John M: your points well taken. Re-Evison’s “youth,” I suppose that’s relative — he’s just HALF my age, bless his damp ears! I’ve not read Lulu or any Evison, and made no judgment thereon; but I can still detect unfair criticism, especially what appeared to be a contradiction: “damned” for “VN-derivation” and “double-damned” for failing to follow VN’s “moral compass.” Lulu’s plot/ambience is sufficiently different from Lolita’s and Ada’s that it seems rather fruitless to push comparisons and tabulate “influences.”
IF IF you feel that novels about evil-doings and –doers MUST spell out the moral deficiencies (perhaps, Hayes-coded, by ensuring relentless, just punishment, lest the reader imagine that evil is being promoted!) then Lulu would appear as “morally anaerobic,” and as, queer, say, as a Clockwork Orange?
Is there a Nabokovian consensus here? How explicit the SERMONIZING?
PS: Someone objected to your use of “morally anaerobic” on the misguided over-literate grounds that “books don’t provide oxygen” (I paraphrase from memory). I find the metaphor quite attractive.
I find it very interesting that you recommend me an intertext without having read the text itself (Evison's Lulu).
As a matter of fact, I'll take that euro.
I admit that Will Miller (Evison's protagonist) is arguably as much like Van Veen as he is like Humbert Humbert. However Lulu doesn't resemble Ada Veen in the least. Ada is haughty, intelligent and articulate—above all, she consents to her eventual sexual relationship with Van. For goodness' sake, she helps write the book.
Evison's Lulu, on the other hand, is fractured, sentimental and helpless. Largely voiceless, she is a child, much like Dolores Haze is a child, being wrecked by the lusts of a family member.
So even though Will and Lulu are coevals, the configuration of their relationship much more closely mimics that of Humbert and Lolita than that of Van and Ada.
Mr. Kelly-Bootle.
First. Evison, age 39, isn't as young as you might think. He has been writing screen plays and radio shows for most of his adult life.
As regards Humbert's remorse: my criticism was not that Will (Evison's protagonist) should, like Humbert, feel shame. Rather, I merely suggest that Will's actions should be considered in their moral dimension. As it stands, the book is morally anaerobic, which (I think) is irresponsible.
As regards being derivative: I have no trouble with Evison's borrowing or writing in a mould - but he needs, at least, to add something original, something of interest, differentiate himself. He does not.
John Minervini
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From: David Powelstock <pstock@BRANDEIS.EDU> Date: August 8, 2008 10:41:28 AM EDT To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] borrowed from Vladimir Nabokov¹s Loli ta ...
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