Weekly “what are you reading” thread # 11 :marseyreading:

To discuss your weekly readings of books, textbooks, papers, etc.

I’m currently on Chapter 3 Part 2 of Lolita (page 166 of the annotated edition). I have no idea why people say this book is pedophilia apologia, or why some say the main character is “sympathetic”. Humbert Humbert is not just a :marseysickos: perv, he’s a psychopath as well. He marries a woman he loathes solely so he could lust after his preteen daughter, he feels no remorse, guilt or sadness when she dies (I think he killed her, Charlotte’s death was way to convenient for it to be an accident), he kidnaps the girl, sexually abuses her and blackmails her by telling if she dares to turn him over to the police, she’ll end up in an orphanage and therefore is better off with him. There is nothing likable about this :marseypedo: besides the fact he’s funny and witty. As for the witting, is absolutely beautiful, so many references, wordplay and french quotes, you can tell how great Nabokov was by making such a great book with a such a delicate subject as this.

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One detail about Lolita is that in universe it is a manuscript Humbert was writing in order to give to the jury during his trial. I’ll drop this line from the essay at the end too:

Nabokov adds that "the initial shiver of inspiration" for Lolita "was somehow prompted by a newspaper story about an ape in the Jardin des Plantes who, after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: this sketch showed the bars of the poor creature's cage."[70]

Right now I’m still reading the histories and also listening to Aristotle's politics on my commutes. I find Greek philosophy uh simple enough to listen to while driving unlike say Hegel or Kant.

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Yes, and that makes HH even more delusional. He actually thinks what he’s writing is a “sympathetic” portrayal of what happened. But even without considering the “unreliable narrator” thing, he still comes out as a gross groomer.

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