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Lolita, the book, is not about kidnapping of a girl or any kind of perversity. It is about futility and pains of worshipping a fleeting beauty, which is a tempo
by dschiptsov 10y ago
Lolita, the book, is not about kidnapping of a girl or any kind of perversity. It is about futility and pains of worshipping a fleeting beauty, which is a temporary state of approaching perfection (beauty is youth + health. Proximity of a local optimum). If there is something to worship at all, it is beauty, not idols.
The book is about ugliness and mediocrity of so called modern society with its rigid set of dogmas and set in stone prejudices. It is about suffering. About inability in principle to catch that fleeting beauty, a spark of perfection. The moment you approach it you have already ruined it. Observer ruins the observation, or rather realizes the painful dissonance between his assumptions and actuality, but continued his futile attempts to catch it, because everything else is not worth of even a second look.
Dear gentlewomen of the jury. Do not attempt to judge things you probably never even understood.
- jkern 10y agoI feel much better now that I know the real meaning. Thanks
- runjake 10y agoThe thinking behind this very statement is what the story rails against.
- michaelchisari 10y agoMy guess (hope?) is that jkem was being sarcastic.
- defen 10y agoIt's written in a very Humbertian style (and you can't read "Dear gentlewomen of the jury. Do not attempt to judge things you probably never even understood." and not think of Humbert's own self-defense). So I like to believe dschiptsov's point is not so straightforward as it seems...
- kj01a 10y agoLolita is a vehicle for Nabokov's prose. It's dense and poetic, filled with allusion and ambiguity. It's "about" a lot of things.
- dschiptsov 10y agoIt's a book.
- kj01a 10y agoThat's a bold claim. Do you have evidence to back that up?