I think that is perhaps a misreading, I urge again for you to look at the whole Scepter of Passion bit - he seems pubescent.Quote:
Originally Posted by PeterL
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I think that is perhaps a misreading, I urge again for you to look at the whole Scepter of Passion bit - he seems pubescent.Quote:
Originally Posted by PeterL
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.
True, true.
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.
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by blazeofglory
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.
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.
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by blazeofglory
Um, it's not a book for children, so that's a pretty stupid argument.Quote:
Originally Posted by blazeofglory
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.
Why does it matter?Quote:
Originally Posted by blazeofglory
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?
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.
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?
blaze, i think it's time we rename this post 'a monument to stupidity'
Really?Quote:
Originally Posted by kelby_lake
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
Same with me, and Lolita is not obscene.Quote:
Originally Posted by 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.Quote:
Originally Posted by one_raven
Honestly there are more books I'd class as pornographic which are far worse.
Of course you can - if it is a subjective value assessment.Quote:
Originally Posted by kelby_lake
"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.Quote:
Originally Posted by kelby_lake
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.
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.
Anyway, pornography's supposed to be arousing, isn't it? I'd be worried if anyone found the novel arousing...
Why?
Porn or not, some of the passages are definitely erotic.
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!"Quote:
Originally Posted by one_raven
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.
Still fighting about it?! :alien:
It's not porn.
Humbert and Annabel's bit is but they're teenagers, what dyu expect?Quote:
Originally Posted by mona amon
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?Quote:
Originally Posted by kelby_lake
Even then, I'm not so sure that only perverts and peadophiles would find it titillating. This passage for instance-
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).Quote:
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 ...
Well, if they did considering that it's paedophilic, not merely because of the language.
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
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
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by kelby_lake
So by your arguments, we should call, say James Joyce's Ulysses pornography as well?Quote:
Originally Posted by blazeofglory
Romeo and Juliet is pornographic, 1001 Nights (not burton edition) certainly.... Geez, we are all pervs.
o snap, i got hard a couple of times reading american psycho :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by kelby_lake
that wasnt a joke.
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.
With a middle-aged Irishman masturbating on the beach and his wife farting in bed - how could you not consider that pornographic?Quote:
Originally Posted by Etienne
:lol:
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?Quote:
By all standards the book is porn and only if we look at it from an unaffected or un-mired lens.
By ALL standards, Ulysses is first and foremost a porn mag.:lol:Quote:
With a middle-aged Irishman masturbating on the beach and his wife farting in bed - how could you not consider that pornographic?
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.
Can`t be porn.It`s written by Nabakov and it is not shelved among those seedy paperbacks marked "erotica"