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".
“Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””
“If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.
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.Originally Posted by blazeofglory
It is not about sexual perversion. It is about a man trying to symbolically regain his youth.
Honestly. Go out and buy a porno, then make a comparison.
The simple answer? Yes. Yes it is.
Without the deviant behavior it depicts, it's just another book.
If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got.
- Mark Twain
you can't call every book with sex in it porn.
Amen...
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.
Honestly, the book is about aesthetics not about pedophilia. Pedophilia is just a backdrop for some irony, and some interesting plot techniques.
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.
Et l'unique cordeau des trompettes marines
Apollinaire, Le chantre
Porn is explicit. There's not really anything explicit in Lolita.
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.
"an artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it." paul valery
It depends on the intent
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.
“Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””
“If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.
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.
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?
If Lolita is completely symbolic, what do you think it symbolizes?It is my opinion that Lolita is almost completely figurative, symbolic.
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