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Re: Nabokov & Playboy ...
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Anthony Stadlen [quoting -- A. S's link "Playboy often bills itself as America’s most intelligent smut magazine and Nabokov was certainly one of America’s most intelligent smut authors."] Did not Nabokov invite just this description by his bizarre collusion with Playboy? If "Lolita" is a truly moral work, what was he playing at? To Nabokovians it may betoken some kind of amused sophisticion, but does it not demonstrate a moral confusion?
JM: When one ascribes "a moral" to Nabokov's writings (or "moral confusion"), one is positing a "meaning," or an authorial intention to his novels to be able to interpret them according to our values and experiences. Did Nabokov intend to be read from a "solipsistic" stand-point, that is, in a sterile and non-judgemental way?
I don't think so, for he seems to have beene aware of the risks presented by such a non-interactive positioning (its ethics restricted to maintaining a strict neutrality and non-judgementality in relation to his work, as "Art"). By deliberately ignoring society, and a reader's meddling morality or limitations, he'd be accepting the mortality and transience of his "infinity of emotions" - for there'd be no external referent to them ( a common-reader is such a referent and recipient). Although Nabokov has stated that he wanted to "invent his ideal reader" (or something like that), I dare to think that he was desperately poking his readers into establishing with him a true interaction, be it by love, admiration, even repulsion and hate.
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JM: When one ascribes "a moral" to Nabokov's writings (or "moral confusion"), one is positing a "meaning," or an authorial intention to his novels to be able to interpret them according to our values and experiences. Did Nabokov intend to be read from a "solipsistic" stand-point, that is, in a sterile and non-judgemental way?
I don't think so, for he seems to have beene aware of the risks presented by such a non-interactive positioning (its ethics restricted to maintaining a strict neutrality and non-judgementality in relation to his work, as "Art"). By deliberately ignoring society, and a reader's meddling morality or limitations, he'd be accepting the mortality and transience of his "infinity of emotions" - for there'd be no external referent to them ( a common-reader is such a referent and recipient). Although Nabokov has stated that he wanted to "invent his ideal reader" (or something like that), I dare to think that he was desperately poking his readers into establishing with him a true interaction, be it by love, admiration, even repulsion and hate.
.
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
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/