OK, my obsession with this novel has gone a bit far. I wish I could just read it mimetically at this point. Seriously, I have decoded a secret slue of messages that are surmountable to the crazed rantings of Mel Gibson. (in the movie Conspiracy Theory not his racist rants)
But I have a theory. We are Lolita. That is crazy you say, I am not a 14 year old girl being seduced by an older man. Yes, yes you are.
So since I am taking you on a crazy journey. Fasten your sanity safety belt- it's gonna get bumpy.
So since I am taking you on a crazy journey. Fasten your sanity safety belt- it's gonna get bumpy.
Who Is Lolita?
An innocent... but not really an innocent she is precocious. She was brought into a world of sexual education by a girl. Implications being what they might, suppose we are then to say, Sexuality is a metaphor for education. Who educates? Predominately women. (Right Jane Gallop?) Were we not predominately brought to our own education by women? We were taught on the laps of well meaning women how to read, in the classrooms of well intended school teachers. We learned to read mimetically, and to search for themes. Lolita then is brought into her sexuality farther by a girl and a boy. She was never attracted to the boy but he was fun. What meaning can we derive from this? As readers, have we not picked and chosen what things we will like and how we will read them? We place on them our projections of what it means to "read" them, we dabble in our own inexperience.
What does Lo like?
- Sweets
- Sugary confections
- Dolls
- Trinkets
- Pop music
- Souvenirs
- Trashy magazines
In fact, did she not move from someone nourished by apples to one consumed by an insatiable thirst for all things junk?
So follow my further leap, what is the potato chip strewn bed of the literary world?
I'm sure it is some kind of chick-lit, the kind of thing you can read on a beach. It is the mimetic read, because there isn't that much too it novel. It is stamped with the best seller title on top of it's flashy cover.
What does Lolita do?
She is silly and frivolous. She pretends not to have real depth. She seduces Humbert. (We know he is all the while seducing her- that is his game, right?) She is so naive she believes that it is all within her power.
We read that way, believing in the message we want to read, never looking for the possibilities of what might be hidden in the text.
We read that way, believing in the message we want to read, never looking for the possibilities of what might be hidden in the text.
How does Lolita manipulate?
Lolita pouts and throws temper tantrums. Her mother calls her a brat. She acts out when she doesn't get what she wants.
We don't do that as readers do we? Yes, we do. We want happy endings we search for messages that speak to us. We get mad when our favorite characters are killed. (Think Misery, Stephen King.
We don't do that as readers do we? Yes, we do. We want happy endings we search for messages that speak to us. We get mad when our favorite characters are killed. (Think Misery, Stephen King.
Misery Quote
Annie Wilkes: YOU! YOU DIRTY BIRD, HOW COULD YOU!
She can't be dead, MISERY CHASTAIN CANNOT BE DEAD!
I DON'T WANT HER SPIRIT! I WANT HER, AND YOU MURDERED HER!
Annie Wilkes: YOU! YOU DIRTY BIRD, HOW COULD YOU!
She can't be dead, MISERY CHASTAIN CANNOT BE DEAD!
I DON'T WANT HER SPIRIT! I WANT HER, AND YOU MURDERED HER!
"She whom it was ads were dedicated: the ideal consumer, the subject and object of every foul poster" ~Humbert or Nabokov???
Humbert is talking about Lolita, I can't help thinking Nabokov is talking about the uneducated reader. Lo is being given everything she needs, and still wants more. What does she want? What do we all want? Substance but we are stuck at the mimetic. We are like Lolita the subject and object of everything we read-- unless we are capable of reading critically and searching for the substance that will educate us. And like her, we often die in the birth of our own creation.