that was indeed a goal, would entail seriously decreasing the use of French, if not getting rid of it altogether.

[Anonymous No.15064239]

I had a single solitary tear slide down my cheek when I finished Lolita. Not sure why. I guess the language was just so beautiful

[Anonymous No.15064470]

>>15064229

From Nabakov, after writing Lolita:"My private tragedy, which cannot, and indeed should not, be anybody's concern, is that I had to abandon my natural idiom, my untrammeled, rich, and infinitely docile tongue for a second-rate brand of English, devoid of any of those apparatuses—the baffling mirror, the black velvet backdrop, the implied associations and traditions—which the native illusionist, frac-tails flying, can magically use to transcend the heritage in his own way"

>>15064239
Fucking cringe

[Anonymous No.15064575]

>>15064470
But that's not to necessarily to say that he simplified his writing for Americans, is it? He was forced to abandon his native Russian for English and that entailed some changes. He's not lamenting the American inability to grasp what he could write in English, he's lamenting his own inability to write a certain way in English, regardless of who's reading it. He would have made similar comments had he traded Russian for Japanese.

Your first comment made it sound as though he begrudgingly genuflected to American preferences/biases/poor taste.

[Anonymous No.15064592]

>>15062787
the real mastery is in the games he plays with the prose

[Anonymous No.15064602]

>>15062994
>>15062957
This poster is a supreme gentleman and a narcissistic faggot

[Anonymous No.15064733]

>>15063158
Lolita is my favorite book and the only Nabokov i've read. If this is true i'm very much looking forward to the rest.

[Anonymous No.15064871]

>>15062978
i was also bored by part 2 but that section is important because its the part where the love and passion dies out. all those things except the chess guy is important (ex: he forces her to play tennis when she isnt really interested) but interestingly the chess guy was the one thing i remember very clearly. probably because it came out of nowhere and carried no importance.

[Anonymous No.15064899]

>>15064871
I personally thought as well that this was when you're supposed to get tired of Humbert's shit. He comes off a lot less likable and believable in the second part.

[Anonymous No.15065022]

>>15062787
The only part that affected me was when I got a boner when he got a boner while the kid was sitting on his lap, and only because I wasn't sure if it was because I was a closeted pedophile, a closeted faggot, or both.

[Anonymous No.15065164]

>>15065022
This book unironically made me accept that I have some pedo tendencies.

[Anonymous No.15065414]

>>15062787
This book is very Cute and fUNNY

[Anonymous No.15065599]

>>15064871

I thought that Gaston had a rather important role as the docile homosexual foil to Humbert. Maybe he did not live out his implied fantasies with prepubescent boys but neither did he hide his excessive fondness for them very succesfully. Or maybe Humbert was the sole person he could not keep them hidden from, or could Humbert have knowingly fictionalized their relationship to make himself look more sympathetic, more normal. The ambiguity of the situation ties in well with the general ambiguity of the novel.