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http://www.thenation.com/article/august-18-1958-vladimir-nabokovs-lolita-is-published-in-the-us/
- BOOKS AND IDEAS <http://www.thenation.com/subject/books-and-ideas/>
- 150TH ANNIVERSARY
<http://www.thenation.com/admin-taxonomy/150th-anniversary/>
August 18, 1958: Vladimir Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’ Is Published in the US“Lolita by
high art transmutes persons, motives and actions which in ordinary life are
considered indecent, into objects of delight, compassion and contemplation.”
By Richard Kreitner <http://www.thenation.com/authors/richard-kreitner/>
Twitter <https://twitter.com/richardkreitner>AUGUST 18, 2015
Scene from the 1962 film adaptation of Lolita, directed by Stanley
Kubrick. (Wikimedia
Commons)
Vladimir Nabokov’s *Lolita*, about an academic named Humbert Humbert who
falls in love with a little girl, was published in the United States for
the first time on this day in 1957. It had already been reviewed
<https://www.scribd.com/doc/274416884/August-18-1958> in *The Nation* by
fiction writer George P. Elliott more than a year earlier.
*Lolita* was published in English two years ago in Paris, but it has not
yet come out in this country…. I suppose our publishers are afraid that
*Lolita* would bring them lawsuits for being pornographic and immoral. And
pornographers would, I am sure, find it fairly satisfactory for their lewd
fantasies. But only fairly satisfactory, for, like *Ulysses* before it,
*Lolita* by high art transmutes persons, motives and actions which in
ordinary life are considered indecent, into objects of delight, compassion
and contemplation. *Lolita* will turn no reasonable citizen into a
pornographer; the indecency in it, like the crime, is always seen with a
clarity which does not encourage the fabricating of fantasies….
The book’s chief offense, I guess, is that it presents a sexual pervert as
a man to be known and pitied, a man of some essential dignity. Its other
offense, perhaps as great, is that it satirizes in delighted detail our
adman pandering to childishness, ease, vulgarity, titillation,
mindlessness. Yet *Lolita* is not primarily a satire but a comedy of the
exuberant Rabelaisian sort. It is superabundant in verbal energy (Nabokov’s
command over American idiom is a marvel greater even than Conrad’s over
literary English) and it heaps details of our daily life before us until it
forces our wonder even more than our repugnance. It preserves that strange
doubleness of comedy which creates in many a discomfort they resist…for you
identify with, feel familiar with, see yourself in, a character whom you at
the same time know to have performed abominable deeds. It transmutes, as
only a great book could, this diseased man and this banal girl into people
whom we know so well that they becomes others—not symbols, not types of
Man, not aspects of ourselves, but persons towards whom we are permitted
and encouraged and at last obliged to exercise our highest charity.
August 18, 1958 <https://www.scribd.com/doc/274416884/August-18-1958>
.
///////////////////
posted by
Barrie Karp
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- BOOKS AND IDEAS <http://www.thenation.com/subject/books-and-ideas/>
- 150TH ANNIVERSARY
<http://www.thenation.com/admin-taxonomy/150th-anniversary/>
August 18, 1958: Vladimir Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’ Is Published in the US“Lolita by
high art transmutes persons, motives and actions which in ordinary life are
considered indecent, into objects of delight, compassion and contemplation.”
By Richard Kreitner <http://www.thenation.com/authors/richard-kreitner/>
Twitter <https://twitter.com/richardkreitner>AUGUST 18, 2015
Scene from the 1962 film adaptation of Lolita, directed by Stanley
Kubrick. (Wikimedia
Commons)
Vladimir Nabokov’s *Lolita*, about an academic named Humbert Humbert who
falls in love with a little girl, was published in the United States for
the first time on this day in 1957. It had already been reviewed
<https://www.scribd.com/doc/274416884/August-18-1958> in *The Nation* by
fiction writer George P. Elliott more than a year earlier.
*Lolita* was published in English two years ago in Paris, but it has not
yet come out in this country…. I suppose our publishers are afraid that
*Lolita* would bring them lawsuits for being pornographic and immoral. And
pornographers would, I am sure, find it fairly satisfactory for their lewd
fantasies. But only fairly satisfactory, for, like *Ulysses* before it,
*Lolita* by high art transmutes persons, motives and actions which in
ordinary life are considered indecent, into objects of delight, compassion
and contemplation. *Lolita* will turn no reasonable citizen into a
pornographer; the indecency in it, like the crime, is always seen with a
clarity which does not encourage the fabricating of fantasies….
The book’s chief offense, I guess, is that it presents a sexual pervert as
a man to be known and pitied, a man of some essential dignity. Its other
offense, perhaps as great, is that it satirizes in delighted detail our
adman pandering to childishness, ease, vulgarity, titillation,
mindlessness. Yet *Lolita* is not primarily a satire but a comedy of the
exuberant Rabelaisian sort. It is superabundant in verbal energy (Nabokov’s
command over American idiom is a marvel greater even than Conrad’s over
literary English) and it heaps details of our daily life before us until it
forces our wonder even more than our repugnance. It preserves that strange
doubleness of comedy which creates in many a discomfort they resist…for you
identify with, feel familiar with, see yourself in, a character whom you at
the same time know to have performed abominable deeds. It transmutes, as
only a great book could, this diseased man and this banal girl into people
whom we know so well that they becomes others—not symbols, not types of
Man, not aspects of ourselves, but persons towards whom we are permitted
and encouraged and at last obliged to exercise our highest charity.
August 18, 1958 <https://www.scribd.com/doc/274416884/August-18-1958>
.
///////////////////
posted by
Barrie Karp
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
AdaOnline: "http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/
The Nabokov Society of Japan's Annotations to Ada: http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html
The VN Bibliography Blog: http://vnbiblio.com/
Search the archive with L-Soft: https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L
Manage subscription options :http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=NABOKV-L