I have been awkwardly aware of Lolita most of my life. It is probably one of those books I should have read but I have always avoided it. Lolita is the story of a middle aged man who falls in love with a young girl.
| "It's no use, he sees her, he starts to shake and cough |
| My personal value is oppose to this idea of Lolita. I have avoided this book because I value innocence. I struggle even now to say, I identify with Lolita. I never wanted to see a side of the equation that condones a man violating a child in whatever twisted way he wants to make it out to be. |
But then I think of Beautiful Girls. I love that movie. Because there is truth in there somewhere that is so incredibly awkward to admit. To the man who is with a "nymphet,"that which I would call violating, wrong, abuse: it is love. And I can't condone it, I am desperately opposed to the value of Lolita, but perhaps I can understand it.
| Paul: So you’re the little neighborhood Lolita. |
The other day in class I had a breakthrough of sorts I was struck by how often Hesse's main character, Sinclair, referred to a masculine vs. feminine motif. I said in fact, I often thought he might be gay. It occurred to me when I completed the novel that I had in fact placed the emphasis on that particular theme. Our professor, Dr. Drew Kopp pointed out that our society has developed a skill of reading for homosexuality called, Gaydar. It made perfect sense for me personally, because this is a theme I fall back on. The flexibility of sexuality, has always been of interest to me. It occurred to me that not only was I reading for the theme of sexuality. The very theme I was reading for, I was not actually dealing with in my own novel. Yes, I had a straight character, yes I have a gay character. But I was avoiding the way they interlaced.
Also, and here is the big guilty part. I have victimized my characters to empower them. But I am struck with a problem. I don't want to see the good in my villain. I want to tell a Didactic story- I want the men in my story to be evil. I want them to be out for sex and all things bad. Imagine that, me the great lover of my femininity and masculinity. I think reading Lolita, will help me understand the other perspective, even if I don't like it:)
Hopefully in understanding, this text I can set out to make my novel more Dialogic, I will develop one of my male characters to be redeemable, and I will change one male character to be heroic. It is confronting a real fear in me to challenge this text. If I have learned one thing at Rowan, you learn nothing without challenging yourself further. Tomorrow you will be an even better writer:)
~Regina
“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...For me a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
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― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
More about Lolita on Goodreads
Buy Lolita on Amazon