Is Lolita Porn?

[blazeofglory]

I read it a long time ago in my school days, and that time I read the book with great gusto, the passion escorted the thought that this is a classic and notwithstanding the fact that it is full of porn-centric essences I had the feeling that it had something aesthetics, appreciations of beauty in point of fact. I leafed through the book hungrily and found it un-put-down-able. It in substance had the quotients that scintillate my imaginations at that formative age.

Now coming into an age of maturation, physically, emotionally and of course intellectually I take the book differently notwithstanding its elevated, honed, horny style. I take the book as pure porn and this is swathed by a beautiful wrapper that is sophisticated, urbane style that could blindfold the reader. But the membraned beauty that sheathes the vulgarity of the book is skin-deep and once one observes keenly the screen will fall and the whole scenes of ugliness and vulgarity will resurface. The following opening line endorses this fact.

[Petronius]

It's unquestionable that Lolita has a strong erotic undertone, but I fail to see the problem. Isn't vulgarity intellectual? Isn't pornography art? They are reflections and symbols of reality, threads of beauty if looked at right, and they can't be excluded from culture without limiting it.

[curlyqlink]

How do you define porn?

[JCamilo]

I do not imagine a book without any descriptions of sex can be porn, but well...

[Inderjit Sanghe]

No, no, and thrice no-it is not "porn", in the normal sense of 'pornography'-it caricatures 'literary pornogrpahy'-Lolita is NOT about sex.

[Bitterfly]

I don't think Lolita is porn at all! Porn is the explicit representation of the sexual act (for the purpose of exciting people sexually), no? And even that definition seems a bit limited (Sade represents sexual acts ad nauseam,but I'd hesitate before qualfying his books as pornographic).

And if the book can be seen as vulgar, isn't it because Lolita is incredibly vulgar herself? And possibly Humbert Humbert as well, in spite of his flowery discourse? He tries to pass his basic lust for a more aesthetic emotion - but we are lead to distrust him from the opening page onwards! I think the discrepancy you have perceived between the beautiful exterior and the ugly undercurrents is purposeful. Some readers can be taken in - others immediately see that Humbert is actually a disgusting character.

Ah, I've just been to see the etymology/definition of pornography, and where you could be right, blazeofglory, is that pornography is also defined as a portrayal of obscene subjects. I guess it's the definition of obscene that's called into question, then, and isn't that a matter of opinion? Humbert's lust for nymphets could be considered as an obscene passion, ie, one that should not be depicted on scene, for some people. But what is truly obscene, nowadays? Murder on stage used to be considered as obscene at one period (the characters had to go and die offstage); it's not the case at all now.

Possibly "pornographic" in its contemporary acception is too limiting a word to be applied to the novel, even if it does corrrespond, to some extent, to that notion...

[curlyqlink]

Porn is the explicit representation of the sexual act (for the purpose of exciting people sexually)

As good a definition as any, yet plenty problematic. What then is the difference between porn and erotica? And anyway, is there something wrong with getting sexually excited??

"Obscenity" seems equally impossible to quantify in any objective sense. I believe "community standards" are the legal test here. But then what's the difference between enforcing community standards and repressing individuality? Aren't they two sides of the same coin?

How about this as a definition of the line beyond which we can condemn a written work as porn. It's the place where the fear of seeming like a philistine exactly balances one's fear of seeming like a pervert.

[JBI]

Are there even depictions of actual sex? It's like saying if a movie that features a scene where the characters have sex is porn. The only reason you think it is porn is because the girl is bellow the age of consent.

[Psycheinaboat]

I don't think Nabokov intended Lolita to be viewed as porn. The author never allows you to forget that Lolita is a little girl. Every sexual scene that I can remember was prefaced or concluded by descriptions of the girl's toys, gum, inky fingers from magic markers.

I think more than sexual excitement, the author intended the character of Lolita to be pitied. There is room to pity Humbert Humbert, too. In my opinion, it has been a very misunderstood book.

If Nabokov has held a mirror before us in the form of Lolita, perhaps we should worry about what it has shown us about ourselves.

[Etienne]

Porn? You sure are an extremely prude person...

[mtpspur]

Well if it is then it's poorly done. My idiot brother named his daughter's middle name Lolita so I'm a bit biased.

[mona amon]

I think more than sexual excitement, the author intended the character of Lolita to be pitied. There is room to pity Humbert Humbert, too. In my opinion, it has been a very misunderstood book.- Psycheinaboat


This is more or less the way I feel about it as well. I never thought of Lolita as porn. The author's primary purpose I feel, is not to titillate, but to tell us the tragic story of a young girl called Dolores Haze who dies at the age of 17. The book may be called 'Lolita' and we only see it through HH's distorted vision, and yet the author's ingenuity enables Dolores' real story to shine through.

[DapperDrake]

Porn is the explicit representation of the sexual act (for the purpose of exciting people sexually),

I would go further than that and say that porn is the above but only provided there is no other substance to the material to lend it artistic merit. i.e. for material to be porn it must have been created with the sole crude purpose of sexually exciting people and no other purpose.
Porn is not a word that I would use to describe any classic literature no matter how obscene.

[stevejackson]

Lolita is a erotica not exactly porn.

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[Etienne]

Wow people actually think Lolita has anything to do with porn or eroticism? The subject matter contains a part of sexuality but that's all... it would be like calling sexual education courses porn or erotica courses, in a way...

[Petronius]

I would go further than that and say that porn is the above but only provided there is no other substance to the material to lend it artistic merit. i.e. for material to be porn it must have been created with the sole crude purpose of sexually exciting people and no other purpose.
Porn is not a word that I would use to describe any classic literature no matter how obscene.

Wouldn't that be deliberately trying to take away any positive meaning because you think porn is supposed to define something bad? While I agree today's pornography has little - if any - artistic merit, I find it more daring to view it as part of the erotica, and accept that it could have artistic potential if tackled with proper refinment. After all, something that excites us visually, emotionally, intelectually, etc. is considered art... why eliminate sexuality?

[Etienne]

That brings us to the question... did Lolita really excite anyone...?

[Bitterfly]

I would go further than that and say that porn is the above but only provided there is no other substance to the material to lend it artistic merit. i.e. for material to be porn it must have been created with the sole crude purpose of sexually exciting people and no other purpose.


Ah yes, I agree with you, and it explains why Sade can't really be described as pornographic (at least, not unless you're really sick :sick:)! Or Bataille...

And Lolita isn't really even erotic, no? I don't remember being really excited by the story.



After all, something that excites us visually, emotionally, intelectually, etc. is considered art... why eliminate sexuality?

That's interesting... So you think sexual stimulation is the only form of stimulation that is rejected as not being artistic, because of our inbred strain of puritanism?
But maybe, very simply, art can't be defined merely as something that stimulates us, don't you think?

[JCamilo]

It is not, people getting excited by Lolita, really really is excited by HH.

[Petronius]

That's interesting... So you think sexual stimulation is the only form of stimulation that is rejected as not being artistic, because of our inbred strain of puritanism?
But maybe, very simply, art can't be defined merely as something that stimulates us, don't you think?

I assume you mean true art is supposed to have a deeper "meaning", and I agree up to a point, only I belive true art shouldn't offer a particular - intended - message, but a subjective artificial experience. I suppose any worthwile experience will stimulate you one way or another, otherwise you would be completely indifferent to it.
Depictions of beauty, or works simply meant to immerse one in a certain atmosphere, can be, and are, artistic in nature.
I don't think erotism is rejected at all by artists, on the contrary, they seem to touch on it constantly, but it's funny how some people tend to put labels of what is and what is not "too sexual" in art, and create exceptions when culture and academia demand it. Sade for example, I believe was fairly excited by his writings, and so were his contemporary readers. If we see something different than pornography in his writings, and perhaps more was intended, that only proves his genius but doesn't make him less of a profligate. Let's appreciate the man for (and inspite of) what he really was.

Lolita didn't really excite me either, but I can see why it may have that effect - and that's the author's succes, rather than the reader's failing - the same way a victorian novel may seem romantic to some and boring to others. To clarify my view on this, I don't think Lolita can be called porn in any way, but it being chastized for its elements of sexuallity bothers me more than the misclassification (which is subjective anyway, and hey, if someone gets excited while reading, he has his right to call it so). I also don't agree with your opinion that the book is simply a drama demonstrating how seductive and destructive a "disgusting character" like Humbert can be. Now, that is a puritan take on the book, one that applies our previous knowledge to the events and explains them in a way that leaves us knowing nothing more than we already knew, and thus making the reading futile save for the enjoyment of indulging ourselves in the narrator's "flowery discourse". ;)

[Bitterfly]

Ah, I think you now have misunderstood me!! :p

I spoke of HH as a "disgusting character" not because his attraction for nymphets revulses me (I am also of the opinion that morality and art are different realms that should not be mixed up - and I adore Nabokov anyhow), but because he is quite horrible, when you stop to think about it: he's a murderer and especially a terrible pedant and hypocrite! His "disgustingness", by the way, I find one of the most interesting elements in the novel.

You're right about hindsight making that viewpoint possible. But isn't it one of the joys of re-reading, that it affords different interpretations every time (for rich books such as Lolita, naturally)? The first time you can enjoy his "floweriness" at face value - the next times you can see him differently...


I assume you mean true art is supposed to have a deeper "meaning", and I agree up to a point, only I belive true art shouldn't offer a particular - intended - message, but a subjective artificial experience. I suppose any worthwile experience will stimulate you one way or another, otherwise you would be completely indifferent to it.

Actually my question was not rhetorical (otherwise I would not have found your assertion interesting). I agree with you that art should stimulate or excite, definitely. But I'm not altogether sure that it shouldn't have a message. Let me explain: I'm not saying I enjoy purely didactic fiction, for example, but rather that I look for something else than mere stimulation when I really read a book (that is, not only for pleasure). I think works of art can deliver messages - now, on whether that message is intentionally meant by the author or on the contrary different for every reader according to his/her subjectivity, I would go for the latter.


Sade for example, I believe was fairly excited by his writings, and so were his contemporary readers. If we see something different than pornography in his writings, and perhaps more was intended, that only proves his genius but doesn't make him less of a profligate.

He might have been excited, but I hope all contemporary readers were not titallated by scenes such as you can find in his most violent books! Did you read until the end of The Hundred Days of Sodom, or even La philosophie dans le boudoir (sorry, don't know what it's called in translation)? Some pages are an astonishing and even nauseating turn-off. I find Sade interesting and non-pornographic merely because he went so far into horror - and I wonder how one can write things like that (I've never, ever, read worse than some pages in his novels).

[curlyqlink]

for material to be porn it must have been created with the sole crude purpose of sexually exciting people and no other purpose.
Doesn't this get us into the hopeless confusion of establishing intent? How can we know what an author intended? And as for the effect on the reader, isn't that the very definition of subjective?


Did you read until the end of The Hundred Days of Sodom, or even La philosophie dans le boudoir (sorry, don't know what it's called in translation)? Some pages are an astonishing and even nauseating turn-off.
It is my impression that it's the Marquis de Sade's devilish humor at work. He's tweaking the reader's nose. He starts out his scenes of debauchery with a bit of naughtiness, mild enough, and progresses by stages until they're digging up grandma's corpse and raping it. At some point, anyone's reaction is pure disgust. I think the whole point is to ask, "where do YOU draw the line, dear reader?"

[kelby_lake]

Lolita's supposed to be shocking and repulsive.

[Petronius]

I spoke of HH as a "disgusting character" not because his attraction for nymphets revulses me (I am also of the opinion that morality and art are different realms that should not be mixed up - and I adore Nabokov anyhow), but because he is quite horrible, when you stop to think about it: he's a murderer and especially a terrible pedant and hypocrite! His "disgustingness", by the way, I find one of the most interesting elements in the novel.

You're right about hindsight making that viewpoint possible. But isn't it one of the joys of re-reading, that it affords different interpretations every time (for rich books such as Lolita, naturally)? The first time you can enjoy his "floweriness" at face value - the next times you can see him differently...

I'm glad we clarified that. I guess I'm more acceptant of Humbert. He makes plenty mistakes and has his flaws, but isn't that a wide-spread human trait? Him being a murderer is more of a literary eccentricity in my view. After all, his final episode with Quilty is absolutely hilarious, perhaps having more to say about human nature in general than Humbert's. It's more like a theatrically pathetic duel than a murder. As for being a hypocrite and overall an awful person, he fares pretty well to make his mistakes more palatable and intellectualy justified (not completely by far, but still)... unlike, say, Frederick Clegg.

As for multiple reads, I'm not into that just yet - plenty new books ahead of me for now... I am greedy, and fickle.


Actually my question was not rhetorical (otherwise I would not have found your assertion interesting). I agree with you that art should stimulate or excite, definitely. But I'm not altogether sure that it shouldn't have a message. Let me explain: I'm not saying I enjoy purely didactic fiction, for example, but rather that I look for something else than mere stimulation when I really read a book (that is, not only for pleasure). I think works of art can deliver messages - now, on whether that message is intentionally meant by the author or on the contrary different for every reader according to his/her subjectivity, I would go for the latter.

The way I see it, you're saying you want the art-granted experiences to be meaningful, to leave something behind. That's great, but I don't think they can all be so. For an experience to really be meaningful, many others have to be casual, both for the higher status to make sense by comparison, and for you to have a field where you can use your earned refinment. That's why I accept two faces in art, one complex and one simple, meant purely for enjoyment. For example, we can enjoy watching a landscape photograph, and consider the spectacle of that image to be artistic, although it teaches us nothing and it doesn't even involve much creative effort (rather, a knack to discover beauty already existent).
But perhaps I am biased, because I recieve great pleasure (not sexual, obviously) from the intellectual stimulation of complex writing, with far more passion for the act itself than for anything I should pick up from it rather than the residual changes of the experience (which doesn't concern me so much). I don't find it much different than other forms of pleasure, and am not even sure us humans have other purpose than the survival and well-being of ourselves and our descendants.


He might have been excited, but I hope all contemporary readers were not titallated by scenes such as you can find in his most violent books! Did you read until the end of The Hundred Days of Sodom, or even La philosophie dans le boudoir (sorry, don't know what it's called in translation)? Some pages are an astonishing and even nauseating turn-off. I find Sade interesting and non-pornographic merely because he went so far into horror - and I wonder how one can write things like that (I've never, ever, read worse than some pages in his novels).

Oh, The Hundred Days of Sodom was disgusting from the start, but realistically...? I think there are plenty - mostly men though, Sade doesn't read like much of a ladiesman - though few would admit it even to themselves, and hopefully none would venture back. The social tabu on sex makes a lot of repressed perversities seem exciting in theory, and lack of imagination plays a role in diminishing the disgustiness when simply encountered in literature.
When I claimed earlier that pornography can be art, I certainly didn't refer to Sade... His erotica (let's call it so) is awful, and he's even an awful writer (too repetitive in The Hundred Days, even for a sketch, and unimaginative), but he is brilliant for the insight about moral and manners of his age, his self-irony, sarcasm and the ability to become a small phenomenon, inspite his tastes, because he was so determined to preserve his identity against cultural pressure. Also, my country's edition of this book features a flamboyant volume of 600+ footnotes, most of them irrelevant, circular and repetitive, meant to prop the value of that translation of manuscript pieces, which I found rather amusing, and thus "artsy" in its infatuated pointlesness.

[Bitterfly]

As for multiple reads, I'm not into that just yet - plenty new books ahead of me for now... I am greedy, and fickle.

I think I'm going to re-read Lolita for the umpteenth time, after this discussion! :p Because I find your opinion about the end of Lolita as a sort of human comedy quite appealing.
I am oblige to re-read and re-read, for I too am greedy, but it's my memory that's fickle in what it preserves!


That's why I accept two faces in art, one complex and one simple, meant purely for enjoyment.

I entirely agree. But what I tend to think more highly of books that offer more than simple satisfaction - books that change my mind about some things, that open me up to different ideas, that challenge me.


But perhaps I am biased, because I recieve great pleasure (not sexual, obviously) from the intellectual stimulation of complex writing, with far more passion for the act itself than for anything I should pick up from it rather than the residual changes of the experience (which doesn't concern me so much). I don't find it much different than other forms of pleasure, and am not even sure us humans have other purpose than the survival and well-being of ourselves and our descendants.

Hmm, I understand, but that's an approach I have towards music rather than literature (I even feel that musical appreciation can be akin to sexual pleasure, really). Possibly because my training has been such that my reading is too intellectual, and I dissociate pleasure and thought.


Oh, The Hundred Days of Sodom was disgusting from the start, but realistically...? I think there are plenty - mostly men though, Sade doesn't read like much of a ladiesman - though few would admit it even to themselves, and hopefully none would venture back. The social tabu on sex makes a lot of repressed perversities seem exciting in theory, and lack of imagination plays a role in diminishing the disgustiness when simply encountered in literature.

One again, I agree with you on the whole - nothing better than the frisson de l'interdit, as the French would say! But without wanting to split hairs too much, I really wonder whether raping an eviscerated pregant woman would appeal to many men - even in representation.


It is my impression that it's the Marquis de Sade's devilish humor at work. He's tweaking the reader's nose. He starts out his scenes of debauchery with a bit of naughtiness, mild enough, and progresses by stages until they're digging up grandma's corpse and raping it. At some point, anyone's reaction is pure disgust. I think the whole point is to ask, "where do YOU draw the line, dear reader?"

That's so true!!!!! There should be a test: where did you stop reading Ulysses, where did you stop reading Sade?! :p

[DapperDrake]

Wouldn't that be deliberately trying to take away any positive meaning because you think porn is supposed to define something bad? While I agree today's pornography has little - if any - artistic merit, I find it more daring to view it as part of the erotica, and accept that it could have artistic potential if tackled with proper refinment. After all, something that excites us visually, emotionally, intelectually, etc. is considered art... why eliminate sexuality?

Well I wasn't making any value judgement of porn itself. I think intent and purpose are very important here, if material is created for artistic reasons then I'm happy to allow it to be art (no matter the content) but if material is created solely to create sexual stimulus then it is clearly not art... that is not to say of course that it couldn't be appreciated as art if you really tried :) because as they say, art is in the eye of the beholder.
This at least is how I think we should define porn, of course there is a separate classification for artistic "porn" and that is erotica.

As to your question "why eliminate sexuality", its simply that a consumer of porn is not deriving any artistic pleasure (which is inherently intellectual) from the material but purely sexual (which is inherently physical), so we have to make some sort of distinction.

[Petronius]

I am oblige to re-read and re-read, for I too am greedy, but it's my memory that's fickle in what it preserves!

Oh, but memory is always tricky! You don't have to remember everything, the essence of beauty and/or wisdom in a book will always stay within you. Anyway, that's not to say Lolita isn't worth it ;), so have a nice re-read.


I entirely agree. But what I tend to think more highly of books that offer more than simple satisfaction - books that change my mind about some things, that open me up to different ideas, that challenge me.

Indeed, but what I like the most is literature as a whole. And I have to admit, rare are the authors who can sway me from my opinions right now, although I do appreciate a parallel perspective.


But without wanting to split hairs too much, I really wonder whether raping an eviscerated pregant woman would appeal to many men - even in representation.

Indeed it wouldn't. But once you put it into context, it makes more sense. After all, Sade's age was filled with oppresion in different forms, from different directions and in various stages of conflict, and loads of human stupidity. He most likely wasn't very bright himself, but he was an educated, yet very obsessive libertine more or less locked in a cage. No doubt he dealt with a lot of anger and took his imaginary revenge on the world. In our days, we don't have so many reasons to think like him, and especially we have more reasons not to.


Well I wasn't making any value judgement of porn itself. I think intent and purpose are very important here, if material is created for artistic reasons then I'm happy to allow it to be art (no matter the content) but if material is created solely to create sexual stimulus then it is clearly not art... that is not to say of course that it couldn't be appreciated as art if you really tried because as they say, art is in the eye of the beholder.
This at least is how I think we should define porn, of course there is a separate classification for artistic "porn" and that is erotica.

As to your question "why eliminate sexuality", its simply that a consumer of porn is not deriving any artistic pleasure (which is inherently intellectual) from the material but purely sexual (which is inherently physical), so we have to make some sort of distinction.

I wouldn't be so quick to separate the physical and the intellectual. After all, the brain is just as much a part of our anatomy as the genitalia... What about a master chef? Should his cooking not be considered art because it only appeals to our taste buds?
Furthermore, the purely physical desire to give or recieve pleasure can trigger an intellectual effort to make the act more refined or inventive. The two are very strongly linked, and I believe the mind plays a greater role in sexuality than you would give it credit for.

I wouldn't say art is defined by the intent, but by the level of thought, passion and talent put into it. Consumerism is indeed a plague, but it manifests on all arts, just take a look at today's best-seller lists in literature... just because descriptive sexuality doesn't have any academia backing it up it doesn't mean it's not art-worthy. ;) As for the porn-erotica separation, I just belive the former is a derogatory term for the latter, at best a scale of explicitness. Drawing a line can't really help.

[Bitterfly]

Oh, but memory is always tricky! You don't have to remember everything, the essence of beauty and/or wisdom in a book will always stay within you. Anyway, that's not to say Lolita isn't worth it ;), so have a nice re-read.

That's so true, about the essence staying with you!! But it's also very bothersome, when you like speaking about books, not to be able to remember one well from one year to the next.


Indeed it wouldn't. But once you put it into context, it makes more sense. After all, Sade's age was filled with oppresion in different forms, from different directions and in various stages of conflict, and loads of human stupidity. He most likely wasn't very bright himself, but he was an educated, yet very obsessive libertine more or less locked in a cage. No doubt he dealt with a lot of anger and took his imaginary revenge on the world. In our days, we don't have so many reasons to think like him, and especially we have more reasons not to.

Hmm, yet you still have a few violent authors. Bret Easton Ellis, of whom I have only read two or three novels, reminded me of Sade a little, even though he doesn't go as far.
By the way, wouldn't you think that Sade, as an aristocrat, would have had less constraints than anyone from another social class at the period? I know he wrote from the Bastille at one time, but he seems to have led rather a free life apart from that episode.

About the dissociation of the physical and the intellectual: isn't it because laughter is also seen something corporal rather than intellectual that comedies are often considered as "lower" than tragedies? That someone like Shakespeare could be disparaged, in the eighteenth century for instance? That Rabelais was despised and forgotten for a while as well?

[JBI]

Honestly, if you think Lolita is porn, I think your problem isn't a misreading of Lolita, but rather a misreading of porn.

In truth though, for those who mention Humbert as a murderer, that is an interpretation. Many don't actually consider Quilty to be real, and merely a plot device used by Humbert. I have read essays saying they were one and the same, and merely different aspects of the same personality. But I think I am running off topic.

As for Sade, I don't know his relevance, or why he is even still in print. Sure he may have been shocking, but has anyone even tried to read him? Is it even worth it? All politics and censorship asside, I have come to the conclusion that despite all the political assignments around Sade, his books aren't really about politics, or liberation, but are instead simply the workings of a perverted mind. That isn't to say that erotica is bad, or anything (though I am strained to come up with a good example of erotica, in the sense we see it today), I am just saying his "views" are artificially placed. I don't think he wrote to challenge anything, or to say anything, I think he simply wrote to create his representation of his own perverse sexual fantasies. If you take my view, he slowly seems to become, not a good writer, merely a bad perverted one.

[Petronius]

But it's also very bothersome, when you like speaking about books, not to be able to remember one well from one year to the next.

Perhaps you shouldn't be expected to... Usually when talks on literature, or social subjects in general (law, economy, for example) get too dogmatic, I get bored and not all that impressed. As long as the one with fresh memories is happy to share, and the one without is aware of his limitations, nothing should be lost in a discussion.
As far as that being your personal desire, that's simply choice. Some like being rooted in select but limited knowledge, others to explore wider horizon, at the cost of a certain shallowness. Each with its up and downs. ;)


Hmm, yet you still have a few violent authors. Bret Easton Ellis, of whom I have only read two or three novels, reminded me of Sade a little, even though he doesn't go as far.
By the way, wouldn't you think that Sade, as an aristocrat, would have had less constraints than anyone from another social class at the period? I know he wrote from the Bastille at one time, but he seems to have led rather a free life apart from that episode.

Well, he certainly wanted to live a life without constraints, but his social status didn't do him so good. He was still accused for blasphemy and he was sentenced to death for homosexuality, which was a crime in the eyes of the church at that time (although he escaped death and was just imprisoned). He also lived through the French Revolution and the subsequent Terror, when he saw many of his fellow aristocrats beheaded by the mob (he only escaped because he was incarcerated or viewed as insane, amd had some popularity for having been incarcerated at Bastille as far as I recall), and his estate pludered. He was then imprisoned again for his "filthy writing" under Napoleon's regime and died in an asylum.
He spent a great part of his life either running from the law, being incarcerated, or trying to fawn upon a very frightening new political webbing in order to stay alive. From his writings, he seems to criticize the bourgeoisie of his youth, with it's vices and decadence, but by his education and status he also held no respect for the stupid masses, and certainly oposed the church and his time's ideas of morality. So, in my view, we're dealing with a man pretty much dismayed of humanity (and I'm not sure I can blame him), who can't help being selfish, has to be a hypocrite for his own good, and finds himself under quite a deal of pressure.
His writings fit his era perfectly, they are little more than a wicked, cynical, cry of frustration. I would not have wanted to live in his age.

I can't say I've read much, if any, modern violent novels, as they're not exactly my type. I liked Sade for his black humour, not for his violence, erotic morbidity or even minor deviances. I'm not sure him and today's violent authors write for the same reasons, but I can't afford to claim that, as I have yet to as much as make myself carry American Psycho to the cashier. :p


About the dissociation of the physical and the intellectual: isn't it because laughter is also seen something corporal rather than intellectual that comedies are often considered as "lower" than tragedies? That someone like Shakespeare could be disparaged, in the eighteenth century for instance? That Rabelais was despised and forgotten for a while as well?

I've allways considered laughter to be intellectual... ;) Good comedy is the hardest thing to write. There's a fine tread between enlightening someone through laughter and offending them, and this border changes with the culture and with the reader alike. I prefer the extremes, and I think the less likely a reader is to be offended by something (and the more likely to laugh instead) the more intelligent that reader is.
Tragedy on the other hand takes too many "quality points" for sobriety (kinda like it's not nice to call someone stupid for maiming himself with a chainsaw, although it may very well be the case). That's cheating, and I think many tragical works (in general) are not as great as they are made out to be for appealing to "very deep human emotions".
As I expressed myself earlier, quality and intent are two different things. ;)

[Bitterfly]

As far as that being your personal desire, that's simply choice. Some like being rooted in select but limited knowledge, others to explore wider horizon, at the cost of a certain shallowness. Each with its up and downs. ;)

Well, I read widely and in all directions, and consequently often have the impression I'm shallow, which bothers me, and which is why I try to re-read every now and then!!


His writings fit his era perfectly, they are little more than a wicked, cynical, cry of frustration. I would not have wanted to live in his age.

Thanks a lot for that mini-biography. I hadn't realized that Sade had lived under the Terreur; in fact, I've become aware that I really don't know much about him at all (am trying to remedy to that, and speaking about Lolitas! his last affair was with a thirteen year old...)! And definitely, the period isn't appealing - too much bloodshed, obviously.



I can't say I've read much, if any, modern violent novels, as they're not exactly my type. I liked Sade for his black humour, not for his violence, erotic morbidity or even minor deviances. I'm not sure him and today's violent authors write for the same reasons, but I can't afford to claim that, as I have yet to as much as make myself carry American Psycho to the cashier. :p

And I can't say I've seen too much humour in his works, but maybe I should re-read them. ;)


I've allways considered laughter to be intellectual... ;) Good comedy is the hardest thing to write. There's a fine tread between enlightening someone through laughter and offending them, and this border changes with the culture and with the reader alike. I prefer the extremes, and I think the less likely a reader is to be offended by something (and the more likely to laugh instead) the more intelligent that reader is.

Oh, the origin of laughter might be intellectual, but its effects? A great belly-laugh is probably too physical - and too plebian - for some people. I enjoy the laughter provided by shock - a comic passage in a overall "serious" novel, for instance. Eighteenth-century authors were good for that, but I think they weren't always appreciated.


As for Sade, I don't know his relevance, or why he is even still in print. Sure he may have been shocking, but has anyone even tried to read him? Is it even worth it? All politics and censorship asside, I have come to the conclusion that despite all the political assignments around Sade, his books aren't really about politics, or liberation, but are instead simply the workings of a perverted mind. That isn't to say that erotica is bad, or anything (though I am strained to come up with a good example of erotica, in the sense we see it today), I am just saying his "views" are artificially placed. I don't think he wrote to challenge anything, or to say anything, I think he simply wrote to create his representation of his own perverse sexual fantasies. If you take my view, he slowly seems to become, not a good writer, merely a bad perverted one.

We've been speaking about Sade, so obviously we've read him (I take it for granted that Petronius is speaking from personal experience).

But I've had the same qualms as you about him; he has been "recuperated" by quite a few people, and one wonders why. Apparently even Angela Carter, who's an author I really love, wrote that he left a space for woman. I'm not sure I agree with her (except maybe for Juliette). I read an interesting chapter about him in one of Barthe's book as well, and he seemed to take Sade seriously. But it's true that when you read his books, they're a letdown: not well-written, terribly repetittive especially, and not particularly clever either. But at least he's a literary oddity, which makes him interesting! :)

Now Sacher-Masoch is far more beautiful...

[DapperDrake]

I wouldn't be so quick to separate the physical and the intellectual. After all, the brain is just as much a part of our anatomy as the genitalia... What about a master chef? Should his cooking not be considered art because it only appeals to our taste buds?
Furthermore, the purely physical desire to give or recieve pleasure can trigger an intellectual effort to make the act more refined or inventive. The two are very strongly linked, and I believe the mind plays a greater role in sexuality than you would give it credit for.

"What about a master chef? Should his cooking not be considered art because it only appeals to our taste buds?"

Doe's it really only appeal to our taste buds? I think there is more intellectual appreciation involved than you give credit for, and yes, cooking esp. of a master chef is certainly art.
Yes of course the is a very strong role in sexuality for the mind, but that does not mean the sex is appreciated cerebrally - quite the opposite, it is often despised cerebrally. By your argument creating cocaine would be considered a work of art because it gives pleasure.


I wouldn't say art is defined by the intent, but by the level of thought, passion and talent put into it. Consumerism is indeed a plague, but it manifests on all arts, just take a look at today's best-seller lists in literature... just because descriptive sexuality doesn't have any academia backing it up it doesn't mean it's not art-worthy. ;) As for the porn-erotica separation, I just belive the former is a derogatory term for the latter, at best a scale of explicitness. Drawing a line can't really help.

I can't disagree more and I don't accept your reasoning, the defining and using of different words is to draw lines, that's what we're about here, the classification of porn, we are drawing a line so that we can decide if Lolita is porn or not.

"just because descriptive sexuality doesn't have any academia backing it up it doesn't mean it's not art-worthy"

Creating a work of art and appreciating material as art are two different things. We are discussing if Lolita is inherently porn, or if it is inherently art - my opinion is that it is art.
That does not mean that a work of art cannot be used as porn or that porn cannot be used (appreciated) as art.

[Petronius]

Well, I read widely and in all directions, and consequently often have the impression I'm shallow, which bothers me, and which is why I try to re-read every now and then!!

Thanks a lot for that mini-biography.

Don't beat yourself up too much.. just be happy you can enjoy so much art. :D
And you're quite welcome.


Oh, the origin of laughter might be intellectual, but its effects? A great belly-laugh is probably too physical - and too plebian - for some people. I enjoy the laughter provided by shock - a comic passage in a overall "serious" novel, for instance. Eighteenth-century authors were good for that, but I think they weren't always appreciated.

Effects are subjective. Can a great literary work be trivialized because many people praise it from snobism rather than genuine appreciation?
Funny thing is, I often enjoy the comic of deliberately exaggerated seriousness.


As for Sade, I don't know his relevance, or why he is even still in print. Sure he may have been shocking, but has anyone even tried to read him? Is it even worth it? All politics and censorship asside, I have come to the conclusion that despite all the political assignments around Sade, his books aren't really about politics, or liberation, but are instead simply the workings of a perverted mind. That isn't to say that erotica is bad, or anything (though I am strained to come up with a good example of erotica, in the sense we see it today), I am just saying his "views" are artificially placed. I don't think he wrote to challenge anything, or to say anything, I think he simply wrote to create his representation of his own perverse sexual fantasies. If you take my view, he slowly seems to become, not a good writer, merely a bad perverted one.


But I've had the same qualms as you about him; he has been "recuperated" by quite a few people, and one wonders why. Apparently even Angela Carter, who's an author I really love, wrote that he left a space for woman. I'm not sure I agree with her (except maybe for Juliette). I read an interesting chapter about him in one of Barthe's book as well, and he seemed to take Sade seriously. But it's true that when you read his books, they're a letdown: not well-written, terribly repetittive especially, and not particularly clever either. But at least he's a literary oddity, which makes him interesting!

With Sade, it's more about the phenomenon than the writer. He's supposed to have been quite influential from his cone of shadow, but you should know more about that than I do, as I am not all that versed in literary history, I just enjoy reading...
For me, there are more to apreciate in a work of literature than just the wording and the theme (sometimes it's context). You should also consider that most of Sade's works were not edited, or even finished. More like the sketch of a manuscript.


Now Sacher-Masoch is far more beautiful...

As a writer, he is, but is he a much better thinker...? I've only read Venus in Furs, and although I enjoyed it, I did expect something much deeper...


Doe's it really only appeal to our taste buds? I think there is more intellectual appreciation involved than you give credit for, and yes, cooking esp. of a master chef is certainly art.

I do give cooking the deserved credit, I just think sexuality is very similar. A lot more can go around the basic act of fornication in order to enhance the experience and turn it into much more than animal copulation. You can compare sex to cooking in the way pleasure is delivered, and with dancing in the way the act itself is performed. There were even religious movements concerning this, in the form of tantrism.


Yes of course the is a very strong role in sexuality for the mind, but that does not mean the sex is appreciated cerebrally - quite the opposite, it is often despised cerebrally. By your argument creating cocaine would be considered a work of art because it gives pleasure.

How on Earth is sexuality despised cerebrally? :eek:

There is nothing creative in making cocaine, nor does it deliver pleasure alone or refinment at all. The comparison is pretty far fetched. Perhaps you misunderstand me?


I can't disagree more and I don't accept your reasoning, the defining and using of different words is to draw lines, that's what we're about here, the classification of porn, we are drawing a line so that we can decide if Lolita is porn or not.

You're talking about a stepped scale of values for subjective matters. There's no way it can work better than a continuous one. Who's deciding what each step should be? And furthermore, who's deciding where a work should be classified when it hovers somewhere in-between?
Also, my experience with words is that on medium and long term general use makes them alter their meaning, so they're not so good at "drawing lines".


We are discussing if Lolita is inherently porn, or if it is inherently art - my opinion is that it is art.

Art and porn don't exclude eachother... I think we all agree Lolita is art, and not "porn", what concerns me is how much hypocrisy is involved in accepting or dismissing its elements of sexuality.

[Bitterfly]

Effects are subjective. Can a great literary work be trivialized because many people praise it from snobism rather than genuine appreciation?
Funny thing is, I often enjoy the comic of deliberately exaggerated seriousness.

Ah, it's often more difficult to understand because you have to comprehend that the seriousness is not in earnest! I remember reading A Modest Proposal for the first time... or some of the writings of the Oulipo - they sometimes pastiche awfully serious styles - Umberto Eco has done it too!
And are effects so subjective? Maybe they're results of something like fashion. I sometimes have the impression that a whole era will be amused by things that will not make the next one laugh. How else do you explain the quasi-disappearance of farce, for instance? Sometimes it's difficult to really laugh - I don't mean just smile - at something that must have been awfully funny at some other period.
But no, a great work would not be trivialized. Then again, I've been thinking about how great literary works are in way "created" (because of Le Clézio's Nobel Prize, actually, since I don't consider him to be that great an author), and wondering whether some great works haven't been trivialized and others, less great, apotheosized.


With Sade, it's more about the phenomenon than the writer. He's supposed to have been quite influential from his cone of shadow, but you should know more about that than I do, as I am not all that versed in literary history, I just enjoy reading...

Nope, no idea. I mean, I can sense his inflence in authors such as Bataille; or maybe even Lautréamont (but I'm really not sure about that), but have no idea about the true range of his influence.


For me, there are more to apreciate in a work of literature than just the wording and the theme (sometimes it's context). You should also consider that most of Sade's works were not edited, or even finished. More like the sketch of a manuscript.

Yes, like rough drafts. Obviously that must have been the case for the Hundred and twenty days... Very modernist then, fragmentary! :p


As a writer, he is, but is he a much better thinker...? I've only read Venus in Furs, and although I enjoyed it, I did expect something much deeper...

No, not a better thinker. I really meant more beautiful, just as I said. I appreciated it aesthetically. And because he's very German but I couldn't explain that! I like those novels about young men discovering the world.


I do give cooking the deserved credit, I just think sexuality is very similar. A lot more can go around the basic act of fornication in order to enhance the experience and turn it into much more than animal copulation. You can compare sex to cooking in the way pleasure is delivered, and with dancing in the way the act itself is performed. There were even religious movements concerning this, in the form of tantrism.

This wasn't addressed to me, but I can't help adding that I perfectly agree. Of course sex is in the head before/at the same time as being in the body! How else, even, could one enjoy pornographic or erotic literature if the process was not mental?

[Etienne]

Nope, no idea. I mean, I can sense his inflence in authors such as Bataille; or maybe even Lautréamont (but I'm really not sure about that), but have no idea about the true range of his influence.

You can add Flaubert (de Sade was even one of his favorite authors), Baudelaire and Apollinaire (read Les onze mille verges, for example!), the surrealists in general, etc. Sainte-Beuve has said that de Sade was, with Byron, the greatest inspiration of the moderns.


because of Le Clézio's Nobel Prize, actually, since I don't consider him to be that great an author

I've never read him, actually, but I was thinking picking up something by him (he was actually giving a conference at my favorite bookshop last week, I was there as they were preparing it and didn't know, they often have conferences like that, I learned the next day it was Le Clézio). What have you read by him? I've heard his first works were best (Le procès-verbal, Le désert,...) but after that it got blander.

[Bitterfly]

I read the Onze mille verges earlier this year!! And yes, you're absolutely right and I should have thought about it! It's a horrible book, didn't you think? So unlike his poems, which are so beautiful. I was quite shocked! :p Just joking - I didn't find it that horrible, but still, some passages were quite unbearable to read.

Baudelaire I'm not surprised; the surrealists of course! But I had no idea that Flaubert was inspired by Sade. Where does one find traces of this influence? I'm trying to draw on my memories of Bouvard and Mme Bovary and l'Education Sentimentale but can't find anything. Maybe his short stories? Or simply his style sometimes?

[Etienne]

I read the Onze mille verges earlier this year!! And yes, you're absolutely right and I should have thought about it! It's a horrible book, didn't you think?

Horrible, but formidable I think ;)


So unlike his poems, which are so beautiful. I was quite shocked! :p

Yes, but many themes are in fact present in his poetry. In a much less shocking way though!


But I had no idea that Flaubert was inspired by Sade. Where does one find traces of this influence? I'm trying to draw on my memories of Bouvard and Mme Bovary and l'Education Sentimentale but can't find anything. Maybe his short stories? Or simply his style sometimes?

Try Salammbô, or even The Temptation of Saint-Anthony. But I think it is also present elsewhere but more underlying. In those two books I mentioned it is clearer.

By the way I checked your profile, your favorite is Primo Levi, I bought If this is a Man last week and was just about to start it. ;)

[Bitterfly]

What have you read by him? I've heard his first works were best (Le procès-verbal, Le désert,...) but after that it got blander.

Blush... I have to confess that I've only read one of his books, L'or. Which iI found bland indeed (though that can be a voluntary style). And I don't like contemporary French authors very much on the whole. So I'm neither a very knowledgeable nor a very objective critic of his! :p I've been planning on reading more - but he's not the only recent Nobel Prize winner who's disappointed me. Elfriede Jelinek had the same effect on me - I read three of hers - not sure whether it's lard or cochon, hein!

And I don't think I've read either Salambô or La tentation. I'm not sure, I may have delved into them at one time... Anyway, if you tell me they're a little Sadian, I'll be sure to try them again!:D

Just saw your edit: oh please, read The truce or Maintenant ou Jamais - they're even more wonderful. If it's a man is a bit in the same vein as Robert Anthelme's one about the camps - possibly more philosophical and drier; whereas the other two I mentioned are - I don't know - wider in scope.

[Petronius]

First of all... Etienne, I thank you for elaborating on the authors Sade influenced, and thank you both for the suggestions, since I may make us of them as well.


And are effects so subjective? Maybe they're results of something like fashion. I sometimes have the impression that a whole era will be amused by things that will not make the next one laugh. How else do you explain the quasi-disappearance of farce, for instance? Sometimes it's difficult to really laugh - I don't mean just smile - at something that must have been awfully funny at some other period.

Yes, humour may not be timeless because it often has era-specific refferences and undertones that the casual reader will simply not get, and even the studied one may not be intimate enough with historical context to spontaneously burst in laughter. Also, culture itself advances, yesterday's subtle joke may be today's childish prank. Comic tends to become overused especially when it's influential, and since you're more likely to have encountered something similar, you're less likely to be surprised and therefore viscerally amused even by works you appreciate.
But I think that makes it even more refined as art, like a flower if you wish. I'm not one to think literary works that are timeless in value should also be considered timeless in relative quality.

As for farce, I think writers lost interest into its pure form because it became predictable, and patternish. But it didn't quite dissapear. We could say it "evolved" from literature to cinematography and television. After all, it was always meant to be played.


No, not a better thinker. I really meant more beautiful, just as I said. I appreciated it aesthetically. And because he's very German but I couldn't explain that! I like those novels about young men discovering the world.

Alas, today the world has so little to reveal. Now, the mind...
I'm very interested in primal human nature, the true necessities and unnecessary restrictions of society, and the way culture builds on that (as much as on older culture). I think Lolita (and Nabokov's works in general) are very insightful about such things, and very beautiful on top.

Sexuality has been very important for us for as long as the species existed, that's why I give it so much credit, and why I think forays into deviant behaviour, especially when the promoter does its best to justify it, are very interesting. For Sade, I was more or less able to counjure explanations, but von Sacher-Masoch is mostly just relating a story. I was really hoping for the narrator to better explain the intellectual and visceral cause for his need to submit and be humiliated. Instead, he just comes out as unconsiderate and narrow-minded. The ending is a bit too "fated" for my taste, and though I think it could be very ironical, it does seem a bit like the author is making a pompous point about something that ails him but he doesn't understand...
That's not to say the book isn't beautiful. :D It may even be insightful, just on a different level than I wanted. (By the way, is it only my plebean mind finding a bit of irony in your observation that Masoch is "very German" in the context of discussion about the popular meanings of pornography in this thread? :lol:)

[DapperDrake]

This wasn't addressed to me, but I can't help adding that I perfectly agree. Of course sex is in the head before/at the same time as being in the body! How else, even, could one enjoy pornographic or erotic literature if the process was not mental?

Perhaps I'm stretching my point a little but I do believe I have a point, I'm not saying however that sex has no mental component, that would be silly and i'm surprised what i'm saying is being interpreted that way. Must be down to my lack of communication skill I guess :)

When a master chef creates a meal, that meal is a work of art. The eating of the meal is not a work of art and the eating is analogous to copulation.
Now, when a low quality ready meal is created on a production line it is not a work of art - it is created purely to sate hunger and, yes, taste good. but it's not art. Porn is analogous to that ready meal and erotica is analogous to the master chefs meal.

Do I have a point or have I spun myself a web of nonsense? :D (I do do that occasionally)

[Petronius]

When a master chef creates a meal, that meal is a work of art. The eating of the meal is not a work of art and the eating is analogous to copulation.
Now, when a low quality ready meal is created on a production line it is not a work of art - it is created purely to sate hunger and, yes, taste good. but it's not art. Porn is analogous to that ready meal and erotica is analogous to the master chefs meal.

I think we're actually agreeing. You see, the eating of the meal itself may not be artistic, but it is the driving force behind the meal's existence. The effort was put in the making in order for it to be savoured, unless you refer to the dish's design alone as art and not the taste as well, which I doubt.
In sex, the climax (this is the main gratification, not the copulation) itself may be common, but whatever leads to it leaves room for creativity, which means it can be art, at least from the perspective of the one who makes the creative effort.

If in today's culture, in the majority of cases, sexual entertainment products are bland, the fault is not in the intent (that of creating sexual arousal and pleasure, which I still belive you haven't proven it can't be a viable channel for art), but in the process. Or rather, it is in the intent, which really isn't arousing someone, but making money by selling the easiest to create product that would satisfy said demand.

You do have a point, but I do believe you're making a mistake in your separation between porn and erotica. In the visiual entertainment industry, the sole difference is that the former is explicit and probably more deviant, while the latter is milder, i.e. does not graphically depict sexual organs. Intent is the same, and quality is just as low. In literature, the word "erotica" is more oftenly used because generaly literary types want to pass as more refined, and written word is not as striking as an image. I simply think making a separation where one is utter garbage and the other can be a must-read work of art can't be justified.
I say fight against consumerism, not "porn", and give all kids of art a chance to shine. ;)

[JCamilo]

I must add that Barthez have a text about Sade as his importance for the development of the language. It is an interesting read.

[chasestalling]

nabokov's contempt for dostoevsky is well documented.

chief among his objections is dostoevsky's penchant for creating a first person narrator/protagonist who takes the reader into his confidence and appeals to the reader's intellect and/or sentiments.

lolita is in effect nabokov's parody of this dostoevskian device, this formula for enlisting the reader's sympathy for an act of moral turpitude with clever arguments and by the sheer poetry of his words.

seen in this light, moral indignation seems a tad silly.

[blazeofglory]

I do not argue that prostitution is good or bad or porn is something ethically bad or something we need to discard or cover up. All I want to put across is the fact that Lolita is porn given the substances of porn it is stuffed with in point of fact.

[PeterL]

I do not argue that prostitution is good or bad or porn is something ethically bad or something we need to discard or cover up. All I want to put across is the fact that Lolita is porn given the substances of porn it is stuffed with in point of fact.

I didn't notice anything pornographic about Lolita. Could you specify exactly what you consider pornographic about it.

[blazeofglory]

In fact Lolita has lots of stuff that validate that it is porn. You can come across such stuffs everywhere and the very start of the novel has it in point of fact.

It is about perversions and it is penetrated stylishly or to put it in another way, the book is colored up with philosophy.

Take out its stylistic and philosophic quotients and it will be totally a book about sex. Look at it not through the lens of "isms".

[PeterL]

In fact Lolita has lots of stuff that validate that it is porn. You can come across such stuffs everywhere and the very start of the novel has it in point of fact.

It is about perversions and it is penetrated stylishly or to put it in another way, the book is colored up with philosophy.

Take out its stylistic and philosophic quotients and it will be totally a book about sex. Look at it not through the lens of "isms".

I didn't see anything pornographic in Lolita. If you believe that it "has lots of stuff that validate that it is porn", then you should be able to specify something that you consider pornographic.

It is not about sexual perversion. It is about a man trying to symbolically regain his youth.

[JBI]

Honestly. Go out and buy a porno, then make a comparison.

[DaveB]

The simple answer? Yes. Yes it is.

Without the deviant behavior it depicts, it's just another book.

[kelby_lake]

you can't call every book with sex in it porn.

[PeterL]

you can't call every book with sex in it porn.

Amen...

[PeterL]

The simple answer? Yes. Yes it is.

Without the deviant behavior it depicts, it's just another book.

If one takes the "deviant behavior" literally, then that would be true, if one has a prurient interest in what the book presents. I have never heard of people having such a prurient interest, so it not porn. There is no actual sexual activity in the book, and the relationship between Humbert and Lolita was symbolic, so the net effect was completely different.

[JBI]

Honestly, the book is about aesthetics not about pedophilia. Pedophilia is just a backdrop for some irony, and some interesting plot techniques.

[Etienne]

In fact Lolita has lots of stuff that validate that it is porn. You can come across such stuffs everywhere and the very start of the novel has it in point of fact.

You were asked for examples. Citations, would be a good start to prove your point. What do you define as porn too? As we surely don't have the same definition of porn... write "porn" in Google and then click on the first link... there you have porn.

[kelby_lake]

Porn is explicit. There's not really anything explicit in Lolita.

[tractatus]

And I wonder, if there is a chapter or a part in a chapter that is porn with your definition; does it make a porn book?

What is the required dosage for labelling?
- If a man fall in love with another woman in book X, how do you launch the book if you the bookstore? - a love story? - book of betrayal? - sufferings of a woman?

I too think the content is important. While telling a sex scene, you can see what s the aim of writer. He/She is trying to give a description of sex action or trying to excite you? Is not hard to see for a average reader.

[kelby_lake]

It depends on the intent

[blazeofglory]

There are many factors. Society, culture, value are some of the factors that speak of your judgment and reckoning. We still know tribal communities wherein sex is not a taboo and sexual. And we have also societies wherein even disucssions of sex are tabooed. The Victorian age and now depicts a big gap in terms of sexual value.

From that standpoint the idea that Lolita is not porn is a flawed understanding of the nature of the thing. The relation, the dialogue, the manner in which the story unfolds corroborates the enough substantiation of sex in the book.

But the writer has phrased it with his pedantic and scholastic capacities to cover up the core idea of the book.

That makes you take everything from an aesthetic point of view. It is like something covering the ugly and disfigured face with a modern surgical appliance.

Take and unprejudiced idea and you will find the book full of lusty and perverted ideas and nothing else at the core in point of fact. But you will not do so for something grandiloquence of the writer has occupied your mind.

[PeterL]

Take and unprejudiced idea and you will find the book full of lusty and perverted ideas and nothing else at the core in point of fact. But you will not do so for something grandiloquence of the writer has occupied your mind.

Specifically what do you consider to be pornographic in Lolita? You have made very broad and prejudiced comments about Lolita, but it appears that you have not tried to consider the novel except through your prejudices. It is my opinion that Lolita is almost completely figurative, symbolic.

[Petronius]

Blaze, I can see what you mean... but I still can't understand where you're going. Let's assume, for argument's sake, that Lolita is porn. So what? Does it change the beauty and wit of the book in any way?


It is my opinion that Lolita is almost completely figurative, symbolic.

If Lolita is completely symbolic, what do you think it symbolizes?

[Etienne]

There are many factors. Society, culture, value are some of the factors that speak of your judgment and reckoning. We still know tribal communities wherein sex is not a taboo and sexual. And we have also societies wherein even disucssions of sex are tabooed. The Victorian age and now depicts a big gap in terms of sexual value.

From that standpoint the idea that Lolita is not porn is a flawed understanding of the nature of the thing. The relation, the dialogue, the manner in which the story unfolds corroborates the enough substantiation of sex in the book.

But the writer has phrased it with his pedantic and scholastic capacities to cover up the core idea of the book.

That makes you take everything from an aesthetic point of view. It is like something covering the ugly and disfigured face with a modern surgical appliance.

Take and unprejudiced idea and you will find the book full of lusty and perverted ideas and nothing else at the core in point of fact. But you will not do so for something grandiloquence of the writer has occupied your mind.

We are all still waiting for the quotations.

[PeterL]

If Lolita is completely symbolic, what do you think it symbolizes?

It is about aging and trying to recapture youth. Nabokov referred to Lolita elsewhere as "the Cup of Hebe".

[Petronius]

It is about aging and trying to recapture youth. Nabokov referred to Lolita elsewhere as "the Cup of Hebe".

Is it really entirely about that? It sounds more like something the author would be looking for rather than the narrator - a search continued in Ada. Humbert himself does not seem like an old person, which implies that for the most of it (or even entirely), the book is not about trying, but succeeding to recapture youth - about ageless youth, or rather the abandonment of concerns about one's age. So truly, Lolita is about human interactions without the pressure of social and moral constraints, which does not exclude sexuality as an integral part of the central theme.

But it does put an interesting question. How would the young percieve Lolita?

[PeterL]

Is it really entirely about that? It sounds more like something the author would be looking for rather than the narrator - a search continued in Ada. Humbert himself does not seem like an old person, which implies that for the most of it (or even entirely), the book is not about trying, but succeeding to recapture youth - about ageless youth, or rather the abandonment of concerns about one's age. So truly, Lolita is about human interactions without the pressure of social and moral constraints, which does not exclude sexuality as an integral part of the central theme.

But it does put an interesting question. How would the young perceive Lolita?

Think of the beginning, where the author set up the story. It was about eternal, youthful love, but it was not about physical sexual activity.

Humbert was not old, but he was middle-aged. I don't recall whether a specific age was given, but I had the impression that he was in his late 40's at the beginning. That is certainly far from old age, but it is well out of youth.

I think that it might be more accurate to say that it is about regaining the freedom and lack of responsibility of youth. Of course, sexuality would not be excluded, but that was peripheral, and the novel is certainly not concerned in sexually stimulating readers.

[Petronius]

sexuality would not be excluded, but that was peripheral, and the novel is certainly not concerned in sexually stimulating readers.

That would depend on the reader...

Actually, if you refer to Humbert's childhood relation with Annabel, it suggested plenty of erotism - not necessarily passed to the reader, but present between them. Have you ever been in love at age 12? Eternal, youthful love? Drawn, tantalizing prelude, desire to explore, fantasies, expectations - unfortunately cut loose by the moral, the vulgar, and by fate.
Same thing with his meeting of Lolita. Humbert percieved the moment through a haze of erotism. Do we dismiss it as irrelevant, as secondary? It's a mater of choice. Sex it's not all about intercourse. It's circumstance, thoughts, senses.

Humbert tries to regain the freedom of youthful love? I'll agree with that. But can we say that youthful love is platonical?

[PeterL]

That would depend on the reader...

Actually, if you refer to Humbert's childhood relation with Annabel, it suggested plenty of erotism - not necessarily passed to the reader, but present between them. Have you ever been in love at age 12? Eternal, youthful love? Drawn, tantalizing prelude, desire to explore, fantasies, expectations - unfortunately cut loose by the moral, the vulgar, and by fate.
Same thing with his meeting of Lolita. Humbert percieved the moment through a haze of erotism. Do we dismiss it as irrelevant, as secondary? It's a mater of choice. Sex it's not all about intercourse. It's circumstance, thoughts, senses.

Humbert tries to regain the freedom of youthful love? I'll agree with that. But can we say that youthful love is platonical?

I suppose that it's a matter of how one defines eroticism. I don't consider eroticism to be possible before puberty, so per-pubescent love is, by necessity, non-erotic. While Humbert engaged in eroticic behavior with Delores, that was not included in the book.

I didn't see any signs of eroticism in the relation between Annabel and Humbert. You can, if you like, but there was nothing explicit.

[Petronius]

I suppose that it's a matter of how one defines eroticism. I don't consider eroticism to be possible before puberty, so per-pubescent love is, by necessity, non-erotic.

Puberty starts at 9-10. Lolita was 12, while Annabel and Humbert were around the same age when their relationship unfolded.


I didn't see any signs of eroticism in the relation between Annabel and Humbert. You can, if you like, but there was nothing explicit.

"All at once we were madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other; hopelessly, I should add, because that frenzy of mutual possession might have been assuaged only by our actually imbibing and assimilating every particle of each other's soul and flesh; but there we were, unable even to mate as slum children would have so easily found an opportunity to do."

"we would sprawl all morning, in a petrified paroxysm of desire, and take advantage of every blessed quirk in space and time to touch each other"

"sometimes a chance rampart built by younger children granted us sufficient concealment to graze each other's salty lips; these incomplete contacts drove our healthy and inexperienced young bodies to such a state of exasperation that not even the cold blue water, under which we still clawed at each other, could bring relief."

"and there, in the violet shadow of some red rocks forming a kind of cave, [we] had a brief session of avid caresses, with somebody's lost pair of sunglasses for only witness. I was on my knees, and on the point of possessing my darling, when two bearded bathers, the old man of the sea and his brother, came out of the sea with exclamations of ribald encouragement"

[kelby_lake]

Humbert was not old, but he was middle-aged. I don't recall whether a specific age was given, but I had the impression that he was in his late 40's at the beginning. That is certainly far from old age, but it is well out of youth.


I think he starts out as being 36.

Anyway, it's all a matter of how offended you get/personal preference. Pour exemple, the music video for Girls on Film. Some people say it's pretty tame;others say it's gross.

[PeterL]

Puberty starts at 9-10. Lolita was 12, while Annabel and Humbert were around the same age when their relationship unfolded.



"All at once we were madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other; hopelessly, I should add, because that frenzy of mutual possession might have been assuaged only by our actually imbibing and assimilating every particle of each other's soul and flesh; but there we were, unable even to mate as slum children would have so easily found an opportunity to do."

"we would sprawl all morning, in a petrified paroxysm of desire, and take advantage of every blessed quirk in space and time to touch each other"

"sometimes a chance rampart built by younger children granted us sufficient concealment to graze each other's salty lips; these incomplete contacts drove our healthy and inexperienced young bodies to such a state of exasperation that not even the cold blue water, under which we still clawed at each other, could bring relief."

"and there, in the violet shadow of some red rocks forming a kind of cave, [we] had a brief session of avid caresses, with somebody's lost pair of sunglasses for only witness. I was on my knees, and on the point of possessing my darling, when two bearded bathers, the old man of the sea and his brother, came out of the sea with exclamations of ribald encouragement"

Humbert and Annabel were too young to copulate, so there was no clear erotic activity, and it is clear from the quotes that you provided that there was no actual sexual activity.

[chasestalling]

annabel dies of typhus after sexual/erotic episode on the beach with humbert.

[mona amon]

Humbert and Annabel were too young to copulate, so there was no clear erotic activity, and it is clear from the quotes that you provided that there was no actual sexual activity.

What does it matter whether they had actual sexual intercourse or not? What they were engaged in was clearly erotic, and could be titillating to some. These passages with Annabel, and the others where he describes his sexual activities with Dolores, are explicitly sexual and not symbolic. So Lolita does have quite a bit of sex in it. I wouldn't call it porn though.

Thanks for posting those quotes, Petronius. It's been a while since I read the book, and I had this mental image of an enraged young Humbert trying to sheild Annabel from the onlookers' gaze as she hopped into her shorts, and till I read your post I wondered if I was making it up. :D

[PeterL]

annabel dies of typhus after sexual/erotic episode on the beach with humbert.

While she died, there was no sexual activity between the two.

[Petronius]

Humbert and Annabel were too young to copulate, so there was no clear erotic activity, and it is clear from the quotes that you provided that there was no actual sexual activity.

Says who? It's obvious the characters feel sexual attraction, but they are inexperienced, although Humbert does mention that "my father gave me all the information he thought I needed about sex", scared and under vigillent watch. How about, from the following chapter:

"She would try to relieve the pain of love by first roughly rubbing her dry lips against mine; then my darling would draw away with a nervous toss of her hair, and then again come darkly near and let me feed on her open mouth, while with a generosity that was ready to offer her everything, my heart, my throat, my entrails, I have her to hold in her awkward fist the scepter of my passion."

That they didn't manage to have intercourse doesn't mean there was nothing sexual about the relationship. In fact, should you read the first part of Ada or Ardor, you will see Nabokov treat this same theme more elaborately, and in this case there will be no doubt that the characters (ages 12 and 14) develop erotic feelings towards eachother and, to perfectly satisfy your requirements, do manage to successfuly copulate.


Thanks for posting those quotes, Petronius. It's been a while since I read the book, and I had this mental image of an enraged young Humbert trying to sheild Annabel from the onlookers' gaze as she hopped into her shorts, and till I read your post I wondered if I was making it up.

You're welcome.

[PeterL]

Says who? It's obvious the characters feel sexual attraction, but they are inexperienced, although Humbert does mention that "my father gave me all the information he thought I needed about sex", scared and under vigillent watch. How about, from the following chapter:

"She would try to relieve the pain of love by first roughly rubbing her dry lips against mine; then my darling would draw away with a nervous toss of her hair, and then again come darkly near and let me feed on her open mouth, while with a generosity that was ready to offer her everything, my heart, my throat, my entrails, I have her to hold in her awkward fist the scepter of my passion."

That they didn't manage to have intercourse doesn't mean there was nothing sexual about the relationship. In fact, should you read the first part of Ada or Ardor, you will see Nabokov treat this same theme more elaborately, and in this case there will be no doubt that the characters (ages 12 and 14) develop erotic feelings towards eachother and, to perfectly satisfy your requirements, do manage to successfuly copulate.


They may have felt physical attraction and lust, but there is no evidence that they engaged in sexual intercourse, and there it reason to believe that Humbert was incapable of doing so. I got the impression that Humbert was prepubescent at the time of those encounters, but I wasn't there, so I don't know for sure.

[Petronius]

They may have felt physical attraction and lust, but there is no evidence that they engaged in sexual intercourse, and there it reason to believe that Humbert was incapable of doing so. I got the impression that Humbert was prepubescent at the time of those encounters, but I wasn't there, so I don't know for sure.

They didn't, but there were plenty of things to stop them other than just physical incapacity, of which I didn't notice any signs. Please quote the passage/ explain why you would think so.
They weren't prepubescent (since they experience sexual emotions), merely preadolescent. ;)

[JBI]

Honestly, he explicitly talks about her reaching out to touch his "scepter of passion," and he reaching out to fondle her under her night-dress. Is that not sexual? What is it then - mere curiosity? Who is to say they aren't pubescent? Who isn't to say that had her mom not gone calling for her, Humbert would have had his desire, and the episode would have passed on, as any other early-teenage fling.

That's where the book bends - the almost consummated relationship. As he says in the opening paragraphs, he has a knack for creating an imprint of a person in the back of his mind - a perfect picture. It isn't until the end of the book, that he can shake that notion, and that is what brings about the plot. It is the idea that his concept of perfection in a woman is shaped by his focus on Annabel as the ultimate object of his love.

He of course, breaks this, as he says he did in the opening chapters, by transferring the image over to Lolita, and then destroying her. That knocks out his pedophilia, and allows him in the end to propose to Lolita that they run away together, even though she has, as he described, become her mother - no longer the 13 year old girl.

[kelby_lake]

I loved the end

[blazeofglory]

I repeat time and again it is a matter of value and nothing else. When I read the story to others or to my senior ones I come across many instances that will shame me.

Ugliness is covered and the seeming beauty is what we can see. I do not want to be ethical in point of fact. For in my part of the world such books can not be recommended by seniors to juniors. A father in my part of the world does not recommend this book or such books to his daughters and sons even if he may appreciate its magniloquence, enhanced literary style and philosophical factors.
If it can be recommended to youngsters in your part of the world I will stop arguing for values are relative to time and locale. Like what were tabooed in the Victorian era is deemed normal today and what we call perverted or vulgar in one part of the world may sound day to day matters that does not require censorship at all.

I have argued from this lens, and if you use a different lens to look through at it I may not debate or counter-argue for that matter and I may end up concluding that value changes with respect to time and space.

[Petronius]

Values are based on sedimented knowledge, discovery, and culture. If they differ, it is because different peoples were marked by different experiences, of which even Lolita (like every other great book) is one.

I value cultural diversity, but I don't think such things as local morals are supposed to be unquestionable. To the question "why is erotism ugly and shameful?", "because my peers deem it so" is not a valid answer.
The grandiloquent mask around the events in Lolita is not meant to mask a crime, to fool the juries or to mock. It is an ediffice of Humbert's love for Lolita, a work of eternal rememberance dedicated to the percieved beauty of their lives together, which stands at the core of art.
The world was always a wretched place, where claimed virtue is born from idiocy or even more poignant flaws. Why not be appalled by the art of the Renaissance, grandoise vanity in an age of plague, or the Victorian snobism, so much education, so many words and ultimately such a childish understanding of the world. How about the modern cultures? How worthy are we to pave the way for future generations. Oh, it's always easy to avoid conflicts by stifling whatever we think may lead to them. But what will we know when they finally catch up?

Lolita's beauty does not stand solely in the choice of words, but in the deep understanding and the minute reconstruction of humanity - not just the mind, or soul, or bodily character, as Man so often and so childishly gets divided, but in its entirety. The words themselves do not hide but evoke, and I believe Nabokov's choice to avoid explicitness wasn't born of revulsion or prudeness, but from the necessity to separate the phenomenon from deep-rooted preconceptions and put it under a clean lens.
The book itself is elegantly free of moral conclusions, and on the whole so too should be the reader. If some deem it one way or the other, it is their duty to provide the why.

I did approach the book from the erotic theme perspective in order to discuss your point. Perhaps you too should ponder again if the take on Lolita dictated by your culture is of any constructive merit. As far as seniors go, on the large scale they're just as clueless as the young. If they think enjoying and learning something from Lolita is shameful, it's them who need a cold shower.

[PeterL]

They didn't, but there were plenty of things to stop them other than just physical incapacity, of which I didn't notice any signs. Please quote the passage/ explain why you would think so.
They weren't prepubescent (since they experience sexual emotions), merely preadolescent. ;)

I got the impression the Humbert was prepubescent at that time.

[JBI]

I got the impression the Humbert was prepubescent at that time.
I think that is perhaps a misreading, I urge again for you to look at the whole Scepter of Passion bit - he seems pubescent.

[SleepyWitch]

Even embryos in their mother's womb can have an orgasm and little toddlers can have erections. although the production of semen only starts with puberty, boys can have erections much earlier. Kindergarten-age children of both sexes masturbate.
So it's irrelevant whether Annabel and Humbert were pre-pubescent, pre-adolescent or whatnot. Children are not 'innocent' little angels or incapable of erotic attraction.

[kelby_lake]

True, true.

[blazeofglory]

In fact I am un-tired to indulge in argument and open a discussion. I untiringly and doggedly persevere with my ideas for I have read this book, Lolita when I had little knowledge of what literature was. When I read for the first time with no fixed mindset, I am afraid, as everyone critiquing my point has. The fixation that the book is stylistically grand. Maybe it is majestic and superb from a philosophical lens, maybe thru a critical approach the writer is rhetorically unexcelled and for its idiomatic quotients it is matchless and you can crown the book with all kinds of candor and candidness. Maybe that is what modern readers want a concoction of sex and philosophy and brew of newness and perversion.

Not caring about all these spices and if you are a child and read the book innocently with the values you have been hardwired into by your elders you will needless to say come across a plethora of obscene and perverse.

All of you critiquing this idea have already passed thru stages of pubescence and you know what sex is and do not give it a damn but the world is not full of the you-type of people and the values you live with and there are Asiatic values and all are not westernized. In Nepal this is utterly a book of perversion and no decent elders recommend it to youngsters and still if you argue to prove your point for the contrary you have biases.

I am apologetic and the outright argument must be limited to discussion and not to be stretched to a personal level.

[SleepyWitch]

blaze, I totally agree with you that pedophilia is a perversion and I'm sure most people in here agree.
But that does not make Lolita a badly-written book. Nor does the book's dealing with perversions or obscenities mean that it encourages perversion.
The question of values is neither here nor there. A novel is not a self-help guide or religious scripture or a code of laws (even though many authors to take a didactic approach). Just because a book contains obscenities and perversities does not mean that you have to identify with them, let alone imitate them in your own life.
I think Lolita is literature (vs. porn) precisely because it plays with readers' habit to identify with the main character. Getting drawn into the book, like you do with books that you read 'only' for pleasure would make you identify with Humbert. So that shows how easy it is to give up our moral standards and get taken in by the pervert just because he uses flowery language and styles himself as an artist. On the other hand, you can read (or try to read) the book from a more detached point of view, so you will not identify with Humbert but the interplay of different perspectives will still be there. Even when you read it in this way, some readers may feel sympathy for Humbert as a child, or they may pity him because he cannot control his urges or because he deceives himself while at the same time condemning his pedophile acts.
I think what's interesting about Lolita is its ambiguity and that's something that no amount of porn can offer. Porn reads like: "There was this hunky,
6 '3" stud and this racy red-head DD-cup goddess of lust..... He thrust his throbbing red-hot cruise missile into her insatiable furnace ...... (then he produces so much semen that an elephant would be envious and the stuff flies all over the room and of course the woman screams endlessly and has at least 3 orgasms. they do this 75 times in a row. The end.)".
Ok, I'll admit I have no idea whether porn reads like this, never having read any myself.

[mona amon]

Not caring about all these spices and if you are a child and read the book innocently with the values you have been hardwired into by your elders you will needless to say come across a plethora of obscene and perverse.

All of you critiquing this idea have already passed thru stages of pubescence and you know what sex is and do not give it a damn but the world is not full of the you-type of people and the values you live with and there are Asiatic values and all are not westernized. In Nepal this is utterly a book of perversion and no decent elders recommend it to youngsters and still if you argue to prove your point for the contrary you have biases.

I am apologetic and the outright argument must be limited to discussion and not to be stretched to a personal level.

I was about thirteen when I read Lolita for the first time, ie. about Dolores' age, I'm Asian, and the book was lent to me by an elder- my english teacher. I mean she didn't actually put it into my hands, but she used to allow us to borrow books from her house, and she made no objection when I selected this. She knew that just reading about criminal acts wasn't going to make a youngster bad, and she obviously thought it was a good book because she had it in her bookshelf.

Although I probably missed about 9/10ths of it, I loved the book, which I thought was very witty and funny. I'm afraid the fact that Humbert was molesting Dolores bothered me not at all. I was about her age and didn't consider myself a child. I was a lot more horrified by that aspect of it when I re-read it many years later.

Anyway, I think we cannot classify a book as porn merely because we are shocked by it. We'll have to take the official definition of porn (not sure what it is) and see if the book fits that definition.

[blazeofglory]

I hold with your idea and of course there are elements of truth in what you said that merely because we are shocked by a book we can not classify it as porn. However I have my reservation that a book can have degrees of porn and some are ninety percent porn and others are less than that may be thirty or ten percent in point of fact. To settle on whether or no a book is porn is rooted in the personal idea of the reader and the critics and his or her upbringings. I said time and again that all that depends on the socio-cultural settings you have grown up on. I was born in a different traditionally knot social setting and we never could openly discuss sex.

Lolita is by all standards in our part of the world has dialogues, accounts that have obscenity and erotica and definitely the writer through decorous idioms eclipse the central theme. There is perversity and the writer has perfectly phrased the book masking the theme.

We have classical discussions over the matter and most take a liking and few disliking to it out of affectations. But I try distance myself from affectation and pretentiousness that this book has definitely some elements of perverseness that can put the innocent to shame if not most of us who are the experienced.

Sex and romance rubber-stamps beauty more often than not and by that notion this book has got more literary acclamation and approbation in point of fact, but go the very bottom of it unaffectedly and neutrally you will come upon plenty of instances that speak of it self.

Do not back up the book with your notions and there are plenty of instances to endorse its obscenity.

[Petronius]

Which brings us to what originally concerned me about your post, and what I've been repeating throughout my interventions.
I agree we can call Lolita porn, by the standards of chaster cultures, by the investment in sexual themes and by the potential arousal the raw plot can bring to impressionable readers. So, given that it's porn, what is the problem and how does this make of it a lesser work of art (or a lesser intellectual read for the matter)? Are other themes free of negative sides, with only the erotic/psychological ones being flawed? Are the "morally safe" tomes the only ones of value, although their worldview is more often than not imature?

Wether Lolita arouses its readers simply does not concern me. It is not really a book for children, simply because they would have a hard time understanding most of it (though it would be interesting to see how they react to it). And if I have reasons to belive it may have a negative effect on a young reader, I will not recommend it.
I can see your point if it is pre-highschool compulsory literature in your country... not just because it's sexual, but because it's claimed to not be, and so a very important theme will not be proprely adressed, yet still allowed to ramble aimlessly among the unexperienced readers. Moreover, quality books should be discovered, not imposed.

Other than that, books can be loved/loathed for whatever reasons, subjective more than all, and if a culture imposes a certain reaction, that reaction defines the culture, not the book - and that's not, by all means, meant to say anything bad about Asian values. I myself simply prefer carnal art (by which I mean "living" art, not necessarily or even particularly sexual) over spiritual art (or should-bes' art), which I have come to consider infatuated, tiresome, and inefably subordinated to the former... if that makes any sense at all, let alone the intended one. :D Given my choices, and although carnality is ultimately inclined towards universal objectivity, I can see no angle from which Lolita, porn or no porn, can justifiably and in itself be reprehensible.

[blazeofglory]

I agree considerably and of course it has other themes that are intellectually appealing as there are sexually. Of course books of porn too have ideas that can have quotients of intellectuality. I do not speak whether or not this book good or bad. All I am trying to put forth is a acceptance that the book is porn. More than this I have to say nothing else.

[Etienne]

I agree considerably and of course it has other themes that are intellectually appealing as there are sexually. Of course books of porn too have ideas that can have quotients of intellectuality. I do not speak whether or not this book good or bad. All I am trying to put forth is a acceptance that the book is porn. More than this I have to say nothing else.

You have yet to provide a single sequence that you consider should be called porn.

[kelby_lake]

Not caring about all these spices and if you are a child and read the book innocently with the values you have been hardwired into by your elders you will needless to say come across a plethora of obscene and perverse.


Um, it's not a book for children, so that's a pretty stupid argument.

Yes, it has paedophilia in it- there are people like that in the world. People don't take offense to it because it's 'porn'- they take offence to it because it's showing them an ugly truth.

[one_raven]

Is Lolita Porn?

Why does it matter?

I don't understand why people get worked up over whether this or that is porn and where the line should be drawn between "vulgarity" and "art".
Why should anyone draw that line?
I'm not convinced there is one.
I'm not convinced vulgarity can't be art.

The labels people choose to stick on such things are meaningless to me.

Not only is the line a completely subjective one, what difference does it make?

If you think it is suitable for your children, let them read it.
If not, don't.
Why the need to label it?

[blazeofglory]

As we are living in a world wherein diversities, varieties, differences do take place and democratically speaking we do respect such things. I do not mean anyone must subscribe to my views, and neither should I do to theirs in point of fact. There are prostitutes, gays and womanizers, all have their voice and say in point of fact. Why should we do not go against their ideals and course of living nor should they by the same token, here I do not know why I am pinching or they get pinched by all I put forth. Everybody has the right to oppose, criticize, appreciate, and depreciate.

Notwithstanding all your stuffs, positive or negative I am still very much for my ideas that Lolita is porn by all standards, and if nothing or no books ever are written pornographically or if the term itself is a misnomer all I do say is Lolita is porn.

[kelby_lake]

You can't say something is porn when the world at large disagrees with you. You can say 'I take offense to it because it goes against my beliefs' but don't claim that anything with sex in it is porn.
Sensuality is not porn- what about all those great poems? Do you think they're porn too?

[chasestalling]

blaze, i think it's time we rename this post 'a monument to stupidity'

[one_raven]

You can't say something is porn when the world at large disagrees with you.

Really?
Don't you think it's a subjectuve value assessment?

Who should be the ones to dictate whether or not something is pornographic?

I won't attempt to define obscene, "but I know it when I see it."
Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart 1964

[PeterL]

I won't attempt to define obscene, "but I know it when I see it."
Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart 1964

Same with me, and Lolita is not obscene.

[kelby_lake]

Really?
Don't you think it's a subjectuve value assessment?

Who should be the ones to dictate whether or not something is pornographic?

I won't attempt to define obscene, "but I know it when I see it."
Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart 1964

Well, what I mean is you can't denounce something as pornographic like that when you are a tiny minority, therefore it is more likely to be your personal offence than it actually being pornographic.

Honestly there are more books I'd class as pornographic which are far worse.

[one_raven]

Well, what I mean is you can't denounce something as pornographic like that when you are a tiny minority, therefore it is more likely to be your personal offence than it actually being pornographic.

Of course you can - if it is a subjective value assessment.
"Personal offense" is the whole point of "subjective" is it not?
If it is subjective, there is no such thing as "actual pornography".


Honestly there are more books I'd class as pornographic which are far worse.
And you are certainly entitled to that subjectuve, personal opinion - regardless of what anyone else (even a majority) might think.
No?


This is why I question this need of people to label something as "porn" or not; "obscene" or not; "offensive" or not.
Seems not only pointless to me, but impossible.

If you like it; read it.
If you do not; don't.

If you think it is suitable for children; let you kids read it.
If you do not; don't.

The only reason I can see to label things as porn, obscene, offensive, objectionable... is to use those lables as justification for censorship and dictating the behavior and personal liberty of others.
Why else would it be a valid practice?

Furthermore, why this delineation between obscene and art at all?
Can something not be offensive and art simultaneously?
Can art not be obscene?
I think it can.
But that's just my own, subjective opinion.

[Tophu]

I'm actually reading Lolita right now, and it is definitely not porn. Is it disturbing and at some points uncomfortable? Of course. But it's not... pornography. It wasn't created for the purpose of sexual excitement, it was created to tell the story of Humbert Humbert and Lolita... It's a very strange story, but a story nonetheless.

[kelby_lake]

Anyway, pornography's supposed to be arousing, isn't it? I'd be worried if anyone found the novel arousing...

[mona amon]

Why?

Porn or not, some of the passages are definitely erotic.

[JCamilo]

Of course you can - if it is a subjective value assessment.
"Personal offense" is the whole point of "subjective" is it not?
If it is subjective, there is no such thing as "actual pornography".


And you are certainly entitled to that subjectuve, personal opinion - regardless of what anyone else (even a majority) might think.
No?

Well, the right to have opinions is not the same of having right opinions. I could point to a elephant and say "In my opinion it is a monkey, see a monkey!"
Lolita is not porn. References to sex are all veiled, the language is not straightfoward (the aforementioned kid would not even grasp those momments), the sexual act never described, it is not the intention of the author to focus on them, etc,etc,etc.
If Henry Miller was reading Lolita to Anais Nin they would fall asleep quite fast.

[bazarov]

Still fighting about it?! :alien:

It's not porn.

[kelby_lake]

Why?

Porn or not, some of the passages are definitely erotic.

Humbert and Annabel's bit is but they're teenagers, what dyu expect?

[mona amon]

Anyway, pornography's supposed to be arousing, isn't it? I'd be worried if anyone found the novel arousing...

I was asking why you'd be worried if anyone found the novel arousing, when it has erotic passages. Are you saying you'd be worried only if anyone found the Lolita/Humbert parts arousing?

Even then, I'm not so sure that only perverts and peadophiles would find it titillating. This passage for instance-


She was musical and apple-sweet. Her legs twitched a little as they lay across my live lap; I stroked them; there she lolled on in the right-hand corner, almost asprawl, Lola, the bobby-soxer, devouring her immemorial fruit, singing through its juice, losing her slipper, rubbing the heel of her slipperless foot in its sloppy anklet, against the pile of old magazines heaped on my left on the sofa—and every movement she made, every shuffle and ripple, helped me to conceal and improve the secret system of tactile correspondence between beast and beauty—between my gagged, bursting beast ...

Undoubtedly erotic, very well written. I wouldn't blame anyone too much if they were aroused by it (The whole passage. I've only quoted a small part).

[kelby_lake]

Well, if they did considering that it's paedophilic, not merely because of the language.

[Kawthar K.]

Lols.. This thread gave me a good laugh, I needed that.

Heard of word assocciation? I've always assocciated the word "Lolita" to sex.
You are an inquisitive, person though, aren't you?

I think it's how you connect words though...Orrrr..You can just watch porn and judge for yourself.
Lolita is not porn, but it sure is a suggestive name

[blazeofglory]

Today's world is totally different, and we are exposed to perversions and nudities and we are accustomed to such things to an extent we can kind of consider it as a normal course.

I do not say it is a bad novel and something it degenerates values, but the point is it has something that was not palatable some decades ago. Maybe we will or our posterity will come to a state where even what we call vulgar, obscene and disreputable will be deemed normal and not obnoxious.

Of course what I wrote could have vexed a few here or some were highly critical. This is natural and all I did in point of fact is a fair comparison or analogy and nothing else.

As I would expect comments, I am not antagonistic. But Points of view vary. Another aspect is that some readers and writers here may have a great obsession or kind of liking for the book and this may from that lens obviously provoke kind of resentment. But this is a forum which values individual differences and that is what promoted me to jot down all that I feel of my own volition.

At the same time it is interesting to note down how our tastes, values, understandings of human behavioral patterns have undergone sea change or transformation in the degree and intensity the way expressly put forth here.

Now I conclusively want to write down that nothing is more worth noting here than observing our behavioral patterns, or value systems. I do not say it is unnatural or some going adrift. This is what we have learned in the science of evolution. I simply made a comparative view from an indifferent lens, and I do not say there has been abrasion in values. But to say there has been some metamorphoses is not the something as there is erosion. I go for the former

[kelby_lake]

The novel still has an impact, 50 years later. People still can't make a film which captures the dark wit and tragic beauty yet.

[PeterL]

The novel still has an impact, 50 years later. People still can't make a film which captures the dark wit and tragic beauty yet.

I think that the problem there is that the moviemakers don't understand what Naabokov was doing. Maybe someone should try to make a movie from Nabokov's screenplay.

[Etienne]

Today's world is totally different, and we are exposed to perversions and nudities and we are accustomed to such things to an extent we can kind of consider it as a normal course.

I do not say it is a bad novel and something it degenerates values, but the point is it has something that was not palatable some decades ago. Maybe we will or our posterity will come to a state where even what we call vulgar, obscene and disreputable will be deemed normal and not obnoxious.

Of course what I wrote could have vexed a few here or some were highly critical. This is natural and all I did in point of fact is a fair comparison or analogy and nothing else.

As I would expect comments, I am not antagonistic. But Points of view vary. Another aspect is that some readers and writers here may have a great obsession or kind of liking for the book and this may from that lens obviously provoke kind of resentment. But this is a forum which values individual differences and that is what promoted me to jot down all that I feel of my own volition.

At the same time it is interesting to note down how our tastes, values, understandings of human behavioral patterns have undergone sea change or transformation in the degree and intensity the way expressly put forth here.

Now I conclusively want to write down that nothing is more worth noting here than observing our behavioral patterns, or value systems. I do not say it is unnatural or some going adrift. This is what we have learned in the science of evolution. I simply made a comparative view from an indifferent lens, and I do not say there has been abrasion in values. But to say there has been some metamorphoses is not the something as there is erosion. I go for the former

So by your arguments, we should call, say James Joyce's Ulysses pornography as well?

[JCamilo]

Romeo and Juliet is pornographic, 1001 Nights (not burton edition) certainly.... Geez, we are all pervs.

[armenian]

Anyway, pornography's supposed to be arousing, isn't it? I'd be worried if anyone found the novel arousing...

o snap, i got hard a couple of times reading american psycho :lol:

[armenian]

that wasnt a joke.

[blazeofglory]

It seems that if we use art, philosophy to cover up impropriety or vulgarity all books of porn will be taken as normal books. I do not Lolita is hard-core pornography. Of course there is no any specific criterion to gauge it. Then when there is no common standard or the metrics it is our systems of judgments that become decisive factors or norms. A couple can discuss sex, eroticism or issues of carnality but the same thing becomes a subject of ignominy and is likely to put us to shame in a different environment. It is of course your value systems, and there are some societies, primitive societies now vanished, wherein discussing sex in the family freely is not a taboo. I labeled it as porn looking at it from a lens specific to a particular social fabric. It is not a general outlook, and it is my individual perception.

Today we are not naive and watch soap operas or commercials aplenty and we watch in togetherness, in company with our family members. It means that we all are exposed to such attributes. I do not write from an ethical or moral lens. But what is wrong if we come across things of sex, eroticisms galore
What is the measurement of porn? Does it mean the book has a just a few instances of erotic dialogues? And you need more erotic or x-rated examples? By all standards the book is porn and only if we look at it from an unaffected or un-mired lens.

[mayneverhave]

So by your arguments, we should call, say James Joyce's Ulysses pornography as well?

With a middle-aged Irishman masturbating on the beach and his wife farting in bed - how could you not consider that pornographic?

:lol:

[Etienne]

By all standards the book is porn and only if we look at it from an unaffected or un-mired lens.

You come and argue that it is porn from your cultural perspective, than change your mind at the end and say it is porn by all standards. What are those standards that you speak of? And what are "all" the standards? And where do they come from? You are just bringing back your cultural lens back in the picture but as something like the absolute standard, don't you even realize it?


With a middle-aged Irishman masturbating on the beach and his wife farting in bed - how could you not consider that pornographic?

By ALL standards, Ulysses is first and foremost a porn mag.:lol:

[Karen_Leslie]

I think the definition of porn is so nebulous that this is an impossible question.

If the deeper question is "Is Lolita a lot of disgusting and/or arousing content wrapped in an intellectual wrapper", then I think the answer is no. The disgusting and/or arousing content is also handled intellectually:D. It's very consistent.

[ballb]

Can`t be porn.It`s written by Nabakov and it is not shelved among those seedy paperbacks marked "erotica"

[AlexisAlexis]

It's unquestionable that Lolita has a strong erotic undertone, but I fail to see the problem. Isn't vulgarity intellectual? Isn't pornography art? They are reflections and symbols of reality, threads of beauty if looked at right, and they can't be excluded from culture without limiting it.

I absolutely agree with the above quote. Unfortunately, many people fail to see what's behind the "vulgarity and erotic undertone" of the novel...

[blazeofglory]

Artistic fervors consecrate the novel, and if you keep this arty thing or if we have to set the in-thing of creativity the novel turns up as a book of vulgarity, and of course literary grandiloquence bumped up the image of the work. When plain truths are ornamented they become distorted and that was exactly what happened when we ogle the book. When we come across instances that take us aback we become biased or something preoccupies the mind that the writer is a big shot and must not be criticized.

[kelby_lake]

The 'arty thing' is inextricably part of the novel.

[ChinaRose]

Lolita is not porn. It is erotic, but it is far away from porn, for porn described sex in all chapters. But Lolita really arouse one question for me: I cannot tell which is art, for "art" ,it could be filth at one era, and it will become a masterpiece at anther era.

[Nightshade]

: I cannot tell which is art, for "art" ,it could be filth at one era, and it will become a masterpiece at anther era.

True look at Pamela for goodness sake!

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I haven't read it, but am definitely planning to. Porn or not, I will enjoy it, because I am not afraid to admit I am not particularly adverse to pornography.

I do find it odd, though, to some Lolita is perfectly acceptable, especially since it concerns an underage girl, while A Song of Ice and Fire is deplorable. Double standard, anyone?

[JBI]

I haven't read it, but am definitely planning to. Porn or not, I will enjoy it, because I am not afraid to admit I am not particularly adverse to pornography.

I do find it odd, though, to some Lolita is perfectly acceptable, especially since it concerns an underage girl, while A Song of Ice and Fire is deplorable. Double standard, anyone?

Strange how you are so quick to pass judgment yet you haven't read even the first chapter, to note that the book isn't about sex, and doesn't really feature explicit sex in the sense that Martin's work does, not to mention the fact, that the sexual content of Lolita is carefully calculated to sound revealing, but really only suggesting, or removing. Not to mention the fact that there is a less nihilistic vision in Lolita, and that the book isn't about the abuse of a child as much as it is the abuse of a pedophile from the child.

Whereas Nabokov works in metaphorical language, and traces, Martin works in direct narration, and explicit revelation. The result is very different, especially since the narrator is the central perspective, whereas in Martin there is a third person narrator, corrupting things to a greater extent.



But of course, you haven't read the text. If you are reading it to find pornography, I think you are mislead. If not, then I think you should consider rewording your post, because as it stands, it seems that you are almost eager to embrace a vision of child pornography.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

So, am I wrong? I thought the book involved a man who has sex with a young girl. You can twist that any way you want, but it doesn't change that you're being extremely hypocritical.

[JBI]

So, am I wrong? I thought the book involved a man who has sex with a young girl. You can twist that any way you want, but it doesn't change that you're being extremely hypocritical.

The book is written from an acknowledged narrator in the past tense, meaning the whole thing is reflection. I am not being a hypocrite, because I can see the difference between texts (of which I have read, and you have not). The tone, presentation, context, narration, and overall message are different.

It is not the act itself which is abhorrent, in truth, it is the way it is presented. Read the text, and then you'll see the difference. The text doesn't have things for the thrills of its adolescent male readers, but rather for a purpose. But of course, this is futile, since you haven't read the novel, and you are just arguing for the sake of it.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

". . . since you haven't read the novel, and you are just arguing for the sake of it."

And you aren't?

Anyways, I said I was planning on reading. But it STILL doesn't change that you like one book that has sex, a book some see as pure porn, and anothe where sex plays a small part, as an abomination.

[blazeofglory]

I absolutely agree with the above quote. Unfortunately, many people fail to see what's behind the "vulgarity and erotic undertone" of the novel...

This is exactly all I I have been arguing about. The acceptance that the novel has vulgarity and eroticism aplenty. When we embroider nakedness, obscenity or x-rated contents with ornaments or glossy fabrics we forget the nakedness. But it is very much there whether we get swayed by the externals.

I is human nature to see nature through a prismatic device not through a naked eye. And we take the sex quotient for granted when we become swayed by the beauty of it.

I have not presented my ideas at all through an ethical lens, but only to accentuate that there is vulgarity and eroticism the way we commonly understand the term both literally and figuratively.

[Zee.]

". . . since you haven't read the novel, and you are just arguing for the sake of it."

And you aren't?

Anyways, I said I was planning on reading. But it STILL doesn't change that you like one book that has sex, a book some see as pure porn, and anothe where sex plays a small part, as an abomination.


I'm sorry but Lolita is far too complex .. in the sense that it has been debated constantly over it's position in the literary world, for someone to be arguing on the basis of well, nothing. You have not read the novel so how can you have an opinion of it?

Read it, and then come back and express your views, for this is a thread questioning the content of Lolita, yes?
Therefore, how can you express a view when you haven't been exposed to that content? you can't.


Now, my opinion is that Lolita is far from porn. Porn is used to incite sexual gratification, Lolita in my opinion, doesn't at any point, "incite" sexual arousal in the reader. The novel is beautifully written, but going deeper than that, I feel it explores a darker kind of desire. An exploitive one? Yes. But porn? No. And it's insulting, actually, to consider it to be so.

[Zee.]

I read Lolita once and couldn't do it again. The main character disgusted me too much.
Whenever i read, I always take an unbiased view, but Humbert just.. i felt that he really baited the reader, especially when he referred to the reader as his "jury"

Though i agree it is not porn and blah blah blah, i could never agree with someone who could say that the story of Lolita is an acceptable one. I don't mean the novel itself, because it is written so very beautifully. i mean what the novel is about. Because, at the heart of it, Humbert is a perverted old man and young Lolita is left unprotected from him.. and when you take away the beautiful, eloquent writing, that is still the heart of it.
Porn, no. Is the novel vulgar and terrible, exploitive and sickening? No. Humbert is.

[JCamilo]

Yes, of course HH is a monster. Nabokov let it clear, not only in interviews when he is angry to see any sympathy towards him and not Lolita but also when HH slips with his lies or create really simple-minded arguments trying to justify his actions based on Lolita lack of innocence. He trick us, but he is a liar. But he is suffering because in the end he can keep what he is stealing from young girls. May be some short of intelectual suffering, but that is it.
Anyways, it is wonderful indeed. But not nice. Aesthetic pleasure can came from things that are awful after all.

[PeterL]

I haven't read it, but am definitely planning to. Porn or not, I will enjoy it, because I am not afraid to admit I am not particularly adverse to pornography.

I do find it odd, though, to some Lolita is perfectly acceptable, especially since it concerns an underage girl, while A Song of Ice and Fire is deplorable. Double standard, anyone?

If you enjoy porn, then you will be disappointed with Lolita.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Maybe I won't read it, I don't know. Not because it isn't porn, lol. Just because there is so much to read, this just doesn't sound that enticing.

[Caspa]

'Lolita' is an alright read. It's certainly not pornographic though. But that's from the viewpoint of a 20th century teenager. I guess a reader from the time in when 'Lolita' was first published would see the book in a much more controversial light.

But to me, I just saw it as an alright read. It's very well written, Nabokov was a master linguist, and it's hard not to appreciate this, however it just didn't grip me all that much. Perhaps I could appreciate it more on a re-read one day.

[Zee.]

Caspa, I agree.
Though beautiful, it wasn't enough to make me really enjoy it.
After i read the line about her insides hurting i felt rather quesy and more disgusted with Humbert than before. Sounds pretty childish i know.

[JCamilo]

We talk about the 50's as if they really had that different perception of pornography than us. Heck, they had Henry Miller and Batailie already. Anyone should read Story of Eye to see anything that is really "pornographic"... They had about 200 years of Sade. Even if it was an age of big conservatorism, there is more reasons behind the attack against Lolita.
The thing is much of the hatred the book caused is Nabokov's fault. He is soo good using the unreliable narrator that most normal readers (Not the kind of reader that Nabokov writes too, Lolita fame attracted more than one butterfly to his net) were at first hooked by HH. He is charming (after all he is an intellectual with Style while writing) after all. So, many people understood the book as a defense of pedophilie because they are hooked by HH. That is what gave the book his "eek, dirty book" status more than anything else.
One with a different level of reading, able to bypass the most direct interpretation would get the irony (Just Nabokov irony is hard, too intellectual the guy is one of those writers for writers) of the book. Feeling disgusted by the book or HH is a great thing. He is meant to be the villain of the book and not the hero.
One of the things that made me admire Lolita and Nabokov more is when he wrote it. He did it after Joyce and Borges seemed to push up a higher standart on the Novels (Borges is more the epitaph of romances with Pierre Menard) that the will of Nabokov (and the few others who kept writing good romances) to pull with such great book, when he knew Finnegans Wake or Ulysses are around is amazing. But that is just my ranting...