Lolita! and more

2038-01-19T03:14:07Z

It’s been 3 months since my last reading update, so here goes:

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov: This was one of the most compelling reads in a long time. It was equal parts tragedy and comedy (the Episode of the Ineffective Sleeping Pill, in particular, was a wonderful piece of comic timing!), fantasy and gritty realism, and a psychological study infused with biting commentary on middle America of the ‘50s. The forward states that at one point he threw the manuscript in the trash. Fortunately for us, his wife fished it out. Equally fascinating, though, was the insight into the writing process, and particularly the degree to which Nabokov used ideas from other literature in crafting Lolita. He wrote Lolita during the time that he was lecturing at Cornell University in the early 50s, and reading carefully, I found echoes of the works he taught (at least the ones I’ve read) in his lectures. For example, he takes the predator theme of Mansfield Park and turns it on its head, as Lo employs the polar opposite of the means used by Fanny Price to thwart the predator. As if to emphasize that, he borrows a phrase almost verbatim from MP when he has HH tell Lo that “we shall be thrown a good deal together.” Lo’s character (or at least her boredom) also borrows from Madame Bovary (a book I will never read again), there is something Joycean about his use of perspective, and the legal troubles providing background for the narrative are reminiscent of the chancery suit that pervades Dickens’ Bleak House. All this has persuaded me to take his course by reading each book he taught, along with his lectures. Then I am going to reread Lolita along with all the annotations I skipped the first time around because they were full of spoilers.

Dearest Friend (author’s name forgotten). This was an autobiography of Abigail Adams; since John Adams was a rival of Benjamin Franklin’s, this biography was in some ways complementary to the biography I read earlier this year. I liked this one quite a bit less, however, as I felt that the author was too anxious to explain her faults and her actions instead of showing them to us. Still, the book provided a good insight into a woman who is widely regarded as an early feminist.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson. One of the books in Nabokov’s Cornell lecture course. I’m not sure I’d agree that it deserved to be included. It was interesting, but Stevenson felt compelled to make his point (concerning the dual nature of man) in epistolary form, and the letter that ended the story read like an essay, so overall I was disappointed. The book included a number of other short stories on the same theme.

The View from Saturday, by E.L. Konigsburg. This was my daughter’s summer reading book for school. I thought it was a good choice, involving a disparate group of kids linked by events that came to support one another.

My current reading is A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce. I should have been reading Ulysses (following the Nabokov course), but I had college memories of being unable to finish a Joyce novel and decided to pick up the same one I'd been force-fed before as a test. And I made some odd discoveries. My copy of the book, which I've hauled to every address I've lived in since I was 18, is in poor condition, as though it has been read too often rather than not enough. The spine is breaking, and it's clearly been wet. Inside it’s full of annotations in a youthful script that is unmistakably my own, yet as I read through the first few chapters, I could not recall ever reading these words before, because I know I would have liked it. So, I must admit that I’ve never even tried to read Joyce before. I must have had too many exams that week and taken a bye on my weekly paper. So I think I could have tried for Ulysses after all, all 800 pages of a single day in 1906. No matter, I'll save it for the centennial of the celebrated date.

In other news, we visited the new National Museum of the American Indian this weekend. Lots of good stuff there, starting with the architecture of the building (somewhat pueblo-like) and the Three Sisters (beans, corn and squash) growing outside instead of some sterile landscaping. We found the pre-Colombian gold from South America, which my son found very cool. He has chosen his favorites, and we’ve looked up the styles in our Colombian gold book at home, so I think the trip was a success. In two weeks we’re going to visit the Colombian ambassador for a program that I hope will be a good follow-up to the Indian adventure.

Yes I know I owe replies to comments, and I have all the greatest intentions in the world of actually doing it. Soon. This week.

Bound to obey and serve

Lolita! and more