Who Invented Lolita?

[cantdog]

My wife's book group picked several books in a row, by chance (although they were constrained to pick female authors of the last century, by their rules) and every one of them had a story of sexual abuse as a young girl to relate. Bastard Out of Carolina, one of the Oprah books, just one after another. They hadn't expected it to be such a theme, but it kept recurring.

Rape occurs frquently, even sadistic torture-rape, in detective fiction these days, because people seem to want to read about serial killers, and many such people have sexual motivations. The bad guy always gets it in the end, as a rule, in detective fiction. It's one of the most moral types of literature we have, that way. But whether the nasty sex killer gets it in the end or not, the reader gets chapters and chapters of ghoulish snuff smut to read.

I guess I don't know where I'm going with this, except to say that mainstream fiction does a LOT of this kind of thing, unwilling-victim paedophilia and all.

 

[snooper]

The hysteria (yes, I still think much of it is hysteria) about stories containing paedophile elements is a superb example of what Orwell called "doublethink" since the story of the wedding night of two people one week over the age of consent who are legally married (under the laws of almost anywhere in the world) is banned, but stories about adultery (illegal in quite a few parts of the world), sodomy (illegal in many parts of the world) and rape (illegal in all parts of the world) are acceptable to those same people. Those are the people who trashed the house of a paediatrician because her chosen profession began with the syllable paed-.

 

[Guest]

I raped a 95 year old man yesterday. He was unconsious because of dyamorphine thing.

Was that legal?

 

[Guest]

CV, with a common vulgarity you demanded I stay off your thread. I ask you to stay off mine.

Perdita

 

[Guest]

I shall'st respecth thy wishth.

 

[cantdog]

I do wish that this datum, which Michael Maar discussed from a scholarly viewpoint, hadn't come to the notice of Caldwell and other enemies of the book.

Do we have to name our characters some entirely original combination of letters so that, seventy years from now, no one can say, "Look at that, the character named Jeannie in X novel is the same age and hair color as the one in Y novel of the same name!!" and label us a plagiarist?

Maar's description of the short leaves little doubt that if Nabokov lifted anything, it was a name and age. You just can't contain all that Lolita is in a little short story. Lolita as we now know her is still the creation of an original genius.

So there!

cantdog

 

[Clare Quilty]

Nor should you be too impressed with Maar's claim that in the earlier ''Lolita,'' ''she's the one who seduces the narrator, like with Humbert Humbert.'' As any small-town district attorney knows, it is the pattern for sex offenders to depict their crimes in this light: she was asking for it! Whether Nabokov and von Lichberg were guilelessly revealing their own prurience or thinking their way into the minds of their narrators, a depiction of the child as seducer is the first thing you would expect to find in such a fictional memoir.

I've often read critiques of "Lolita" that cast aspersions upon Nabokov for depicting HH as somewhat simpathetic and Lolita as a scheming willing nymphette. It has always surprised me that such members of the literati would ignore the simple fact that "Lolita" is written in the first person by Humbert Humber -- who is nuttier than a rat in a pistachio factor and awaiting trial for murder. It is quite possible that nothing written in "Lolita" is as it really occured (in the context of the story). On the first page of the book HH refers to his readers as "ladies and gentlemen of the jury." He is a brilliant deviant, full of charm and wit and expert in the uses of rhetoric. He is making his case, not giving a factual account of what transpired. Then again, perhaps HH believes that his account is an objective representation of the facts. After all, he does believe that certain 10 year old girls are literally inhuman seductresses.

As to who invented Lolita, it is within the realm of possibility that Nabokov was peripherally aware of this earlier work. I would love to read it for myself. I have no doubt that it bares little beyond a superficial resemblance to Nabokov's chef d' oeuvre. Authors are often inspired by previous works without straying into plagiaristic territory. A much stronger case for plagiarism can be made against Shakespeare for Romeo & Juliet and Hamlet. Both of those plays were derived from much earlier works which also bear little resemblance to the later definitive work.

 

[Clare Quilty]

NPR Weekend Edition Lolita interview

NPR's Liane Hansen talks with Professor Michael Maar

 

[gman23]

It has always surprised me that such members of the literati would ignore the simple fact that "Lolita" is written in the first person by Humbert Humber -- who is nuttier than a rat in a pistachio factor and awaiting trial for murder.

The classic "Unreliable narrator" scenario .

 

[Guest]

The classic "Unreliable narrator" scenario .

I'd call it neo-classic, even revolutionary.

Perdita

 

[gman23]

I'd call it neo-classic, even revolutionary.

Perdita

Poe was doing it 50 years earlier as was Birece

http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=441

 

[Guest]

I'm a literary snob. I wouldn't class Poe or Bierce with (i.e., as high as) Nabokov.

Perdita

 

[Boxlicker101]

Poe was doing it 50 years earlier as was Birece

http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=441

Poe was doing it more than 100 years earlier, especially in "The Telltale Heart" (1843) and "The Cask of Amontillado" (1846), both first-person narrations by murderers. He was mainly a poet and a master writer of short stories and can't be fairly compared with Nabakov. Bierce was primarily a newspaper man and only incidentally a writer of fiction and these were mostly short stories. He can't really be compared with Nabakov either because of the different milieus in which they wrote.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Actually, Nabokov was, in addition to being a proficuous novelist, a brilliant short-story author and a poet, as well as a translator and literary critic, so...

 

[gman23]

Poe was doing it more than 100 years earlier, especially in "The Telltale Heart" (1843) and "The Cask of Amontillado" (1846), both first-person narrations by murderers. He was mainly a poet and a master writer of short stories and can't be fairly compared with Nabakov. Bierce was primarily a newspaper man and only incidentally a writer of fiction and these were mostly short stories. He can't really be compared with Nabakov either because of the different milieus in which they wrote.

Sorry about the time line, I was too lazy to do accurate research. I was mostly commenting on the literary device and not comparing writers.

 

[Clare Quilty]

Actually, Nabokov was, in addition to being a proficuous novelist, a brilliant short-story author and a poet, as well as a translator and literary critic, so...

And apparently huge admirer of Poe -- Lolita is littered with allusions to Poe.

HH's first nymphet love was named Annabelle Leigh for christ's sake. And they frollicked frolicked in a Princedom by the sea.

 

[Clare Quilty]

Random Thought

In the movie Lost In Translation Bill Murray's character was named Bob Harris and Scarlett Johansson was named Charlotte (no last name.)

In American Beauty Mena Suvari plays Angela Hayes.

A real-life Bob Harris wrote the theme to Krubrick's Lolita. Charlotte is the name of Lo's mother, while Lo's own name is Dolores Haze. Are these similar names in Lolita-esque films merely coincidences? I think not.

 

[Guest]

Coolness. Thanks, Q.

Perdita