#russian lolita

[metamorphesque]

― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

[salembehindbars]

Everytime someone misinterprets Lolita, an angel dies. Don’t be responsible for the death of an angel.

[summerinthesunrise]

i want us to be like this.

[latinaluxlisbon]

starting the most disturbing novel

(wish me luck)

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

Reading the Lolita novel I don’t think I was prepared for how much I would...platonically love Lo as a character. She’s so smart and funny and reckless, she’s crass and weird and messy in ways that Humbert fucking hates and I absolutely adore. 

I just wanna take reach into the page and set her free to be as bright and beautiful as she already is. She’s trying so hard to survive and keep her sanity, and people find it so easy to judge her based on that.

She’s trapped in a truly horrendous situation, there’s no getting around that if you have an ounce of reading comprehension and she’s by no means a perfect victim, she’s on edge and traumatized and rude and angry and quietly crying for help in ways that people either can’t or aren’t willing to put in the effort to see. She’s a little girl going through hell. 

And even then, even through Humbert’s extremely narrow, objectifying gaze, Lo’s personality shines through, stuff that you never get from an aesthetic post about her. She has an IQ of 150. She’s a baby bisexual. She loves comic books. She dances just for herself. She wants to be in the school play. She fixates on pop culture and kitsch as a coping mechanism. There are scenes with her where I could swear I’m reading a description of a 50′s understanding of a character with ADHD. 

She forms relationships with other kids, away from Humbert, despite his efforts to control her every move, and even though those relationships are so often stunted and suppressed they’re there, they’re real, she’s real. For all that Humbert tries to control the narrative, Lo still exists as her own person, even if there’s so much of her we’ll never get to see. 

I don’t know, I just didn’t really expect for Nabokov to go so hard giving Lo complexity and depth, both as a young female character and a child enduring horrifying, sickening abuse. I wish Lolita was remembered for that instead of the “tragic love” and “coquette” shit.

[lillyrosedeppsciggarate]

[hermitthrush]

Despite the 'unbelievable success' of Lolita, Nabokov felt it 'ought to have happened 30 years ago'. Still, his psychic sensibilities confirmed that this was, in fact, the right time. When he saw the names of Harris and Kubrick on his Hollywood contract they broke a dream that he had had in 1916, shortly after the death of his Uncle Ruka, in which his uncle told him he would return as 'Harry and Kuvrykin'. Suddenly, the mystery of the dream was solved, his destiny sealed, and the inheritance promised to him over 40 years before restored.

Barbara Wyllie, Vladimir Nabokov (2010) | Chapter 5. Synchronicity and superstition in the explosive success of Lolita coming to film.

[anglerflsh]

Greetings,I have two questions.

1)Any Russian classical literature you enjoy?

2)Is there any Italian classical literature that you could recommend?

I quite liked reading "The Brothers Karamazov" and "War and Peace" as far as russian literature goes - though on that front I'll say I absolutely hated Gogol's "Dead Souls" and that alone almost made me want to give up on russian lit in general lol

I would say italian lit is hard to recommend without knowing what someone's tastes are... especially since a lot of the things I've read are poetry collections (on that front: Montale and D'Annunzio are my favourite recent-er authors, but the true classics such as Petrarca and Leopardi are never forgotten + for theatre plays I loved reading Goldoni's plots). I did really like both "Uno Nessuno Centomila" and "I Malavoglia", and when I was in elementary school I loved both Calvino and Salgari's works - "Le ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis" too, and the "Decameron", and I still have yet to read "Il nome della rosa" but I can safely recommend that as well.

^ these are from very different genres and centuries, so, I'd suggest looking them up individually and seeing which ones best resonate with your tastes. The only mandatory thing I suggest is the Divine Commedy because I'm predictable and it is that good.

[ameliehuppert]

Catherine Breillat is a genius!!

[fentanyl-rabbits]

Russian Lolita novel from 2000

[kn11ves]

yall gotta give other old russian authors apart from dostoevsky and tolstoy a chance. pushkin bunin gorky bulgakov turgenev goncharov and chekhov are all whimpering and crying in a corner im so for real

[m1ssnovember]

You told me to search for a home

But you never told me yours didn’t have a fireplace, that yours was ruins, that I ruined it. I search amidst the ashes and find only my own fervors.

missNovember

[beljar]

I shall be dumped where the weed decays, And the rest is rust and stardust.

Vladimir Nabokov, from Lolita, 1955

[lillyrosedeppsciggarate]

[lilacwine11]

current read

[illustration-alcove]

Sam Weber’s illustrated book cover for Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita.