Humbert Humbert in 2008

Lawrence · Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:58 pm Post subject: zing

The girls will have to say how much zing they got from early teenage sexual experimentation but Elizabeth Taylor's character in Butterfield 8 said she loved it. Any opinion us fellas might express about Lolita's attitude would be pure guess.

realiz · Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 1:34 pm Post subject:

Quote realiz:

giselle · Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 5:49 pm Post subject:

This seems like a great book with lots of food for thought. I'm disappointed with not participating in this discussion because i'm still waiting for my book, a price you pay for living a long way from anywhere. However, I have read many of the posts on Lolita and I'm intrigued and sickened by how depraved Humbert is. The victimization of Lolita is so cruel that I feel nauseated contemplating it.

Some of us parents, whether of boys or girls, have had some kind of scare that one of our kids may have fallen victim to a predator and I think this would personalize and bring close to home the story of Humbert. Just look at the panicked face of a parent who has lost a child in a shopping mall or a theme park .. this is not just about the kid wandering off but about what can happen to the child, the threats that he or she may face and high up on the threat list is "predator".

One question I will think about as I read Lolita is whether or not it is possible for the reader to set aside emotions and be objective, almost clinical .. or is the emotional pull of the story simply too strong. And would the experience of reading the story be different from an "objective" point of view?

realiz · Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2008 7:21 pm Post subject:

giselle,
I hope you get your copy soon, so that you can join in the discussion. We need more opinions here. I think setting aside emotions in this story and looking at it 'clinically' would cause an even lower opinion of Humbert.

giselle · Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 12:29 pm Post subject:

i think they sent my book by dog sled. but i will read it when it arrives. i have started reading The Things They Carried in hopes of participating in the next fiction discussion.

realiz · Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 12:34 pm Post subject:

That is the book I am waiting for right now. I think I made a mistake of ordering too many books in one order and asking for bulk shipping.

Ophelia · Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 1:21 pm Post subject:

Giselle wrote:

Ophelia · Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 1:38 pm Post subject:

Giselle wrote:

giselle · Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 2:35 pm Post subject: thank you

thank you ophelia, i'll be able to read Lolita now before the discussion is over. i have already bought and paid for my copy so i don't feel bad about downloading.

a general thought on your comment re interpretation of Lolita and how we as readers find meaning in our reading ... does it matter whether we approach interp. from the author's point of view or the reader's point of view? since i know nothing about Nabokov i default to the latter ... so does this mean i have missed the point of the book? does it mean that i take my own meaning and that is sufficient and who cares what the author meant? or does it enrich the reading experience to find out more by research into the author's intentions?

a related thought i have is about emotionalism and meaning ... Nabokov may not have been writing about predator/victim but from what i can glean from the posts, the book generates substantial emotional reaction ... so does this reaction bring us closer to understanding the authors meaning or does it muddy the waters?

Lawrence · Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 2:42 pm Post subject: reading a book

giselle
The question you ask is answered to my satisfaction by the following quotation:
In a treatise written by Bart D. Ehrman, entitled, Misquoting Jesus, we find, after 216 pages of a very careful explanation of how the Bible we read today got to be the way it is, he concludes:

The more I studied, the more I saw that reading a text necessarily involves interpreting a text. I suppose when I started my studies I had a rather unsophisticated view of reading: that the point of reading a text is simply to let the text ‘speak for itself,’ to uncover the meaning inherent in its words. The reality, I came to see, is that meaning is not inherent and texts do not speak for themselves. If texts could speak for themselves, then everyone honestly and openly reading a text would agree on what the text says. But interpretations of texts abound, and people in fact do not agree on what the texts mean. This is obviously true of the texts of scripture: simply look at the hundreds, or even thousands, of ways people interpret the book of Revelation, or consider all the different Christian denominations, filled with intelligent and well-meaning people who base their views of how the church should be organized and function on the Bible, yet all of them coming to radically different conclusions (Baptists, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, Appalachian snake-handlers, Greek Orthodox, and on and on.)
Or think back on the last time you were involved in a heated debate in which the Bible was invoked, and someone volunteered an interpretation of a scripture verse that left you wondering, how did he (or she) come up with that? We hear this all around us in discussions of homosexuality, women in the church, abortion, divorce, and even American foreign policy, with both sides quoting the same Bible—and sometimes even the same verses—to make their case. Is this because some people are simply more willful or less intelligent than others and can’t understand what the text plainly says? Surely not.
Surely the texts of the New Testament are not simply collections of words whose meaning is obvious to any reader. Surely the texts have to be interpreted to make sense, rather than simply read as if they can divulge their meanings without the process of interpretation. And this, of course, applies not just to the New Testament documents, but to texts of every kind. Why else would there be such radically different understandings of the U.S. Constitution, or Das Kapital, or Middlemarch? Texts do not simply reveal their own meanings to honest inquirers.
Texts are interpreted, and they are interpreted (just as they were written) by living, breathing human beings, who can make sense of the texts only by explaining them in light of their other knowledge, explicating their meaning, putting the words of the texts ‘in other words.’
Once readers put a text in other words, however, they have changed the words. This is not optional when reading; it is not something you can choose not to do when you peruse a text. The only way to make sense of a text is to read it, and the only way to read it is by putting it in other words, and the only way to put it in other words is by having other words to put it into, and the only way you have other words to put it into is that you have a life, and the only way to have a life is by being filled with desires, longings, needs, wants, beliefs, perspectives, worldviews, opinions, likes, dislikes—and all the other things that make human beings human. And so to read a text is, necessarily, to change a text. (Emphasis added.)

realiz · Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 2:57 pm Post subject:

Ophelia · Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 3:35 pm Post subject:

Raving Lunatic · Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 11:35 am Post subject: With that in mind...

I just finished the first part of the book, I have read the posts and I have to say Humbert is one sick puppy. But I don't think that he realizes that he has given up all control or will to Lolita. It is she who decides not to wear his "presents'. It is she who decides what or when to eat. It is she who decides where they go. However, Humbert tries to regain that control by telling her that her mother is dead. I don't think the outcome will come out they way he planned. So my question is who is the predator and who is the prey? Who is the true victim?

Now, don't get me wrong I am not defending Humbert. I think that he is a despicable character. But I am just playing devil's advocate. I am sure that his defense team would use the "she was asking for it" defense. According to him, she is the one that initiated the sex the first time.They would again say that it was Dolly who was in control. Humbert, having to mourn the lost of his wife, could not think straight and logical. While in mourning and having his stepdaughter remarkably look like her mother, was attracted to her. He lost sight of all logic and "made love to his wife."

Ophelia · Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 1:54 pm Post subject:

Raving Lunatic · Posted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 8:15 am Post subject:

I think I can do this. Let me dwell on this and get back to you. This should be interesting.


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