
‘His Joy, His Life’: Nabokov and his wife - chesterfield
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/nov/19/nabokov-his-joy-his-life/
======
andrelaszlo
Rebecca Solnit about Lolita:

"You read enough books in which people like you are disposable, or are dirt,
or are silent, absent, or worthless, and it makes an impact on you."

She quotes Vera:

"I wish, though, somebody would notice the tender description of the child,
her pathetic dependence on monstrous HH, and her heartrending courage all
along…"

And Azar Nafisi:

"Lolita belongs to a category of victims who have no defense and are never
given a chance to articulate their own story. As such she becomes a double
victim—not only her life but also her life story is taken from her. We told
ourselves we were in that class to prevent ourselves from falling victim to
this second crime."

[http://lithub.com/men-explain-lolita-to-me/](http://lithub.com/men-explain-
lolita-to-me/)

~~~
Tomte
The author may present her case inaptly, but she comes off as very dislikable.

So she wrote an article about Lolita and got a comment: "To read Lolita and
‘identify’ with one of the characters is to entirely misunderstand Nabokov"

I haven't read Lolita, don't have any literary criticism training and don't
have the slightest idea whether this assertion is general consensus, debatable
or total lunacy.

But it is certainly civil. And there is no indication at all that it was
posted because the author is a woman.

Still, the comment is supposed to be a prime example of "mansplaining".

I think the author just can't cope with criticism. And since her peer group
seems to be radical feminists, what better way to discredit it than by
asserting it is against feminism.

Have I missed anything else in this posting? There was lots and lots of
ranting, but this comment thing seemed to be the only thing of substance.

~~~
HillRat
While I actually sympathize with the author's intent, Nabakov is not the best
of literary targets, as even his most sympathetic characters form a cabinet of
grotesqueries -- _vide_ the protagonists of Pnin, Bend Sinister, or Pale Fire
-- and Humbert Humbert is most assuredly a monster. On the other hand, the
sexual politics of Nabakov are worthy of interrogation; he is a literary
giant, but hardly immune from criticism, and his female characters tend
towards the underdrawn at best. But great works are often great in spite of
their politics, and the Russian novelists perhaps more so than most. One
should not hastily lock away our artistic heritage on the same grounds upon
one might dismiss a political jeremiad.

Edit: And, to address the contretemps itself, I'm going to take the cowardly
middle path and say that, while to _identify_ with Nabakov's characters is to
generally if not always misread Nabakov, it is also true -- death of the
author and whatnot -- that deliberately misreading an author is a laudable
act! The central tenet of postmodernism is the recognition that just as we
have unreliable narrators, we also have unreliable _authors_ and, if one feels
that Lolita is mistreated not as a matter of plot but of characterization,
then interrogation of the text and author is a service to scholarship. The
only requirement to misreading an author is to at all times be aware of what
the author intended. Accidentally misreading the text is academic malpractice.

