Media is a far more essential part of life now than it has been ever before. It is harder to separate it from the rest of our lives. Media consumption is not an activity anymore. It is not usually something you go out to do, or set aside time to do. It fills all of […]
In Part I of Lolita, I was most struck by Humbert Humbert’s multi-faceted psychological perception of himself. I focused my previous post around Humbert the Adam figure vs. Humbert the Devil figure, and in class we discussed a number of his other manifestations. Since entering into Part II of Lolita, a new archetype has occurred […]
How shall we read Lolita? Nabakov’s seminal text subtly invites the reader to don the glasses of an array of different observers; it tempts us in turns towards judgment and complicity, dispassionate analysis and evocative terror. In what appears at first gander to be a tale of perversion lies hidden a whole world of meaning to […]
I’m fascinated by the concept of pity in Part Two of Lolita because Humbert is constantly begging for it. It’s in his explanations and his deliberate choice to highlight the clandestine traveling of his adventures with Dolores (accompanied by a few hazy details about her whereabouts and actions during their trip.) For the majority of […]
One element that seemed pervasive in both Lolita and Chapter 10 of the Peiss book was the influence of movies on adolescents. It is undeniable that the media can have major effects on teenage behavior (whether that influence is positive or negative is probably an argument for another day). Dolores is one of countless teenagers […]
The latest phenomenon to hit the literary world is Wendy Moore’s How to Create the Perfect Wife, which chronicles the real- life quest of the progressive yet eccentric Thomas Day to cultivate his perfect wife. To conduct this experiment, at the age of twenty-one, Day adopted two twelve- year- old orphan girls and took them […]
I wish I knew more about where this poster was distributed, or who paid for it. But regardless the message is pretty clear. Who knows, it was probably built into Sue Lyon’s contract that these posters had to be distributed!
The false sense of sexual bravado in Part One of Lolita appeals instantly to me. This is central to Humbert’s supposed expertise in nympholepsy. Constantly, he attempts to convince the supposed frigid, all-female jury that he is at all times vulnerable, intelligent, deliberate and spontaneous with his monstrous passion. Humbert attempts to convince himself of […]
This being my second time reading Lolita, I went for an annotated version, that I might pick up on a few of the frequent and obscure references dispersed throughout the novel, or at least have the translations of Humbert’s French conveniently compiled. Similarly, in approaching the text from a more critical readership, I expected this […]
The truth is in the details. Whence did Humbert Humbert’s strange and unceasing desire for nymphets arise? Reading the first part of Lolita, I found myself frequently looking back to pick up details I had missed. Despite the depth of information about Humbert’s fascination, many other things (like the physical setting and other mundane details) […]
