/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2798662]

I'm 26. Hebephile. I truly felt like Lolita was written for me. My second thought when i read about the subject matter in Lolita was -Man, Vladamir Nabokov had to be one creepy pervert like me to write about that.

How can someone write with the type of detail and intimacy of this subject, without having first-hand knowledge? Research can only take you so far, right?

I mean, to say someone does these types of things and to describe them on the external level is one thing. But Nabokov actually puts you inside Humbert Humbert’s head.He’s the narrator. You’re not only reading about Humbert’s filthiness, you’re also seeing how he justifies his actions in his own psychological way. It's just like me! Like a hebephile!

Sure, an author doesn’t have to be a psychopath murderer to write a book about a psychopath murderer. I understand that. But, more than anything, Lolita seems to be a study in the psychology of a hebephile/pedophile. What drives him, how he justifies his actions, how he views love. It’s being inside this guy’s head, seeing his twisted thoughts about a 12-year-old girl.

How does Nabokov write this with such painstakingly elaborate detail? Did he conduct interviews with dozens of pedophiles? Did he read other stories of psychopath pedophiles? After a little research i haven’t found much that would indicate Nabokov did anything like that.

Don’t get me wrong, Nabokov is a brilliant, beautiful writer, but I guess I don’t understand how someone takes up a book of this nature without being drawn to this topic.

Discuss.

TL;DR: is Vladamir Nabokov a potencial hebephile/pedophile?

[Anonymous No.2798665]

he was a rusky and he definitely had mental problems so ya man

[Anonymous No.2798671]

>>Writers
>>Create Art with their imagination
>>Somehow not able to create Art on a certain subject just because

Yeah. They are good for a reason. They can bring anything to life.

[Anonymous No.2800964]

In 1962, Nabokov said this in an interview with BBC:

Lolita is a special favorite of mine. It was my most difficult book—the book that treated of a theme which was so distant, so remote, from my own emotional life that it gave me a special pleasure to use my combinational talent to make it real.

[Anonymous No.2800972]

>>2800964
You know he's just saying that shit to cover up his tracks. Come on , man

If I wrote a book lovingly dedicated to the art of rape, I would be like:

Rapita is a special favorite of mine. It was my most difficult book--the book that treated of a theme which was so distant, so remote, from my own emotional life that it gave me a special pleasure to use my combination talent to make it real. Because I don't rape people. Don't really rape very much. No rape here.

[Anonymous No.2800975]

>>2800972
you are very obtuse

[Anonymous No.2800979]

>>2800972
lol jeff magnum is /mu/'s meme

[Anonymous No.2800982]

To be totally honest, I can't agree that the subject of hebephilia is actually that important to what's being said in Lolita.

[Anonymous No.2800985]

>>2800964

I assumed he was taking the piss. Classic Nabokovian irony. The joke being (in my eye) that 90% of adult males want to fuck young teen girls but our culture makes us pretend it's perverse.

There isn't anything unnatural about wanting to fuck nubile girls. Nature's a dog that way.

[Anonymous No.2801313]

>>2800985
i agree. it's not a problem. but he doesn't assume that

[Anonymous No.2801345]

I always just assumed he was a pedophile.
I mean, he did write a book about molesting a child, it always struck me as sort of obvious.

[Anonymous No.2801375]

>>2801345
OP here. he did write a book about LOVING a child.

[Anonymous No.2801385]

>>2801375
More like being infatuated with a child

[Anonymous No.2801393]

yes, in the same way that lewis carroll was a severe drug addict, anthony burgess was a violent rapist, and isaac asimov was actually half machine

[Anonymous No.2801394]

>tfw you dated a 12 year old
>tfw you were 11 at the time

oh memories

[ϟ ＺＨＫＮＤ ϟ !Ry9.MAY90A No.2801403]

VLADIMIR NABOKOV WAS A HEBEPHILE.

HIS "LIFESTYLE", AND "WRITING STYLE" FIT THE "SENSIBILITY" OF MOST HEBEPHILES.

THAT IS FURTHER SUPPORTED BY THE FACT THAT HE WAS A TAURUS; MANY RELATIVELY FAMOUS TAURUS PERSONS ARE/WERE HEBEPHILES (e.g. SOFIA COPPOLA, WES ANDERSON, LUCILE HADZIHALILOVIC, JEAN VIGO).

IT IS A PATTERN THAT I HAVE DETECTED.

TAURUS PERSONS ARE OVERLY SENSUAL, AND COUPLED WITH IMAGINATION & CREATIVITY, A TAURUS PERSON CAN PRODUCE OVERLY "VIVID" IMAGERY WITHOUT HAVING HAD EXPERIENCED A SITUATION REFLECTED IN THEIR IMAGERY.

I AM A TAURUS, AND A HEBEPHILE.

[Anonymous No.2801410]

>>2801375
OP, I don't think that's quite the case. In short, I agree with >>2800982

Reading some of Nabokov's other works, you'll discover that he explores many "exotic" and "exciting" subjects that are nevertheless remote from his well known and documented personal interestets. Nabokov was a writer, a critic, an emigrant, a Russian, and a lepidopterist (a glorfied butterfly collector). So far I've read books he's written about a murderer, a pedohpile, a pederast (hence, a homosexual), a chess player, and a playboy-cum-philosopher. I think the author was none of these things. However, the things he WAS appear prominently in all his novels. Humbert was a foriegner living in America. Kinbote was a professor of literature and a political refugee. Ada was a naturalist. Luzhin was a Russian genius of aristocratic origin struggling to find a place in Western Europe.

In all of his works, his personal history shows through. His love-hate relationship with his motherland, his mother tongue, his art, his refuge across the sea.

To answer your question, Lolita is a novel about many things, and it was surely written from much personal experience and with much personal feeling. The experiences of "being obsessed with (or even being!) a 12 year old girl" (experiences, which, I suppose, Nabokov never had) are surely a pittance in comparison to the experiences of fleeing the Bolsheviks, mastering a language, and joining a new society that Nabokov DID have.

[Anonymous No.2801417]

>>2800985
Longposter here, continuing my thought, I wanted to adress this point: it's not that I reject that the "hebephilia" exhibited in the novel as meaningful at all to the author, I just wanted to push aside what I see as "topicality" for the sake of investigating the author's relevant personal experiences, as per the original question. I absolutely agree that Nabokov toyed with the duality of the male id and the superego as he constructed a novel that challenges its reader to understand a detestable man, and yet still hate him.

[Anonymous No.2801423]

ITT: neckpedobeards misinterpret a book about the inherent dangers of the power imbalance in adult/child relations as a go ahead for them to mastubate to pedogifs on /b/, guilt free

[Anonymous No.2801451]

>>2801403

>you will never be a taurus
>you will always be a sagittarius who doesn't even believe in horoscopes

[Anonymous No.2801467]

>>2801423
>inherent dangers

Ha! In any case, even as a pedo myself, I think most of us agree HH is destructive in D's life.

>>2801410
Exactly. Hell, one could even argue Nabokov is writing about such foreign subjects relative to himself partially because he's playing with those who analyze authors and their subconscious through their works. I highly doubt someone so anti-Freudian and psychoanalytic literary criticism would write about, y'know, the very things that field would implicate him as.

[Anonymous No.2801469]

>>2801467
>would implicate him as if he were actually those things.

[Anonymous No.2801472]

>>2801467
Yes, I completely agree with your assessment that Nabokov would've picked a subject specifically because it would fuck with would-be analysts and critics. I just longposted in another thread about Pale Fire, so I'm not going to do it again, but that is more or less exactly what that book is about, as far as I'm concerned.

[Anonymous No.2801666]

>>2800972

>rapita

my sides

what is air

[Anonymous No.2802293]

>>2801375
IF the dude was psychopathic murderer he did not love the child.

[Anonymous No.2802301]

>>2802293
Selfish and somewhat mentally abnormal, sure, but HH was certainly no psychopath. He felt a great deal.

[Anonymous No.2802332]

>>2801423
Just to take this a bit further, I think it's also an exploration of the power narratives have over readers. Humbert Humbert for all intents and purposes controls the discourse of the novel as the implied author, and he presents his issue sympathetically and in a way it's easy to feel excuses him.

And I, at least, fell for it hook line and sinker because of the phenomenal prose and the identifiably of the emotions rendered. This opens itself up to 'banality of evil' kinda discussions I guess, but more importantly it shows how easy it is to be duped by pretty words and literary pretensions; hence his focus on man-child relations, an aspect that in the time it was written would have been absolutely intolerable and still is today. Condoning hebephilia is actually the opposite of his intentions, considering he presupposes the wrongness of it to illustrate his point.

Obviously that's just my interpretation, i'd love to get other peoples thoughts on it?

[Anonymous No.2802641]

Why do people refer to him has Humbert Humbert?

He states his name in chapter 28 as being Jean-Jacques Humbert.

[Anonymous No.2802677]

He was a brilliant writer. That is all. He despised Lolita; hated himself for it. He wanted to burn it when he realized what publishing it would do to him. He allowed his art to spread, and we love him for it.

[Anonymous No.2802695]

>>2802641
That's a reference to Jean-Jacques Rosseau, you fool.

[Anonymous No.2802698]

>>2802677
This is blatantly false. Nabokov was quite fond of the novel.

[Anonymous No.2802699]

>>2801403
Alright, can we all just agree that people can't cast spells and astrology is bullshit? While we're at it, let's stop using the phrase "I'm not religious, I'm spiritual." Every time I hear anyone call themselves "spiritual," it's just after they mention astrology and just before I land a flying elbow to their ovaries (as anyone who believes in astrology is undoubtedly a woman who needs to be punched in the crotch). Most people who read horoscopes also buy into other new age crap like tarot cards and self-healing.

Self healing? Self healing was perfected by Rambo in Rambo: First Blood when he stitched his arm shut after he cracked a kid's back while jumping off a cliff (and the only reason his arm split open was because he's so tough he wanted to make the bad guys think they had a chance, but yeah right.. it was like Rambo sent them all Christmas cards, but instead of cards it was murder).

The other thing that pisses me off about horoscopes is that some people make financial decisions based off them. Re-read that sentence a few times until the implications set in. Yes, there are mouth-breathers out there who literally believe clumps of rocks and dirt floating around pockets of gas have anything to do with their stocks and lottery winnings.

[Anonymous No.2802731]

>>2802677
Nabokov loved it. He saw it as one of his greatest accomplishments. The only thing he despised was that he wrote it in English.

[Anonymous No.2802926]

>>2802731
More like, he despised the fact that his greatest linguistic achievement had to be in the English language. Nabokov wanted to love his native Russian language, but culturally and linguistically, Russian could no longer be his muse. Why do you think he never wrote another Russian novel again after he tried to translate Lolita into Russian?

[Anonymous No.2803667]

>>2802699
OP here. Astrology is bullshit.

[Anonymous No.2803710]

>>2801403
I thought you had an interesting theory until you brought in astrology. Now I just feel dirty.

[Anonymous No.2803717]

OP here, I'm a rapist btw

[Blackbear !kySZvIxYHA No.2803729]

OP I think you need to read the book again because you didn't understand the writing properly. The sex written is very brief and it is more about his relationship with Lolita. How he drives from town to town, overprotects her, argues with her, LOVES her. It is not until he finally reflects on everything that he realizes that he loved her, although he never actually knew the real Lo.

But if you want to think of the author that way, then that's fine. But, his intention was otherwise different than writing his first hand experience or deep dark secrets onto a page.