Is Lolita Porn?

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Originally Posted by DapperDrake

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.

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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?

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

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Originally Posted by DapperDrake

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.

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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.

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

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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?

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

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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?

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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". ;)

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...

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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for material to be porn it must have been created with the sole crude purpose of sexually exciting people and no other purpose.

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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?

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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.

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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?"

Lolita's supposed to be shocking and repulsive.

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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...

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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Originally Posted by Petronius

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

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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!

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?"

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

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Originally Posted by Petronius

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?

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Petronius

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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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.

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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.

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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. ;)

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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.

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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

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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?

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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. ;)