Thread 24570014

Is there a reason to read this if I'm not a paedophile? Genuinely considering reading it but I encountered a thread a couple of weeks ago where the only people arguing in favour of reading it were all talking about how they were attracted to kids or following up their points by implying they want to fuck kids.

Hey Anon. I imagine you are new to this whole "reading" thing, so let me help you out. First you find a book you want to read. Then you read the first page. If you like it, read all the other pages until you reach the end. If you don't like it, don't read any other pages. At no point do you need to make a thread on 4chan dot org about whether or not you should read the book. I hope this helps you learn to read books someday. All the best.

>>24570021
Grow up, retard.

>>24570014 (OP)
Just read it. The book has beautiful prose and nice story telling.
I did read the book, enjoyed it and don't want to fuck kids. Its just a book with an interesting topic. Not some kid-rape-manifesto.
And compared to other stuff that is being discussed here (Sade, Bataille, Sacher-Masoch, etc) it really isn't even close to being that fucked up.

>>24570028
Nta but very ironic post

>>24570014 (OP)
It just makes you hate little girls if you ever liked them, shows that even young girls will betray you for chad

Sure, why not? It's an alright novel. Even if you're not a pedophile, I'm sure it'll at least make you nostalgic for those crushes you had as an adolescent boy to adolescent girls. It could be a horror story too, depending on your tolerance for these types of immoralities. The pedo shit for the most part didn't faze me, and at times I even found myself sympathetic to his feelings, but there were a few moments where I felt genuine disgust for Humbert. I hadn't expected such a visceral reaction. It's a nice read overall though.

>>24570014 (OP)
If this makes you want to fuck kids, you were already a closet pedo

>>24570086
Isn't the joke that he's a horrible person but the writing causes one to sympathize with him?

>>24570014 (OP)
>>24570333
>>24570981
I don't know but I love this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syBcG7avsA0

>>24570014 (OP)
Yes. Also you need to be a Scottish king to read Macbeth and a meadow rabbit to read Watership Down. Ignore books whose protagonists aren't like you.

>>24570981
Lolita has some of the most beautiful prose ever written in the English language. It's remarkable especially given that obviously English isn't Nabokov's native tongue.

It shows how utterly pathetic Humbert is. So no, it was not written to garner sympathy for him. Humbert remains one of the most pathetic characters in all of literature IMO.

It's absolutely required reading. It's an incredible, heart wrenching story

>>24571074
I have a theory that Nabokov and Joseph Conrad both had some of the greatest writing in the English language precisely because they were not native English speakers, so their conception of the language was very different from native speakers

>>24570014 (OP)
That's how the cookie crumbles, anon. You want to read high /lit/? You've gotta want to fuck them kids.

>>24571074
>>24571110
This isn’t entirely true, Nabokov learned Russian, French, and English all at the same time as a child, whereas Conrad didn’t learn English until later in life, which is why Nabokov has a much greater command of the language.

>>24571031
Love you anon. People like OP have been taught literature by their English teachers from such a narcissistic point of view. Instead of looking at literature as a door or a gateway into another world they are taught from the perspective of what lessons from this book did you learn to apply to your own life? How can you use the protagonist's perspective to improve your life? I'm convinced the majority of English teachers DON'T want kids to read books.

>>24571171
Point taken but still remarkable IMO

>>24571464
Nabokov says this in the afterword.
>There are gentle souls who would pronounce Lolita meaningless because it does not teach them anything. I am neither a reader nor a writer of didactic fiction, and, despite John Ray's assertion, Lolita has no moral in tow.
>It is childish to study a work of fiction in order to gain information about a country or about a social class or about the author.
This kills the STEMcel.

Christ commands death for pedophiles.

People who rape and abuse children do not deserve to live.

Even Christ agrees. Does not even matter if they are President of the United States.

If there is a people in this world that I hate it is those who rape, abuse, and harm children.

>>24570981
Sort of. I've seen a lot of responses, mostly from women, where they find the entire thing an irredeemable horror story and the great prose being its most sinister aspect.

>>24570014 (OP)
protagonists are not surrogates for the reader
the ideas and personalities depicted in fiction do not inform the ideas and personality of the viewer

hey guys !! is there a reason for me to watch Dexter if I'm not a serial killer?

>>24572194
"Dexter" is another piece of shit psy-op from the pile, designed to desensitize the population. Same as all the other shit Hollyweird does to mess with the mind of the whole humanity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkJmtIGgjGA

>>24570014 (OP)
Based on this post, you won't appreciate it. A book either has merit or it doesn't, the characteristics of some random people you happened to hear talk about it is an irrelevancy.

>>24570033
This anon is correct. Even most modern television crime shows have more messed up plots than Lolita. It's an immensely well crafted book, any serious reader should be able to appreciate it.

>>24571829
My God I love Nabokov even more now. Thank you anon ;)

>>24571829
Everything we create and think is a mirror of ourselves and the world. A different author, world, or country would most certainly have created a different work.
t. story enjoyer

>>24573409
This is super ironic to me
see >>24573672

>>24570981
Humbert as a character is highly charismatic, intelligent and funny so he's easy to like which was probably intentional

>>24570014 (OP)
>pae
Why do you bongs write like retards?

>>24573714
I don't see why you're confused. Everyone has a mind of his own. There are no child prodigies in writing because you have to know things in order to write. This comes from the environment we surround ourselves in, the relationships we form, the art we consume, the books we read, etc.

What the writer writes is a mirror. That doesn't his book is mirror for you.
see>>24571464

Nabokov wrote for himself. He didn't give a damn about audience approval.

>>24571171
>Nabokov has a much greater command of the language.
Where does this assertion stem from? The fact that he used more obscure words? Conrad is the much more refined writer.

>>24570981
>joke
The whole book is Nabokov’s attempt at a Poe style story framed as a murderer’s confession. Reread the opening and count the Poe references

>>24570021
>If you don't like it, don't read any other pages
ISHYGDDT

>>24571838
>Even Christ agrees
"...these little ones which believe in Me"

Modern professional pedos exclusively fuck Indochinese kids from atheist households, they're in the clear with Jesus.

>>24571171
>Nabokov learned Russian, French, and English all at the same time as a child
Polylingual creole of Russian aristocracy is fucking ugly. Everything written in it unironically ended up in the dustbin, while the greats towering to this day abandoned it by learning actual languages from their living environments.

Nabby didn't learn any actual languages, because he never knew any living environment. He lived a cardboard life in a postcard world, forever hiding from any drop of reality seeping in. That informed his works and his outlook. He was appalled by living and lived works because life was forever something alien and disturbing for him. Too asymmetrical, too dusty, too loud. It could only become beautiful for him if it was killed, rendered flat, recolored in gouache and covered by glass, like his butterfly collections.

>>24575897
Conrad is a clumsy stylist and his stories are viciously sluggish with hardly any aesthetic appeal, only read what his own translators and critics that supposedly thought him eminent admit of his faultiness. Conrad does not even fall short of Nabokov’s mastery of style.

>>24576013
What the fuck are you saying, retard? Nabokov engaged in sports, was an ardent lepidopterologist who gathered and studied butterflies in the wild, mountaineer, traveller and so forth. What in all of that is indicative of a disdain for outside life?

>>24576052
>engaged in sports, was an ardent lepidopterologist who gathered and studied butterflies in the wild, mountaineer, traveller

>>24576038
>viciously sluggish
Attention span-deprived moron
Conrad actually works toward his narrative and marries his stylism to that goal. /lit/-brained idiots are just more easily impressed by the gaudy verbal masturbation of Nabokov's ilk. Nabokov has no mastery of any single domain, like Conrad was able to communicate the nautical world. Nabokov passed through everything with a single minded fixation on his empty effete "aesthetic pleasure"

>>24576078
You're a nigger.

>>24576105
Concession accepted.

>>24576108
I still don't see a coherent argument on your behalf

>>24576113
The coherent argument is that Nabokov did not like and did not write works that served as vehicles for authentic emotions and convictions, because he spent all his life avoiding authentic emotions and convictions, and instead just dabbled in whatever he liked for as long as he liked it.

He liked boxing and chess, but never took part in a tournament for either. He was an amateur lepidopterist, but he never got into the academic frays of taxonomy, developmental theories or conservation. He traveled across many countries, and none of them he called his home. He married one women, whom he "liked", and had one son, from whom he was perpetually distant and whose parentage he doubted, while also never being emotionally emotionally disturbed by this uncertainty.

Essentially, he was an existential cuck, who found the idea of actual fucking a bit too undignified to his tastes.

>>24575989
lets just hope you also apply this mentality to non-canon books

>>24576135
How many butterfly species have you discovered?

>>24576149
Akshually I was a part of a collective that discovered 3 new species of cicadas, and two of my colleagues have discovered over a dozen of new bat and leech species respectively. That's not really as much of an achievement as you think. It just means you are studying a region that was previously neglected by other specialists. By the estimates of contemporary taxonomy, like 90% of total species diversity remain undiscovered. It's just that nearly all of those species are rare-ish insects that nobody cares about.

>>24570021
fpbp

>>24576013
Total unhinged seething and coping. Laughable, really.

>>24576135
He was also a professor for over 10 years at an Ivy League University. You're just bitter that you can't appreciate the supreme achievement in literature which is Lolita.

>>24576219
>Akshually
Look at this motherfucker like he wasn’t praying someone would bring that up.

Good for you senpai. Proud of you.

>>24576310
>He was also a professor for over 10 years at an Ivy League University

That's exactly my point tho. The life of a language professor is nurturing love, passion and talent in that language among his. You can now list those talented pupils of Nabokov here.

>>24576310
>He was also a professor for over 10 years at an Ivy League University
That's exactly my point tho. The life of a language professor is nurturing love, passion and talent in that language among his students. You can now list those talented pupils of Nabokov here.

>>24576322
What a bizarre criteria to judge a person. You come off as a total schizo anon, meds now.

>>24576322
lol

>>24576322
>bullshit I fantasize about Daddy coming back
That's not a level E's job cunt.

>>24576092
Yes, a story must not be sluggish. If you believe that uncontroversial opinion is an indication of low concentration levels you’re likely a juvenile idiot who feeds on internet narratives. Nostromo is the one of the worst instances of literature ever conceived, and the prose does not even compensate for how fucking dull and bland the story is. Nabokov still filters retard like you and keep the ‘nautical’ horseshit to yourself.

>>24576339
>>24576351
Spurgeon had Woolfe. Trilling had Ginsberg. William Phelps had Sinclair Lewis. What did Nabokov do as a professor beyond giving out copies of AK, talking shit about Dosto and collecting paychecks?

Cardboard man, cardboard life, cardboard career - cardboard author.

>>24570014 (OP)
The magical aspect of this book is the dream which H. H. weaves you into. He is the narrator and that is very important to keep in mind. The storyteller gets the opportunity to present himself however he'd like. He will try to charm you, to make you sympathize with his condition etc. He will retell the events in ways favoring his image. But ultimately veil is dropped due to the sheer absurdity of the whole situation. There is simply no way of retelling the events in a manner which is believable. H.H. is a pathetic rat who's not a loser but a loser among losers, pitied.. he tries to convince you that there was no harm done and that his action was spurred on by Lolita. it's a really funny book about a pathetic man essentially.

The point of the book is that dating little girls is bad.

>>24576911
>he tries to convince you that there was no harm done and that his action was spurred on by Lolita.
I never understood this reading. HH is constantly telling the reader how beastly he is, and including anecdotes about Lolita crying herself to sleep every night, and at the end of the novel he states directly that he believes he should be held legally accountable for raping her, though not accountable for killing Quilty. He definitely tries to make himself understood as a sensitive artistic type, and to be pitied, rather than just hated, but he definitely doesn’t avoid being honest about the fact that he’s an abusive rapist.

>>24576442
Even if everything you say is true it's not a convincing argument that the man was a bad writer. I for one would take a supersonic stylist like him over all but a handful of quaint traditional storytellers.

>>24570014 (OP)
this was written for ironics only.

>>24576911
>that there was no harm done
HH doesnt really try to do this at all.
>>24577884
its more to do with him making a tragic love story out of all that happened. hes not lying to anyone outright with his manuscript for the most part i think (otherwise thered be no reason to include the drugging, the eyeball licking, the murder fantasies for vovlochka, taximovich and charlotte) and him killing charlotte is impossible the way it verifiably happens, tho it could have been quilty (the roles in the play map unto the people involved in the accident). his reasons for writing also change halfway through, as he specifies that he doesnt want to be published until after lolita is dead. he's neurotic, calculating, horny, jealous, an actual artist and a wannabe artist. its hard to keep track of where exactly he is at but that complexity and conflicting sides are what make him real and a beautiful creation.

i wish anyone chimed in on HH's lawyers name being the same as and sharing the same alliteration with clare quilty's (clarence chaote clark, esq). the quilty-uncle ivor pair also reminds me of the lawyer-john ray jr pair, who are also related.

>>24576135
>authentic emotions
he only didnt like sentimentality and the commonplace. i think people calling his work cold stems mostly from how different the tone he is going for can be from most writers, as well as how much of the story is hidden behind some deep diving. thats a lot more authentic than the cheap emotional manipulation found everywhere else imo.
>He liked boxing and chess
he wasnt THAT good at chess, he liked chess puzzles more, and he composed many. i dont see how competition makes a mans emotions more authentic, but he was really competitive too.
>He was an amateur lepidopterist
he was a professional one with many butterflies named after him (and people named many after his characters), and he has proven theories on their migratory patterns and some dubious but radical ones on their mimicry.
>He married one women, whom he "liked"
youre calling his constant pronouncements of love for her a lie? he dedicated every book of his to her i think. he also engaged another woman and cheated on vera once.
>from whom he was perpetually distant
geographically distant after he grew up. even then he moved to europe to be closer. other than that he was constantly pampering him and they worked together on many translations.
>whose parentage he doubted
he looks EXACTLY like him. surely you're pulling this out someone else's ass.
>>24576013
he wasnt just an aristocrat you know. he went through hell, exile, poverty and came out on the other side.
>He lived a cardboard life in a postcard world
his fiction feels insanely fleshed out to me, which makes it more real. he gave plenty of space to ugliness, he just didnt do it in an ugly way.

>>24571838
That verse is not about sexual abuse, liar.
In fact pedophilia not only is it never condemned in the Bible but it is condoned in the old testament.

>>24578713
>he only didnt like sentimentality and the commonplace.
Isn't it super weird, then, that he loved Dickens? Isn't Dickens like the OG sentimental writer, especially of commonplace people?

>>24579256
he didnt like the literarily commonplace, as in cliches. i imagine he would say that "commonplace people" was a failure of perception, since no person or well written character is actually commonplace.

he probably didnt like all of dickens, as with many other authors he praised. he loved bleak house, which i havent read, but judging from the intro it has style.
>LONDON. Michaelmas Term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.

>>24570014 (OP)
People who like this book seem not to enjoy the book so much as they enjoy being incredibly smug and judgmental toward anyone who "doesn't get" the book