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Re: [THOUGHTS invited ON A SIGHTING]
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Matt Roth wrote: ..."...I am ever exasperated by publishers and film companies that characterize _Lolita_ as a "love story." I rather think sexual predator is a better description (though of course still terribly reductive) of HH than, say, lover or sweetheart! (...)Certainly Lolita is never shown to be "in love" with HH(...) Anyway, I'd be interested to hear
where you see a "love-story" in the novel.
Jansy Mello: Matt, every tag is reductive, as you mentioned in your commentary. Usually it reflects more about its user than about the novel being worked over or enjoyed. "Lolita" comprises two texts: John Ray Jr's "Foreword" and HH's "Confessions of..." . Lolita, "herself", wrote nothing so I feel free to stick to this hypothesis, that in "Lolita" we find HH writing his "love-story" ( love has not to be retributed, nor mature nor sane to be seen as "love"?).
But perhaps I didn't make my point clear. I departed from Nina L. Krushcheva's article linking "Western world", "sexual freedom", "political freedom", "modernity" to "sexual predators" and VN's "old" fiction. In my opinion N.L.K example was not only reductive but also imprecise and distortive.
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where you see a "love-story" in the novel.
Jansy Mello: Matt, every tag is reductive, as you mentioned in your commentary. Usually it reflects more about its user than about the novel being worked over or enjoyed. "Lolita" comprises two texts: John Ray Jr's "Foreword" and HH's "Confessions of..." . Lolita, "herself", wrote nothing so I feel free to stick to this hypothesis, that in "Lolita" we find HH writing his "love-story" ( love has not to be retributed, nor mature nor sane to be seen as "love"?).
But perhaps I didn't make my point clear. I departed from Nina L. Krushcheva's article linking "Western world", "sexual freedom", "political freedom", "modernity" to "sexual predators" and VN's "old" fiction. In my opinion N.L.K example was not only reductive but also imprecise and distortive.
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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