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When Jawaharlal Nehru Read ‘Lolita’
- superb-owl 4y ago
- sharkjacobs 4y ago> The book is certainly not pornographic in the normal sense of the word. It is, as I have said, a serious book, seriously written. > In this note, Nehru also pointed out that he would not hesitate to ban horror comics or books that deal with sex and crime and have no literary merit. > In the end, Nehru favoured the release of the stock withheld by the Customs > This case not only demonstrates Nehru’s sensitivity and open-mindedness, but is also a rare example of statesmanship, where the prime minister himself read a book in question to decide whether it should be censored.
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- PeterWhittaker 4y agoI’ve tried to read Lolita a few times, and have never made it through. Between the turgid prose, the abominably horrible narrator, and the pedophilia, I simply lack the endurance and interest. My daughter had to finish it for a uni project and she confirmed for me that the depressingly boring tone continued to the morally inadequate end. I’ve read a few of the “greatest” books of the last 200 years and simply cannot fathom how this one was so well received.
- systemvoltage 4y agoPerhaps, one has to realize that the artistry here is clever cloaking of the most repugnant motif with the equal and the opposite - utterly beautiful prose that captivates the mind. So, in a way, Nobokov masterfully created this intense tension in the reader between the foreground and the background. If this book was a painting, it'd be right up there with Hieronymus Bosch[1], visually the most contrasting thing one can imagine. I can see why some people "don't get it", may be there is more to it. This is my interpretation atleast and I personally think Lolita deserves its reputation as one of the greatest books ever written. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_Bosch#/media/File:The_Garden_of_Earthly_Delights_by_Bosch_High_Resolution.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_Bosch#/media/File:T...
- leephillips 4y agoI like your take. I agree about the status of the novel: it’s taken a permanent place as one of the supreme artistic monuments in the history of the English language. Like much of Nabokov’s work, Lolita is in part a puzzle, with traps set for the hasty reader. It may not be about what it seems to be about.
- tomcam 4y agoIt is easy for me to understand just about any criticism of Lolita, but “turgid“ prose? In my mind it is one of the most beautifully written books in the history of modern English. That makes the book profoundly troubling for me, although of course I feel that no books should be banned for any reason.
- lr1970 4y ago> In my mind it is one of the most beautifully written books in the history of modern English. It is interesting how truly by-lingual Nabokov was. He wrote Lolita in English and then translated it himself into Russian. The original and the translation show profound mastery in both languages.
- xeromal 4y agoI, too, failed to finish Lolita. The prose is interesting, but I just couldn't get into the story. I'm sure I'll be derided for this, but I think a good alternative that you might want to consider is Perfume by Suskind. It has a similar over-the-top style of prose, but it was very enjoyable to me and it had an interesting story. Only the ending was a bit strange, but it was well worth my time. Give it a shot!
- Barrin92 4y agoI'm not sure we've read the same book if someone considers Lolita 'depressingly boring' in tone. The book is full of sly and dark humor and at times satirical, Nabokov has a lot of fun with language (in particular ambiguous puns), addresses the reader directly, and so on. One of the central points of the book is that art and fiction deals with the imagination and the aesthetic (mirrored in the fantasy or fairy tale like descriptions of landscapes in the book), and that moralizing has no place in it. This idea that novels need a moral end, or that the protagonist needs to be either moral or disowned that has become so commonplace is just an absolutely annoying feature of a puritan culture.
- formerkrogemp 4y agoOh I'm sure if they referred to the book by name that it's the same book. We just came away with very, very different impressions of it.
- neild 4y agoThere are many answers to why Lolita was well received by many people. (It's worth noting that it was certainly not universally well received--many, many people share your opinion of it.) One is that many of the people who like it seem not to have read it; or if they have read it, they did not understand it. Many men have described it as "a love story" or otherwise indicated that they feel the book approves of pedophilia. Two movies have been made based on the book, and both portray Dolores Haze (the girl the narrator calls "Lolita") as a seductress rather than as a victim. A substantial portion of the fan base of the book are, rather distressingly, men who appear to be quite enamored of the notion of having sex with children. Another is that Nabokov was a clever writer who excelled at writing books which reward close reading. Lolita is the story of Dolores Haze, but the narrator is a man who has no interest in her other than as than the victim of his sexual attentions. He drones on at great length about trivialities, while completely skipping over vital information. He is deliberately constructing an exculpatory narrative, which opens fascinating questions about how we can find any truth when everything we read is lies. Sifting through his self-serving prose to find glimpses of the actual Dolores Haze is challenging, and--to me at least--interesting. It's not an easy book, in many senses. The narrator is a monster. The bulk of the story is obscured behind lies and misdirection. There is no catharsis, no happy ending. Contrary to the opinion of many people who have not read the book, and some who have, Nabokov was extremely well aware that "Humbert Humbert", the narrator, is a monster. Humbert is a pedophile who abducts a 12-year-old girl and rapes her repeatedly over the course of years. Dolores Haze is a victim, not a seductress, and is in no way responsible for or desirous of her abuse. Humbert is not a reliable narrator, and nothing he says can be trusted. Nabokov himself was a victim of childhood sexual abuse. He knew what he was writing about. There's one scene that is almost certainly directly based on his own personal experience. I'd have difficulty saying that I enjoyed Lolita, but it's a rewarding book, and I'm glad to have read it.
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- mise_en_place 4y agoI've only seen the Kubrick adaptation but it was very heavily implied that the narrator is impotent. He's shown to be a character to be laughed at, nervous in his behavior, and quite hapless in romantic overtures. Contrast that with the movie Pretty Baby where the main character becomes obsessed with a 12 year old prostitute and then sleeps with her. I find that movie to be more bordering on the obscene than Lolita.
- poisonarena 4y agothe 3 reasons that made you hate it are genuinely why people like it and/or find it fascinating.. Have you seen either of the films?
- xwolfi 4y agoBut the pedophilia has an interesting twist: the child initiate then dismiss it while the main character, writing from jail, is a victim of it. At least on a first level, but sometimes you can feel it's not exactly how it is for Dolores. It's strange and surprising all along, it's in 3 parts: the rise up to the seduction, the american road trip and then the morale: youth is passing, children play and forget, whatever else you want to take from it. It's an interesting book as a French since the character is French, the road trip was amazing for me because I dont know the backside america, and I like the fact americans are so prude they call that pedophilia, when frankly, it puts you off of it more than drags you.
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoChildren cannot be responsible, almost by definition. The only person possibly responsible for pedophilia, is the adult involved.
- rfrey 4y agoDisgust at the rape of a 12 year old is not prudish.
- xwolfi 4y agoInability to see no one has been raped is though. Feeling this disgust while reading the perspective of the pervert is what is interesting. You don't need to be "fascinated", just relax, read the beautiful English, frown at the turpitudes of the monster and stop censuring this thing that at best can serve as a warning tales for young girls ?
- neild 4y agoHumbert marries Dolores’s mother. After her mother’s death, Humbert travels to Dolores’s summer camp, takes her away, and rapes her in a hotel room. There is no seduction. There is no ambiguity about what happened. She is twelve years old, her mother has just died, and her stepfather has taken her far away from any friends or relatives and had sex with her. This section of the book then concludes with one of the most chilling passages I have ever read in fiction: “At the hotel we had separate rooms, but in the middle of the night she came sobbing into mine, and we made it up very gently. You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go.”
- jackallis 4y agothis [1]might help you get a sense of why Nobokov is hard to read. [1] https://moodyap.pbworks.com/f/nbkv.GoodReaders_Writers.pdf https://moodyap.pbworks.com/f/nbkv.GoodReaders_Writers.pdf
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- GeorgeBanica 4y ago>morally inadequate end Should books only be morality tales, where Good always vanquishes Evil in the end?
- scotty79 4y agoWhen you read the story you kind of want it to go somewhere emotionally and morally (and in other aspects as well) when you are approaching the end.
- archon1410 4y agoI would be okay even if the evil won, that happens often. but there is something sinister when the book seems to not portray as evil, what is evil, or glorifies it. would you really want the glorified protagonist going around murdering, oppressing, being racist, etc etc with no indication that there's anything wrong with it? whether the book being discussed does so, is a different debate.
- cinntaile 4y ago> would you really want the glorified protagonist going around murdering, oppressing, being racist, etc etc with no indication that there's anything wrong with it? If that is what the author wanted to write then I don't have a problem with that. Not every book needs to be a story with underlying morality teachings.
- ricardobeat 4y agoQuite interesting to frame this one person's censorship power, deciding what a billion people can or cannot read, as 'a rare example of statesmanship'.
- muststopmyths 4y agoThere weren’t a billion people then. Also, he didn’t have censorship power. Rather if you read the article, he convinced the people who wanted to censor it to not do so. We seem to have forgotten what statesmanship is these days. India was and is a very conservative country. For him to not do the easy thing was indeed a reflection of his character. For all his faults, he was a great leader.
- kaesar14 4y agoIndia hasn't seen his equal since then.
- thunkshift1 4y agoLol.. it most certainly has, just that others were relegated to mere footnotes in history
- unmole 4y agoPlease educate me. Who were this mysterious others?
- hegemon8 4y ago(1)PV Narasimha Rao (2)Atal Bihari Vajpayee
- unmole 4y agoFor PV Narasimha Rao, I can still buy the argument that he set off on dismantling the Licence Raj. What exactly did Vajpayee achieve that came anywhere close? Deciding to go nuclear? Nevertheless, I don't see how either of them can be considered to have equalled Nehru. For one he remains the longest serving PM during the most transformative period of modern India. During Nehru's term India went from having to import even cars to building jet fighters.
- ggm 4y agoOlympia press also published "the hero maker/fuzz against junk" which is a glorious paste-up collage cartoon story by Akbar del Piombo (a pseudonym for Norman Rubington) I suspect Nehru might not have liked that one as much. (a good review of his work is at https://www.emptymirrorbooks.com/literature/collage-novels-akbar-del-piombo https://www.emptymirrorbooks.com/literature/collage-novels-a...)
- resters 4y agoRegardless of what one thinks of it, it’s just a book. The idea that books can be dangerous is true, but not in the way that censors and moralists believe. Books can expand the way we think, opening up more possibilities for empathy and understanding. In some political systems, empathy and understanding are viewed as undesirable characteristics in the population. I won’t name any in particular, but I live in one.
- rajeshp1986 4y agoThis is written like a PR piece for Nehru.
- HexDecOctBin 4y agoIt probably is, given the state of Indian politics. The main opposition party is the somewhat cosmopolitan Congress that has failed to produce any leader in the past three decades. The ruling party BJP is despised in many liberal circles. And the rising opposition parties (AAP/TMC) have a very grounded, mass appeal style of politics. For a lot of affluent liberals (champagne socialists, if you will), this is horrifying. Thus, nostalgic pieces like these to celebrate a time when the power was concentrated in the hands of the enlightened elites, rather than the ethno-nationalists or populists who appeal to the unwashed horde. This liberal nostalgia is just as predictable as the bile that is spewed in the direction of Nehru and Gandhi by the currently ruling bigots. Unfortunately, only one of those sections of society seems to be losing power. One step at a time, I suppose...
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- 3flp 4y ago"Karaka explained that the book glorified a sexual relationship..." This is the issue. And a misunderstanding. That's not at all how I took the book when I read it. It does not glorify anything - it is quite the opposite. What made the book an interesting read (although I have no interest in revisiting it) was the contrast between the tragedy of the story, and the playful language. The unreliable first person narrator is trying to make himself look sympathetic to the reader, all the while confessing to all his despicable endeavors. Overall, quite jarring and I can see how it can be misunderstood.
- scotty79 4y ago> The unreliable first person narrator is trying to make himself look sympathetic to the reader, all the while confessing to all his despicable endeavors. Do you know any other books like that? About some different topic?
- adammarples 4y agoWe have always lived in the castle
- nomilk 4y agoIt was banned in (at least) these 6 countries: Argentina, Canada, France, New Zealand, South Africa, United Kingdom. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_governments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_govern...
- haltingproblem 4y agoThis is a fluff piece on a man who was a pox on India's political development in its nascent years. Nehru in addition to being a dynast who doled out plum postings to his family and friends, Nehru was illiberal beyond belief [2]. He gave his sister Vijayalakshmi Pandit, the posting as India's Ambassador to the UN, when she had no diplomatic experience or formal education. Wikipedia's list of banned books shows that Nehru and his daughter, Indira, were the most prolific banners of books. Nehru's reign saw over 14 books banned or roughly 1 every year. [1] Since his daughters murder in 1984, by Sikh extremists, whose movement she had originally funded to topple rivals, the pace of banning has notably slowed down. Only 5 books were banned since 1984, 3 for critiquing Islam (including the Satanic Verses) and one for a critiquing some Hindu saints and one by Seymour Hersh, a known political conspiracy theorist. Amazingly, no books have been banned since 2014, the year Narendra Modi took power. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_in_India [2] https://www.firstpost.com/india/nehru-was-liberal-no-doubt-b https://www.firstpost.com/india/nehru-was-liberal-no-doubt-b...
- newyankee 4y agoVijaylaxmi Pandit was the same person who took ahead Nehru's ideas of Hindi - Chini bhai bhai (Indians and Chinese are brothers) when China never reciprocated and instead backstabbed India. Some of Nehru's notable achievements: 1. Not moving fast enough on Kashmir issue after instrument of accession signed by Maharaj Harisingh. If not for Sardar Patel, there would have been multiple festering issues with other areas as well. 2. Creating a political legacy of family and cronies only. 3. Setting up of a license permit raj which held back Indian economic development for decades.
- hunter-2 4y agoWish we scrutinized our living leaders as much as we scrutinize those long dead and gone
- haltingproblem 4y agoThe Chinese backstabbing story seems more farfetched the more I dig into it. A lot of it might just have been Nehru's misreading from his self-indentified perch as an "elder statesman" and "bhai bhai" thing was a delusion manufactured in his head. In his defense, it seems that other PMs like Modi don't seem immune to a special feeling towards the Chinese. Both Doklam and the recent skirmishes at Pagong lake have proved that in Modi's case. Condescension was also a specialty of Nehru given his upbringing and that might have played a role. Nehru condescended to those he did not considered polished enough - be they Indian or Chinese. In Gentlemen Spymaster, RN Kao's quotes an interesting incident which lends credence to this: "‘This was my first presence at an international meet and I was impressed with the solemnity of the occasion and the gravity which seemed to hang in the air. At that time, China had not widely been accepted as a respectable member of the international comity of nations, and as we (India) were one of the few countries that had established diplomatic relations with China, Prime Minister Nehru had taken upon himself the responsibility of introducing Zhou Enlai on the world scene. Or, at least, so he thought. In later years, I learned that Zhou Enlai had mentioned to some reporter that he had not met anyone as arrogant as Jawaharlal Nehru and in support of his statement, he had said that it was incredibly presumptuous on the part of the Prime Minister of India to have introduced the Prime Minister of China on the world scene. Well, whatever Zhou’s ego might have been, the fact of the matter is Nehru did help China to gain recognition in the international field. In fact, in that process, we (India) earned a lot of odium,’ Kao observed."
- nineplay 4y ago"her sobs in the night - every night, every night - the moment I feigned sleep" Just a reminder that this is not a book 'glorifying sexual relationships'. This is not a book about a seductress. This is not a book that plays with ideas of consent. Nabakov is playing a game with the reader, trying to trick the reader into believing that there is any truth in Humbert's narrative. I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that many readers still fall for it. It's an amazing book, one of my favorites, but it's a book that has to be read - not skimmed.
- lcuff 4y agoYes, I confess I fell for it. Sigh. Good to point out.
- skybrian 4y agoIt's been a long time since I read it, but my impression at the time was that it spent way too much time dwelling on an unpleasant subject, and that one line showing that the author knows what he's doing doesn't redeem it. I came away rather mystified: what's the point of spending so much time in this character's head?
- neild 4y agoOne thing I find fascinating about Lolita is that it is a study in erasure. Society so often tends to erase the victim while giving the abuser a voice, especially when the victim is a child or otherwise powerless and the abuser is powerful and articulate. Lolita gives us a narrative entirely under the control of the abuser and challenges the reader to see through it to the Dolores Haze underneath. Exercising this skill in fiction may encourage us to equally avoid an unquestioning reading of real abusers exculpatory narratives.
- skybrian 4y agoThis seems like a “what if the author is playing 3D chess” kind of excuse. When there’s enough game playing going on, it becomes a Rorschach test where there’s evidence to support multiple fan theories. Like, what if all the intellectual sophistication is a smokescreen for something else?
- lcuff 4y agoI read an annotated version of Lolita. I suspect I would not have made it all the way through an unannotated version. The annotations were astonishing to me. Pointing out literary references that were either unknown to me, or that I knew but did not, on my own, connect. I missed a key plot element (being followed), that was illuminated by the annotation. I've also read erotica and a small amount of porn. IMHO, Lolita doesn't come close to being porn. It's just go too much going on _beyond_ the sexuality. The issue of being drawn to a 12 year old is .... complex. When Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, 13 was the age of consent, and Juliet was 13. Evolutionarily, once a woman is ovulating, I assert it's 'natural' to be attracted to her, regardless of how young she is or the age difference. BUT in a modern world, the power differential between an adult male and a 12 year old, or 14 year old (Sue Lyons was 14 when she played Lolita in the Stanley Kubrick film) is too large to condone. The potential for psychological damage to the younger person is vast. So we've made it illegal. But my sense is that it has become tarred with too broad a brush. "Unthinkable that any moral person could have these desires" seems to be the theme in much of the book-banning crowd. And, as others have pointed out, it was rape, which is despicable, and does not 'glorify' the sexuality, but it's done in a complex (literary) way that makes it possible to miss the rape element. !!!
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- ing33k 4y agoIsn’t this isn’t a “puff piece “ what is ?
- westondeboer 4y agoThere is a great podcast about the lolita book https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lolita-podcast/id1536839859 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lolita-podcast/id15368...