“There is a common attack on art that thinks it is a defense. It is the argument that art has no impact on our lives, that art is not dangerous, and therefore all art is beyond reproach, and we have no grounds to object to any of it, and any objection is censorship.”
I’ve encountered that view (specifically about SF, from someone who I suspect was some sort of puppy – it was a random encounter on another person’s G+ comment thread, so I can’t be sure). I disagree with it profoundly. Who we represent in media, and how we represent them, matters, because it both reflects and shapes how we, as a society, think about our fellow humans. That’s what I mean when I say that fiction is political.
(via MrsA Wiggins)
Originally shared by Chloe CD
[…]I was trying to articulate that there is a canonical body of literature in which women’s stories are taken away from them, in which all we get are men’s stories. And that these are sometimes not only books that don’t describe the world from a woman’s point of view, but inculcate denigration and degradation of women as cool things to do.
http://lithub.com/men-explain-lolita-to-me
As someone who is currently interrogating pop culture for a podcast and a blog when she can manage to write, I am having all the feels about this essay.
Not sure if it takes a man. But Humbert Humbert is a monster. He is fixated on nymphets — due to psychological trauma of a his first love dying when he was 9.
Sounds like an excuse to me. The book is told in first-person after all. He’s just a creep. And when he tries as an adult to have a pimp bring him a 10-year-old, he’s absolutely repellent.
Funny thing is, HH loves Delores and wants her to do well. And yet he cannot get past his sexual attraction. Worse, HH feels like a monster for being unable to suppress his desires.
That is why Lolita is a classic. It’s creepy, and we hate HH for how he destroys a child. And yet, we understand him.
We all have desires that are destructive we cannot control. We eat junk food, knowing its killing us. We smoke. We go to happy hour, have a few drinks, and drive home.
Many of those vices also threaten others.
Nabokov makes that clear with HH. We can destroy and act like a monster, and yet trick ourselves into believing we are not monsters.
BTW, these insights are based on those of my college lit teacher. She was female and a mother.
I could never have read it without having felt shivers run through me. For me, it’s a sort of a horror book. More so, because I’m forced to understand the monster, and empathising with beasts is something that makes us realise that we are all capable of evil, no matter how much we insist that we aren’t. Same feeling I got when reading the Hannibal Lecter trilogy.
Aalia Khan Yousafzai Interesting point about the Lecter series. But the author was a lot less subtle than Nabokov. Hannibal was a sociopath — capable of manipulating emotions. He had no delusions about himself.
HH on the other hand really thought he loved Delores. At least he tells us he did — and unreliable, self-serving narrators aren’t the best source… Maybe he did love her, but he destroyed her.
I think that’s what makes Lolita a classic and the Harris books just thrillers.
Aalia Khan Yousafzai Interesting point about the Lecter series. But the author was a lot less subtle than Nabokov. Hannibal was a sociopath — capable of manipulating emotions. He had no delusions about himself.
HH on the other hand really thought he loved Delores. At least he tells us he did — and unreliable, self-serving narrators aren’t the best source… Maybe he did love her, but he destroyed her.
I think that’s what makes Lolita a classic and the Harris books just thrillers.
He didn’t really love her. It was obsession, possession. He said he loved her, but of course he tried to make himself sound better than he was. He was selfish and destroyed her to satisfy his own desires.
He didn’t really love her. It was obsession, possession. He said he loved her, but of course he tried to make himself sound better than he was. He was selfish and destroyed her to satisfy his own desires.
Valkyrie Page No doubt. HH.SAYS he loved her, but he’s an unreliable narrator. He’s a creep lying to himself. That seems key to the book. It’s about a monster decieving himself.
You hate him. Hate how Delores comes out in the end — because of him. And yet the book is re-readable. Classics are like that when they’re good.
When HH “excuses” himself for his action because he lost his first love at nine, I’m like, “Really? Life sucks, get a helmet. Let it go. Be a man and get a real woman who will oppose you. Not a helpless child.”
Yet I will re-read it one day. It’s a book I hate to have liked as much as I did,
Valkyrie Page No doubt. HH.SAYS he loved her, but he’s an unreliable narrator. He’s a creep lying to himself. That seems key to the book. It’s about a monster decieving himself.
You hate him. Hate how Delores comes out in the end — because of him. And yet the book is re-readable. Classics are like that when they’re good.
When HH “excuses” himself for his action because he lost his first love at nine, I’m like, “Really? Life sucks, get a helmet. Let it go. Be a man and get a real woman who will oppose you. Not a helpless child.”
Yet I will re-read it one day. It’s a book I hate to have liked as much as I did,