"many who come to Lolita expecting to be horrified or titillated will find themselves disappointed"
But along with experiencing "literary, intellectual rapture" the readers are horrified and titillated. Is it not hypocritical to deny it?
is it not an essential part of the experience of reading Lolita? didn't Nabokov want the reader to be horrified because they have allowed themselves to be titillated?
Date: Fri, 1 May 2015 11:29:36 -0400
From: barriekarp@GMAIL.COM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] sighting
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
"the greatest novel of rapture in modern fiction"? oh, literary, intellectual rapture. But that's not what the ad means or what people thought or think still after all this time.
Barrie Karp
<"Lolita - Vladmir Nabokov">
<"A banned book whose reception has often obscured its actual content, many who come to Lolita expecting to be horrified or titillated will find themselves disappointed. A bitter-hearted satire on American values in the mid-20th century, its few quasi-erotic passages are few and far between. That has not stopped its controversial subject matter from finding it banned in the United Kingdom and the usually liberal France in the fifties after one of the first tabloid morality panics where launched upon it by the Sunday Express.">
| Google Search the archive |
Contact the Editors |
NOJ | Zembla | Nabokv-L Policies |
Subscription options | AdaOnline | NSJ Ada Annotations | L-Soft Search the archive | VN Bibliography Blog |
All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.