Nabokov may have ruined my life, but I still love him. I studied literature and humanities instead of engineering. Needless to say I can't find gainful employment.... I made some Nabokov shirts though that get top hits on google if you type: Nabokov hates your prose. Check them out!
the fact that people are commenting on this lovel 50 years later, and are still intressted in listening to the author talking about it in black and white speaks for itself.
This is one of the books that the Catholic League of Decency campaigned so hard to get banned and, of course, put the book on its own "index" and forbidden to Catholics(except priests, of course).
Obviously, the priests were among the most avid of eaders....of this "how to" guide to grooming and seducing children...
@why760nitro If youre the would be molester (including the catholic priest I metioned in my own comment) you can read it as a handbook: first, establish...no wait a minute...you havent read this book have you? Go read it yourself and then my comment will be as clear as crystal.
What I was smiling at was how the attempts to ban this book might have the effect of keeping child grooming and parent grooming firmly OFF the radar...Do you find that a complex argument?
Perhaps preoccupied with the sexual themes of this book, few people seem to mention that the narration of Humbert Humbert, and thereby the book itself, is actually really, really funny.
Still cowardly about the challenge, eh? You spam-spreading, topcat42-suckin' piece of shit. Let me know when you actually read "Lolita," because I know you haven't.
And of course you'll be too big of a whining widdle baby to respond to the post. Waaaaaaah...nitwo cwies again.
@scaleshchess SO true. I do like the 1997 film version of his book though. I certainly don't view it as a "love story." I think the 1997 film does a good job at not covering up the distastefullness of this topic. Also, the movie is not pornographic as some people might think when hearing the title,just very emotional of course.
@scaleshchess Oh dear. Please take your subjective moral input elsewhere. This so called ''intellectual bullshit'' is a vital ingredient to any piece of literature which, I assume by your comment, you know nothing about.
@savoirjoker we are not talking about ANY piece of literature though, and you know it very well. I didnt even suggest a patronising manner by any means - I stated a sole fact : no need for analysis on this story. There is nothing complex about it.
I think it is defined enough as it is. He used her, she used him => roles reversed.
It is him who should have drawn the line though (a minor being vulnerable due to lack of life experience (cont.)
Notice Nabokov's sly grin when Trilling says, "we can't trust a creative writer to tell what he has done...". There's no way Nabokov could have evoked the splendors of nymphetism so gloriously without sharing some of Humbert's passions.
VN explains in Strong Opinions, a book collection of interviews, that spontaneous eloquence seems to him miraculous, and that in interviews (many of them? most?) he is in fact reading from note cards, and indeed I believe some pages can be discerned in the clip!
I love his phrase "sob in the spine of the artist reader" that described the feeling I get regularly from reading his work. It is the feeling of having oneself described to oneself by a total stranger. That's all I need from his work, it needs not teach me how to live or "change my heart or mind".
I jet the weird notion that people in the past were smarter than our current crop of inntellectuals.
I could of course be dead wrong. Chomsky is smart ,oats is smart as is Attwood but perhaps it's just the horrid prevelance of materialistic consumerism.
I jet the notion you're an idiot, as to make such an absurd and vague argument as "people were smarter in the past then current intellectuals." Also how do you demarcate current intellectuals from the past? Wasn't "reflections on language" one of the revolutionary works of chomsky in 1975? Is that not considered the past? Where do you present the evidence that today "materialistic consumerism" is more prevalent than it was in the 50's, or it that it's a cause for making people dumb?
I watched some book program the other day, didn't have the author, just a bunch of illiterate prats discussing a new book.. they don't really deep into any hidden realms but place simple analogies.. -sigh here they have Nabokov the genius himself and it's like actually interesting :O
If your mom's a good reader and has read it then her opinion might be helpful.
But if not, then talk to a literature teacher or any good reader who has read it. (I'd bend your ear about it but this format is a tad brief for that, alas.)
Just a hint: if you like traditional poetry with rhyme, meter, and more then you'll have a leg up on Lolita or most anything Nabokov wrote. To me, he's a poet in novelist's disguise.
I've read all but one of his novels and love most of them.
If your mom's a good reader and has read it then her opinion might be helpful.
But if not, then talk to a literature teacher or any good reader who has read it. (I'd bend your ear about it but this format is a tad brief for that, alas.)
Just a hint: if you like traditional poetry with rhyme, meter, and more then you'll have a leg up on Lolita or most anything Nabokov wrote. To me, he's a poet in novelist's disguise.
I've read all but one of his novels and love most of them.
@ChrisTiNaThEFaMe If your mom's a good reader and has read it then her opinion might be helpful.
But if not, then talk to a literature teacher or any good reader who has read it. (I'd bend your ear about it but this format is a tad brief for that, alas.)
Just a hint: if you like traditional poetry with rhyme, meter, and more then you'll have a leg up on Lolita or most anything Nabokov wrote. To me, he's a poet in novelist's disguise.
I've read all but one of his novels and love most of them.
@JiffySpook It is Lionel trilling, there is a great essay written on this piece, "When Writers Speak" by Arthur Krystal from The New York Times Book Review.
In a speech to one of his literature classes, Nabokov gives books a sexual innuendo, and I found it hilarious. It was like reading many books just for the fun and superficial emotion was in a way a mental masturbation. He rather advocated to read a few books really in depth. He made sure to say that you should still be interested in these books, but that they would be studied more in depth than was the norm. Parallel to women, it was time to get serious and have an in depth relationship.
@jesscscott I will gladly inform you that in that last year only(assuming you are right with 8) only 5 more have disliked this video. I would like to know as well, however I can imagine people from all walks of life that would thumbs down this for one simple reason, and we both know what that is. There will be no correlation noticable in accomplishments of just those 13. Just not a large enough group to establish a profile.
@DrowningArt94 Enjoy! I've read it twice and would read it all over again. I do believe the opening paragraph is one of the best one can ever find, in the world of English literature.
I am fascinated and disturbed by the anecdote Mr. Nabokov recounts at the end of this video about the artist-ape in the Jardin des Plantes. Does anyone know if the newspaper article Nabokov read can be found?
One of my favorite things about this book is Humbert as the narrator, you don't know when he's telling the truth or lieing and you get the sense of a very warped mind indeed.
Today's control-freak know nothing NeoCONMEN&Wimmin U ptight S exual A ssholes will say next that no one knows enough to wank until they're 18! LOL-ita.
Lionel Trilling & Nabokov on U.S. tele. american government and ceo's don't ever want Americans to ever think about anything that is not conducive to business & selling. T.V. will never be like this again in our country !
Dear God ... it's amazing to discover that Nabokov also went around *speaking* in bad prose. He actually comes across as someone trying to do an impersonation of a cocktail-party fop. Now I know why Martin Amis is a fan...
Fixed-negative bent-media myths reinforced by insults to humanity the two HUs Humbert & Huntley, obscure the millions of past, present & future true Pedo-Adulto relationships. Which may be transient, or more permanent bonds - yet currently UNreported in today's Murdoch-ised junk media for Scare Profit not 'Protection'. While else have they pushed the Stranger Danger myth when since the 50s it was well known that 90% of Child Abuse is Non-sexual & 90% of pedophila is Non-stranger/Non coercive.
Though unnecessary, I feel a pressing need to call Freud55 a bumptious lugnut. Maybe that's what he's after. A masochist of the boards! Anyway, his opinions lack insight, and those barbs have no sting. Please, be quiet please!
They avoid using the word pederast which is how repressed & censored television used to be. Humbert doesn't fit the stereotype of a pederast and a pederast doesn't fit the stereotype of a comic figure. But through Humbert, who's about as chivalrous as Don Quixote, we see the quixotic world of American suburbia through the eyes of a well-mannered pervert. As a fellow pervert, Quilty dispenses with these bourgeois pretentions which is why Lolita is actually a comedy of manners & chivalry.
For some reason I am assualted by the image of Rumsfeld carping about Old Europe in an implicit defense of Young America. Cheap free association aside, I found Lolita a delightfully vicious tour of the vacant soul of our dumb and gilded confederacy of dunces and not a great deal more.
@bondurango pederasty is defined as sex with young boys. Lolita was a nymphet (female), hence the use of the word "pederast" would have been ignorant and wrong.
And not knowing the difference between ESL and EFL shows that you are chauvenistically qualified to think that you really know English.
ESL was what Nabokov spoke. I like that he hied to Switzerland immediately after raking in tons of dough selling what was basically an old man's fantasy about a lay he never got when young. Sad, really, and not very respectful of the USA, his home of ESL, which he turned into EFL! Good times at the Palace Hotel.
@Freud55 To each its own, and if you could only see an old pedophile getting laid in the novel Lolita, I pity you. I bet our planet Earth is pure mud and dirt to you.
@Ivorybird09 It's not "our" planet. People who see through Nabokov's scam don't necessarily have a distorted vision of"our" planet (which btw is more nematodes than people). Nabokov's obsession with young girls is only repulsive because he had to dress it up and call it art. The oldest trick in the world.
@Freud55 You are a funny ESL teacher. Let's just follow "your" logic: based on his novel Despair, Nabokov was capable of a murder; based on King, Queen, Knave, deep in his heart he was an unfaithful and treachery wife; based on his initial nickname Sirin he aspired to be a Bird (a repulsive misanthrope, making love to pigeons in his dreams!). He did not write about cannibalism, because if he did, he would be convincing - this is the only way he could write- what would you say then? Who cares.
@dnam3076 Yes, but being a member of International Linguistic Associations, having presented papers at them, and speaking several languages does. How's your Russian, sweetie?
I have been teaching English in various countries for about 4 decades, know several languages myself and can only conclude that Nabokov doesn't "speak English more fluently than 90% of America" as said below. He spouts nonsense here, and is constantly consulting notes . It's clear he didn't write his novels without MASSIVE editing so if you think his English is so great, you might want to thank his translator/editor. Re Jerzy Kosinsky & Raymond Carver. Sorry.
As Bloom repeatedly asserts, Nabokov hated Freud. It seems you have taken this personally. As for Nabokovs' process, if you will, it was other than conventional; he developed his fictions on 3 x 5 index cards [ back straight, at a lectern, in pencil] and later arranged the variant scenes into a whole according to his own peculiar logic. Carver was heavily edited [ however much he strained against this] due to his propensity for alcoholic overflow.
Freud, although he spoke after a fashion, seven languages (and had a very good passive knowledge of that many languages at least) would have been anathema to Nabokov as Freud never claimed to be clever enough to write in those languages. There is one recording of him speaking in English, but that may have been scripted.
Carver did not strain against the editing: he yearned for it to make the "slicks"; he was tired of being published in dumpy small presses. That was after he stopped drinking.
Lolita was written in English; there was no translator. You are correct that he consulted notes; in fact he insisted on scripted interviews, which ensured that they would be as entertaining as this is.
I'm surprised that anyone would consider scripted talks more interesting than real conversation. It just shows how low our level of discourse has sunk. It is very odd, in my experience with writers, to find one who had to be scripted when speaking, (Especially in order to be considered "interesting".) I could believe, though, that Nabokov is the kind of writer appreciated most by readers who prefer pre-planned, unnatural prose and translated at that,
@Freud55 It is hard to speak a foreign language, especially in front of a camera. Ever tried? VN is not a US politician, he is a Russian writer. I applaud his courage to write in a foreign language, to give interviews, to teach... Just yesterday I visited literature readings with Evtushenko. He read his own poetry in English and he destroyed it completely! Quite awful.
@Ivorybird09 Nabokov grew up speaking English, Russian, and French equally, and in fact learned to read and write in English before in Russian. Clearly, he had self-confidence issues that had little to do with linguistic inability. Just look at the awkward phrasings, "a sob in the spine of the reader..." Really? He's reading off of cue cards because he cannot argue his weird, hyperbolic positions off the cuff. "I do not wish to touch hearts or minds..." Hard to argue that, as an artist.
@ObeyTheSloth He was a writer, not a public speaker. As he himself stated, "I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child". Therefore perhaps he used those cue cards. : ) I wish I could hear him speaking Russian, his native language... As for touching hearts, he wakes up imagination in his readers; many people lack imagination, while sentimentality is not that rare.
You can find a great deal about the genesis of the book, of Lolita, by reading his earlier work, and also his biographical material, especially "Speak Memory"
i think Lionel trilling comes off slightly better here, with the ivory tower urbaneity that VN liked to satirize. And we see why VN always insisted on having interview questions beforehand so he could write down his responses. He's weak off the cuff, has a unpleasant nasality in his voice. Interesting he needs to dominate, isn`t generous in dialogue.
Obviously does not suffer a fool. Wonder how he was as a college grader, anyone know?
@carolingianguy And what did you write, besides forum postings? Share an essay, or an article, so we can discuss and grade it here. I love how it 's always a million critics per one talented writer.
There comes a point when it starts to seem annoyingly disingenuous for a writer to keep insisting that he had no intent, or "object" as Nabokov calls it here, when writing the book. Then why write at all? Obviously he was trying to do something or how would he even know when the book was done? Maybe he didn't know it when he started, but his agenda must've revealed itself to him somewhere along the way.
I suspect it's more N.s aversion to the notion that he is delivering a 'special message' [ or subtext] that might break the spell of the fiction itself, a fiction devoted, as so many of his novels are, to the discomforting reality of the universal tendency towards self deception. Moreover, he said it plain when he referred to the ape that paints the bars of its cage. What more needs to be said on the matter?
Listen carefully. He plainly described what he wanted to do: "produce that little sob in the spine of the artist reader." At about 1:10.
He achieves that with me in book after book. As Nietzsche liked to suggest, however, brilliance is unforgivable. VN is, of course, far too brilliant to be likable!
I'm not talking about the general goal of affecting your readers. All authors must have that goal or writing is simply masturbation. I mean, why THIS story? What does it represent to him? I doubt he was the kind of writer to just unleash his subconscious onto the page. He wrote an extremely provocative story and then coyly denies having any specific goal in doing so. If he didn't have a specific interpretation, then any interpretation should be valid. Yet he denied all interpretations.
All interpretations are valid indeed, irrespective of VN's aversion to them. Lolita is about love, isn't that clear? Why do you need to know more about the objectives interpretations of the author? "The Gift" and "Sebastian Knight" and "Ada": all about love. But the most delicate kind of love. Most of his work is for and about extremely sensitive people who feel intensely. He fought against unfeeling brutality with his books. "Pale Fire" or "Despair" are different, we could discuss these.
I don't really care what Lolita or any of his books are "about". I can interpret them as I like. What bugs me, though, is when an author claims not to have had any specific interpretation in mind while writing yet claims that any offered interpretation is invalid. This is just an annoying game some writers play, even brilliant ones like Nabokov.
Now I see your problem. As I understood him in this conversation, he was resisting the stupid attempt to classify Lolita as a "message" book about societal mores, etc. Not rejecting all interpretations. Yes, it could be annoying, this aversion to being understood! But I also understand him (irony aside) somewhat, not wanting to be neatly tied up in a little package that's labelled "here is Nabakov." Again, I think he wanted to produce a feeling, not send a message or invite interpretations.
My sense is that VN's central pre-occupation is with self deception [ and it is ironic that he so loathes Freud as, essentially, this is his as well]. And what human impulse more provokes self deception than 'love' [ or.....transference?}
As much as I have enjoyed VN's work the only novel that verged on provoking any kind of 'sob in the spine' was Pnin, his most finely drawn and sympathetic character. There is not a single character in 'Lolita' [ and I agree w/ Bloom that VN too often indulged in caricature] that does not verge on the pathetic. It is an especially savage little monster executed with a jewelers eye and misanthropes temperment.
sleepy. You are on the verge of injuring my feelings. But, anyway, please explain why you think Bloom is not to be taken seriously? Is it his insistence that Derrida and Company are frauds [ Robert Hughes, also a first rate critic, agrees, as I do]? Or because he is not a trans-racial amputee?
Hi, i'm an College student currently studying Lolita. I'd really appriciate it if anyone could provide me with the source of this clip and prefferably a method to obtain it, so that i can provide an accurate reference to it in in my work.
I just listened to the audio book version of Lolita and it's so perfectly read by Jeremy Irons--he captures the nuances of Humbert Humbert's personality impeccably, and his reading of the poetic sequences will break your heart.
The writing in this book is on a different academic level than any other novel I've read; it sometimes is hard to understand quite what he's talking about. Nonetheless, he speaks English more fluently than 90% of America and it wasn't even his first language! That's remarkable.
Riot need to buff vladimi..... oh shit wrong page
EcHoRenegade 3 weeks ago
Nabokov may have ruined my life, but I still love him. I studied literature and humanities instead of engineering. Needless to say I can't find gainful employment.... I made some Nabokov shirts though that get top hits on google if you type: Nabokov hates your prose. Check them out!
Gabagabe1 1 month ago
the fact that people are commenting on this lovel 50 years later, and are still intressted in listening to the author talking about it in black and white speaks for itself.
Dancewithme1983 1 month ago
What a surprising man.
Yellowsubmaurine 2 months ago
This is one of the books that the Catholic League of Decency campaigned so hard to get banned and, of course, put the book on its own "index" and forbidden to Catholics(except priests, of course).
Obviously, the priests were among the most avid of eaders....of this "how to" guide to grooming and seducing children...
CobinRain 2 months ago
@CobinRain so tell me how is a book about child molestation read
why760nitro 3 weeks ago
@why760nitro If youre the would be molester (including the catholic priest I metioned in my own comment) you can read it as a handbook: first, establish...no wait a minute...you havent read this book have you? Go read it yourself and then my comment will be as clear as crystal.
What I was smiling at was how the attempts to ban this book might have the effect of keeping child grooming and parent grooming firmly OFF the radar...Do you find that a complex argument?
CobinRain 3 weeks ago
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Pedophiles paradise. But at least it opens up the doors for ignorant parents or teaches someone about predators.
belinda2118 2 months ago
@belinda2118 "Pedophiles paradise"? That's what you came away with? Please go back to comics and cartoons, as they appear closer to your level.
dantean 2 months ago 3
Perhaps preoccupied with the sexual themes of this book, few people seem to mention that the narration of Humbert Humbert, and thereby the book itself, is actually really, really funny.
SmashedUpFetus 3 months ago
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depressing that comments like the ones below (oxthewriter, why760nitro) manage to find their way even to videos like this
SmashedUpFetus 3 months ago
Comment removed
SmashedUpFetus 3 months ago
Sorry, my bad. Source card for this video? >_< *not paying much attention apparently.
WhatKindOfBlue 3 months ago
I'm doing a report on this book. Does anyone know how to cite a source card for this book?
WhatKindOfBlue 3 months ago
I picked up on the fact that this show was Canadian even before I noticed that it was CBC--the host said "aboot."
HotVoodooWitch 4 months ago
@HotVoodooWitch That and the Culture.
JiffySpook 4 months ago 6
@HotVoodooWitch nabakook is a fucking pervert
why760nitro 3 weeks ago
what's with N's notes?
tryharder75 4 months ago
@tryharder75 He stopped doing interviews without notes because he thinks he speaks like
a child (see the introduction to Nabokov's Strong Opinions).
Newton1692 4 months ago
@Newton1692 Interesting. Thanks
tryharder75 4 months ago
anyone got a date for this iv?
tryharder75 4 months ago
thanks to Graham Greene for getting the book noticed!!
vivascargill1 5 months ago
this is boring ._.
BWCAPPS706 5 months ago
What does Nabokov say at the very start while giving his definition of philistines?
anfearglas 6 months ago
the guys a fucking pervert 12 year old Russian pedo sex
why760nitro 6 months ago
@why760nitro,
Oh, nitro...still casting judgements on books you haven't read. Nabokov would send you home crying the way everybody else does.
OxTheWriter 5 months ago
oxthelolitapedo when a stupid person becomes politician they are called liberals
why760nitro 4 months ago
@why760nitro,
When a stupid person comments on books he hasn't read he's called why760nitro.
You lose again.
OxTheWriter 4 months ago
@OxTheWriter shit stain keep hiding in witdummy pussy
why760nitro 3 months ago
@why760nitro,
Still cowardly about the challenge, eh? You spam-spreading, topcat42-suckin' piece of shit. Let me know when you actually read "Lolita," because I know you haven't.
And of course you'll be too big of a whining widdle baby to respond to the post. Waaaaaaah...nitwo cwies again.
OxTheWriter 3 months ago
@OxTheWriter slopfat bottom fat is that a big word in you FAV pervert book chicken shit
why760nitro 3 months ago
@why760nitro
Poor nitro loses again.
OxTheWriter 3 months ago
@OxTheWriter hay everybody the grammar nazi FAV words are bottomfat and slopfatty 2 non words
everybody say hello to a botgirl who wears a sundress and calls itself superior
why760nitro 2 months ago
@why760nitro,
One more loss for you.
OxTheWriter 2 months ago
@OxTheWriter shit sniffer keep tickling my ass hairs with your nose
why760nitro 1 month ago
@why760nitro,
Keep losing, asshole. (See? It's one word, not two the way you spell it, you illiterate piece of filth.
OxTheWriter 1 month ago
@OxTheWriter ass hole the grammer nazi as that all you have LOL
why760nitro 3 weeks ago
@why760nitro,
You lose again. You failed the Ox challenge, coward.
OxTheWriter 3 weeks ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@OxTheWriter hay everybody the grammar nazi FAV words are bottomfat and slopfatty 2 non words
everybody say hello to a boygeorgegirl who wears a sundress and calls itself superior
why760nitro 2 months ago
Beneath this intellectual bullshit, you know that there is only their perversion and obscenity remained.
No matter which way you look at the story of Lolita, the bottom line is that it is wrong.
scaleshchess 6 months ago
@scaleshchess SO true. I do like the 1997 film version of his book though. I certainly don't view it as a "love story." I think the 1997 film does a good job at not covering up the distastefullness of this topic. Also, the movie is not pornographic as some people might think when hearing the title,just very emotional of course.
thoserubyslippers 6 months ago
@scaleshchess Oh dear. Please take your subjective moral input elsewhere. This so called ''intellectual bullshit'' is a vital ingredient to any piece of literature which, I assume by your comment, you know nothing about.
savoirjoker 6 months ago
@savoirjoker we are not talking about ANY piece of literature though, and you know it very well. I didnt even suggest a patronising manner by any means - I stated a sole fact : no need for analysis on this story. There is nothing complex about it.
I think it is defined enough as it is. He used her, she used him => roles reversed.
It is him who should have drawn the line though (a minor being vulnerable due to lack of life experience (cont.)
scaleshchess 6 months ago
@savoirjoker (cont.) cannot decide right from wrong) - and thats where the "analysis" ends.
whichever way you look at it, you can tell that the author wanted to deliberately push the boundaries to provoke. which makes it wrong. so there.
scaleshchess 6 months ago
@scaleshchess,
Had you read the novel, you would know that your bottom line is exactly the line Nabokov takes.
OxTheWriter 5 months ago
Notice Nabokov's sly grin when Trilling says, "we can't trust a creative writer to tell what he has done...". There's no way Nabokov could have evoked the splendors of nymphetism so gloriously without sharing some of Humbert's passions.
roell29 7 months ago
wow, terrific, intense and insightful
Oscar301 7 months ago
'Pale Fire' is my favorite novel by him
gregoriodavila 7 months ago 8
Great! Simply great!
chefabian1 7 months ago
I can't imagine what it must be like to posses such a brilliant mind as Nabokov's
onaip80 8 months ago
VN explains in Strong Opinions, a book collection of interviews, that spontaneous eloquence seems to him miraculous, and that in interviews (many of them? most?) he is in fact reading from note cards, and indeed I believe some pages can be discerned in the clip!
ccceizure 8 months ago
how do you say pervert in ruskie
why760nitro 8 months ago
@why760nitro извращенец (izvrashenez)
bl4ckd3th 5 months ago
I love his phrase "sob in the spine of the artist reader" that described the feeling I get regularly from reading his work. It is the feeling of having oneself described to oneself by a total stranger. That's all I need from his work, it needs not teach me how to live or "change my heart or mind".
MELOS75 8 months ago
@crowcrossings aww! That's so sweet! :3
SnowMozart 8 months ago
Sorry but WTH was he talking about
SnowMozart 8 months ago
He's so brilliant.
belindasdfghjkl 9 months ago
I'd like to know what the 297 people (so far) who've liked this video, have accomplished so far, in their lives.
daledheyalef 10 months ago
@daledheyalef Why would you like to know it?
drgdrf 9 months ago
I jet the weird notion that people in the past were smarter than our current crop of inntellectuals.
I could of course be dead wrong. Chomsky is smart ,oats is smart as is Attwood but perhaps it's just the horrid prevelance of materialistic consumerism.
Kudos for the post.
Great stuff.
faunflynn 10 months ago
@faunflynn
I jet the notion you're an idiot, as to make such an absurd and vague argument as "people were smarter in the past then current intellectuals." Also how do you demarcate current intellectuals from the past? Wasn't "reflections on language" one of the revolutionary works of chomsky in 1975? Is that not considered the past? Where do you present the evidence that today "materialistic consumerism" is more prevalent than it was in the 50's, or it that it's a cause for making people dumb?
socrstreets 10 months ago
@socrstreets only a fucking liberal can call a book about child pornography fine literature
why760nitro 3 weeks ago
@why760nitro You do all non-liberals a disservice, I regret to say.
HotVoodooWitch 3 weeks ago
@faunflynn att fucking wood!!??? the penelopiad!!? a cunt
badmichelle1978 9 months ago
Fancy reading all those comments below. What a lot of shit.
phil123711 1 year ago
I watched some book program the other day, didn't have the author, just a bunch of illiterate prats discussing a new book.. they don't really deep into any hidden realms but place simple analogies.. -sigh here they have Nabokov the genius himself and it's like actually interesting :O
Fwifl 1 year ago
"the bars between him and what he terms to be human (hurt?)"
What is that last word in that sentence?
PomegranateFace 1 year ago
There is a good Yale lit lecture on this book.
Dr John
Kingdom of Thailand
carsanookdotcom 1 year ago
Ah, the art of saying a lot without saying anything.
smokinbill 1 year ago
He's adorable.
pensivebosom 1 year ago 3
I seriously wanna read this book, but i'm afraid to ask my mom about it.
ChrisTiNaThEFaMe 1 year ago
@ChrisTiNaThEFaMe
If your mom's a good reader and has read it then her opinion might be helpful.
But if not, then talk to a literature teacher or any good reader who has read it. (I'd bend your ear about it but this format is a tad brief for that, alas.)
Just a hint: if you like traditional poetry with rhyme, meter, and more then you'll have a leg up on Lolita or most anything Nabokov wrote. To me, he's a poet in novelist's disguise.
I've read all but one of his novels and love most of them.
Operanrocks 1 year ago
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@ChrisTiNaThEFaMe
If your mom's a good reader and has read it then her opinion might be helpful.
But if not, then talk to a literature teacher or any good reader who has read it. (I'd bend your ear about it but this format is a tad brief for that, alas.)
Just a hint: if you like traditional poetry with rhyme, meter, and more then you'll have a leg up on Lolita or most anything Nabokov wrote. To me, he's a poet in novelist's disguise.
I've read all but one of his novels and love most of them.
Operanrocks 1 year ago
@ChrisTiNaThEFaMe If your mom's a good reader and has read it then her opinion might be helpful.
But if not, then talk to a literature teacher or any good reader who has read it. (I'd bend your ear about it but this format is a tad brief for that, alas.)
Just a hint: if you like traditional poetry with rhyme, meter, and more then you'll have a leg up on Lolita or most anything Nabokov wrote. To me, he's a poet in novelist's disguise.
I've read all but one of his novels and love most of them.
Operanrocks 1 year ago
Nabokov was an absolutely amazing man. More than just his works of literature, all facets of his intelligence are incredibly astounding.
MidoriFan10 1 year ago
Is that Lionel Trilling?
Super8StrikesBack 1 year ago 4
@Super8StrikesBack He is referred to as Mr. Trilling. I am not entirely sure as this is slightly before my time.
JiffySpook 1 year ago
@JiffySpook It is Lionel trilling, there is a great essay written on this piece, "When Writers Speak" by Arthur Krystal from The New York Times Book Review.
eqe2115 7 months ago
@Super8StrikesBack Of course it is.
weikko79 1 year ago
@Super8StrikesBack Yes.
mortysand 11 months ago
That is NOT Nabokov, it's a poor actor which acts surely like a pedobear!!!
sfenou 1 year ago
In a speech to one of his literature classes, Nabokov gives books a sexual innuendo, and I found it hilarious. It was like reading many books just for the fun and superficial emotion was in a way a mental masturbation. He rather advocated to read a few books really in depth. He made sure to say that you should still be interested in these books, but that they would be studied more in depth than was the norm. Parallel to women, it was time to get serious and have an in depth relationship.
TheKiirojin 1 year ago
What a brilliantly pretentious bastard.
guglielmobelis 1 year ago
@guglielmobelis i can't really think of any less pretentious ways to discuss their points
tomservo17 1 year ago
@tomservo17 I can, but maybe you misunderstood; I meant it positively.
guglielmobelis 1 year ago
I'd like to know what the eight idiots (so far) who've "disliked" this video, have accomplished so far, in their lives.
jesscscott 1 year ago 31
@jesscscott They are probably a very "famous anti-pedofiles".
IVomitOnYourGod 8 months ago
@jesscscott I will gladly inform you that in that last year only(assuming you are right with 8) only 5 more have disliked this video. I would like to know as well, however I can imagine people from all walks of life that would thumbs down this for one simple reason, and we both know what that is. There will be no correlation noticable in accomplishments of just those 13. Just not a large enough group to establish a profile.
JesusMagicShow 4 months ago
i bought the book today and i am very exicited to read it!
DrowningArt94 1 year ago
@DrowningArt94 Enjoy! I've read it twice and would read it all over again. I do believe the opening paragraph is one of the best one can ever find, in the world of English literature.
jesscscott 1 year ago
I am fascinated and disturbed by the anecdote Mr. Nabokov recounts at the end of this video about the artist-ape in the Jardin des Plantes. Does anyone know if the newspaper article Nabokov read can be found?
splendeat 1 year ago
fascinating, thanks for posting this
billmarrs 1 year ago
The 1950s ROCKED!!
CleverDjembe 1 year ago
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billmull 1 year ago
That's what we used to do before youtube: writing, reading, discussing, smoking. Nowadays is more like: watching, joking, insulting, fattening.
isocrate27 1 year ago
@isocrate27 wow! well said.
bateman88 1 year ago
@isocrate27 Very insightful remark.
Josedono 10 months ago
One of my favorite things about this book is Humbert as the narrator, you don't know when he's telling the truth or lieing and you get the sense of a very warped mind indeed.
dummbatz48 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Today's control-freak know nothing NeoCONMEN&Wimmin U ptight S exual A ssholes will say next that no one knows enough to wank until they're 18! LOL-ita.
DougPatton1 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
The know-nothing NeCON U ptight S exual A ssholes will say next that no one knows enough to wank until they're 18! LOL-ita.
DougPatton1 1 year ago
Lionel Trilling & Nabokov on U.S. tele. american government and ceo's don't ever want Americans to ever think about anything that is not conducive to business & selling. T.V. will never be like this again in our country !
lovesGenet 1 year ago 3
is this whole intreview legally available somewhere around the internet for watch/download?
LaudanumDrinker 1 year ago
The book is brilliant and is multi-level in terms of its brilliance (word play, style, complexities,etc.). Nabokov was a great stylist.
votumseparatum1 1 year ago
Can you imagine CBS (or any network) putting on a show like this today? We need more intelligent TV like this.
fartamplifer 1 year ago 84
@fartamplifer, I agree. Nabokov writes and speaks beautifully and Lolita is a sensational novel. One of the best.
prettyinpink814 1 year ago
@fartamplifer e-x-a-c-t-l-y.
EnjoyTheSilence93 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@fartamplifer YEAH I CAN ITS CALLED BBC
guitarfan1979 4 months ago
Wait... a show discussing books? What???
balletcomposer 1 year ago
Vladimir Nabokow is the artist whio is existimated by my teacher rossella bianchi
misterlatin01 1 year ago
Nabakov is a genius. I love him.
logicalbeliever 1 year ago
@logicalbeliever so i He's the artirs that is existimated by my teaher
misterlatin01 1 year ago
Thanks to this book, it filled in the gap of older men dating teenage girls.
I am a very grateful to Mr.Nabokov
i am a teenage girl and have a 45 year old boyfriend.
he is the absolute wonderful ...and in bed to.
CrowCrossings 1 year ago
@CrowCrossings Ooohh and the controversy makes the forbidden fruit so much more delicious.
xNaniiDollx 1 year ago
Dear God ... it's amazing to discover that Nabokov also went around *speaking* in bad prose. He actually comes across as someone trying to do an impersonation of a cocktail-party fop. Now I know why Martin Amis is a fan...
KarenMalone 1 year ago
@KarenMalone Two insults to two people in one post. Bravo! What else you have there ?: ))
Ivorybird09 1 year ago
I listen to Nabokov and all I can think is "Holy shit. He actually talks this way. Awesome."
ben030103 1 year ago 2
This has been flagged as spam show
Fixed-negative bent-media myths reinforced by insults to humanity the two HUs Humbert & Huntley, obscure the millions of past, present & future true Pedo-Adulto relationships. Which may be transient, or more permanent bonds - yet currently UNreported in today's Murdoch-ised junk media for Scare Profit not 'Protection'. While else have they pushed the Stranger Danger myth when since the 50s it was well known that 90% of Child Abuse is Non-sexual & 90% of pedophila is Non-stranger/Non coercive.
DougPatton1 1 year ago
Though unnecessary, I feel a pressing need to call Freud55 a bumptious lugnut. Maybe that's what he's after. A masochist of the boards! Anyway, his opinions lack insight, and those barbs have no sting. Please, be quiet please!
dnam3076 2 years ago 3
@dnam3076 Hahahah! All said.
pseudonym1964 1 year ago
They avoid using the word pederast which is how repressed & censored television used to be. Humbert doesn't fit the stereotype of a pederast and a pederast doesn't fit the stereotype of a comic figure. But through Humbert, who's about as chivalrous as Don Quixote, we see the quixotic world of American suburbia through the eyes of a well-mannered pervert. As a fellow pervert, Quilty dispenses with these bourgeois pretentions which is why Lolita is actually a comedy of manners & chivalry.
bondurango 2 years ago
For some reason I am assualted by the image of Rumsfeld carping about Old Europe in an implicit defense of Young America. Cheap free association aside, I found Lolita a delightfully vicious tour of the vacant soul of our dumb and gilded confederacy of dunces and not a great deal more.
molloyxx1 2 years ago
there is a near perfect correlation of
douchebags who like confederacy of dunces and douchebags who are fuctards
fuck off you fucking lame poseur
TruBlueRepublicanSue 2 years ago
The Rumsfeld clan is larger than I suspected.
molloyxx1 2 years ago
@bondurango pederasty is defined as sex with young boys. Lolita was a nymphet (female), hence the use of the word "pederast" would have been ignorant and wrong.
jawmo1 1 year ago
@pedophile
I yield to your mastery of the subject.
bondurango 1 year ago
Thanks for posting this!!
zepoe 2 years ago
...the most westernized russian i've ever know
caramelizeme 2 years ago
NabOkov? reallY?
caramelizeme 2 years ago
@caramelizeme Yes, it's how the name is correctly pronounced.
rebob2121 2 years ago
Teaching ESL hardly qualifies you to make such statements.
dnam3076 2 years ago
And not knowing the difference between ESL and EFL shows that you are chauvenistically qualified to think that you really know English.
ESL was what Nabokov spoke. I like that he hied to Switzerland immediately after raking in tons of dough selling what was basically an old man's fantasy about a lay he never got when young. Sad, really, and not very respectful of the USA, his home of ESL, which he turned into EFL! Good times at the Palace Hotel.
Freud55 2 years ago
@Freud55 To each its own, and if you could only see an old pedophile getting laid in the novel Lolita, I pity you. I bet our planet Earth is pure mud and dirt to you.
Ivorybird09 1 year ago
@Ivorybird09 It's not "our" planet. People who see through Nabokov's scam don't necessarily have a distorted vision of"our" planet (which btw is more nematodes than people). Nabokov's obsession with young girls is only repulsive because he had to dress it up and call it art. The oldest trick in the world.
Freud55 1 year ago
@Freud55 You are a funny ESL teacher. Let's just follow "your" logic: based on his novel Despair, Nabokov was capable of a murder; based on King, Queen, Knave, deep in his heart he was an unfaithful and treachery wife; based on his initial nickname Sirin he aspired to be a Bird (a repulsive misanthrope, making love to pigeons in his dreams!). He did not write about cannibalism, because if he did, he would be convincing - this is the only way he could write- what would you say then? Who cares.
Ivorybird09 1 year ago
@dnam3076 Yes, but being a member of International Linguistic Associations, having presented papers at them, and speaking several languages does. How's your Russian, sweetie?
Freud55 1 year ago
Comment removed
Freud55 1 year ago
I have been teaching English in various countries for about 4 decades, know several languages myself and can only conclude that Nabokov doesn't "speak English more fluently than 90% of America" as said below. He spouts nonsense here, and is constantly consulting notes . It's clear he didn't write his novels without MASSIVE editing so if you think his English is so great, you might want to thank his translator/editor. Re Jerzy Kosinsky & Raymond Carver. Sorry.
Freud55 2 years ago
As Bloom repeatedly asserts, Nabokov hated Freud. It seems you have taken this personally. As for Nabokovs' process, if you will, it was other than conventional; he developed his fictions on 3 x 5 index cards [ back straight, at a lectern, in pencil] and later arranged the variant scenes into a whole according to his own peculiar logic. Carver was heavily edited [ however much he strained against this] due to his propensity for alcoholic overflow.
molloyxx1 2 years ago
Freud, although he spoke after a fashion, seven languages (and had a very good passive knowledge of that many languages at least) would have been anathema to Nabokov as Freud never claimed to be clever enough to write in those languages. There is one recording of him speaking in English, but that may have been scripted.
Carver did not strain against the editing: he yearned for it to make the "slicks"; he was tired of being published in dumpy small presses. That was after he stopped drinking.
Freud55 2 years ago
Lolita was written in English; there was no translator. You are correct that he consulted notes; in fact he insisted on scripted interviews, which ensured that they would be as entertaining as this is.
urwclwg 2 years ago
I'm surprised that anyone would consider scripted talks more interesting than real conversation. It just shows how low our level of discourse has sunk. It is very odd, in my experience with writers, to find one who had to be scripted when speaking, (Especially in order to be considered "interesting".) I could believe, though, that Nabokov is the kind of writer appreciated most by readers who prefer pre-planned, unnatural prose and translated at that,
Freud55 2 years ago
@Freud55 It is hard to speak a foreign language, especially in front of a camera. Ever tried? VN is not a US politician, he is a Russian writer. I applaud his courage to write in a foreign language, to give interviews, to teach... Just yesterday I visited literature readings with Evtushenko. He read his own poetry in English and he destroyed it completely! Quite awful.
Ivorybird09 1 year ago
@Ivorybird09 Yes.
Freud55 1 year ago
@Ivorybird09 Nabokov grew up speaking English, Russian, and French equally, and in fact learned to read and write in English before in Russian. Clearly, he had self-confidence issues that had little to do with linguistic inability. Just look at the awkward phrasings, "a sob in the spine of the reader..." Really? He's reading off of cue cards because he cannot argue his weird, hyperbolic positions off the cuff. "I do not wish to touch hearts or minds..." Hard to argue that, as an artist.
ObeyTheSloth 1 year ago
@ObeyTheSloth He was a writer, not a public speaker. As he himself stated, "I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child". Therefore perhaps he used those cue cards. : ) I wish I could hear him speaking Russian, his native language... As for touching hearts, he wakes up imagination in his readers; many people lack imagination, while sentimentality is not that rare.
Ivorybird09 1 year ago
He's so charismatic, he uses the most beautiful words conceivable
curtisrunstedler 2 years ago
5:26 you can tell that guy doesn't understand any of it at all.
MirandaMKJ 2 years ago
I love his smile at 2:48 - it.s the answer to the book.
Vlaqq 2 years ago 2
Totally agree. Very Cheshire cat.
emann1066 2 years ago
Why does he look so nervous? :P
kakikokua 2 years ago
You can find a great deal about the genesis of the book, of Lolita, by reading his earlier work, and also his biographical material, especially "Speak Memory"
margohoff 2 years ago
"what gave you the idea for lolita?" what a stupid question! he would never tell us the truth...
Xipolatico 2 years ago 5
excuse me could you please tell me what he answers at the question "what ghave you the idea of Lolita?" ?
thanx (I'm not english and it's hard to understand what he says.
QuoVadisVale 2 years ago
sorry *gave
QuoVadisVale 2 years ago
In general, the artistic impulse does not wish to be analyzed ro brokend apart, particularly self-analyzed.
Such concepts are a modern arrogance, opposed to the fundamental tradition of art.
VN is clearly a genius.
"to produce a sob in the spine of the artist's reader"
hi2u202 2 years ago
I thought he said artist-reader, not artist's reader. Isn't to say "artist's reader" just the same as saying "reader"?
Mookusness 2 years ago
i think Lionel trilling comes off slightly better here, with the ivory tower urbaneity that VN liked to satirize. And we see why VN always insisted on having interview questions beforehand so he could write down his responses. He's weak off the cuff, has a unpleasant nasality in his voice. Interesting he needs to dominate, isn`t generous in dialogue.
Obviously does not suffer a fool. Wonder how he was as a college grader, anyone know?
carolingianguy 2 years ago
@carolingianguy And what did you write, besides forum postings? Share an essay, or an article, so we can discuss and grade it here. I love how it 's always a million critics per one talented writer.
Ivorybird09 1 year ago
There comes a point when it starts to seem annoyingly disingenuous for a writer to keep insisting that he had no intent, or "object" as Nabokov calls it here, when writing the book. Then why write at all? Obviously he was trying to do something or how would he even know when the book was done? Maybe he didn't know it when he started, but his agenda must've revealed itself to him somewhere along the way.
rhomboidvideos 2 years ago
I suspect it's more N.s aversion to the notion that he is delivering a 'special message' [ or subtext] that might break the spell of the fiction itself, a fiction devoted, as so many of his novels are, to the discomforting reality of the universal tendency towards self deception. Moreover, he said it plain when he referred to the ape that paints the bars of its cage. What more needs to be said on the matter?
molloyx 2 years ago
Listen carefully. He plainly described what he wanted to do: "produce that little sob in the spine of the artist reader." At about 1:10.
He achieves that with me in book after book. As Nietzsche liked to suggest, however, brilliance is unforgivable. VN is, of course, far too brilliant to be likable!
tcumbie 2 years ago
I'm not talking about the general goal of affecting your readers. All authors must have that goal or writing is simply masturbation. I mean, why THIS story? What does it represent to him? I doubt he was the kind of writer to just unleash his subconscious onto the page. He wrote an extremely provocative story and then coyly denies having any specific goal in doing so. If he didn't have a specific interpretation, then any interpretation should be valid. Yet he denied all interpretations.
rhomboidvideos 2 years ago
All interpretations are valid indeed, irrespective of VN's aversion to them. Lolita is about love, isn't that clear? Why do you need to know more about the objectives interpretations of the author? "The Gift" and "Sebastian Knight" and "Ada": all about love. But the most delicate kind of love. Most of his work is for and about extremely sensitive people who feel intensely. He fought against unfeeling brutality with his books. "Pale Fire" or "Despair" are different, we could discuss these.
tcumbie 2 years ago
I don't really care what Lolita or any of his books are "about". I can interpret them as I like. What bugs me, though, is when an author claims not to have had any specific interpretation in mind while writing yet claims that any offered interpretation is invalid. This is just an annoying game some writers play, even brilliant ones like Nabokov.
rhomboidvideos 2 years ago
Now I see your problem. As I understood him in this conversation, he was resisting the stupid attempt to classify Lolita as a "message" book about societal mores, etc. Not rejecting all interpretations. Yes, it could be annoying, this aversion to being understood! But I also understand him (irony aside) somewhat, not wanting to be neatly tied up in a little package that's labelled "here is Nabakov." Again, I think he wanted to produce a feeling, not send a message or invite interpretations.
tcumbie 2 years ago 3
My sense is that VN's central pre-occupation is with self deception [ and it is ironic that he so loathes Freud as, essentially, this is his as well]. And what human impulse more provokes self deception than 'love' [ or.....transference?}
molloyx 2 years ago 4
As much as I have enjoyed VN's work the only novel that verged on provoking any kind of 'sob in the spine' was Pnin, his most finely drawn and sympathetic character. There is not a single character in 'Lolita' [ and I agree w/ Bloom that VN too often indulged in caricature] that does not verge on the pathetic. It is an especially savage little monster executed with a jewelers eye and misanthropes temperment.
molloyx 2 years ago
@molloyx
You just referenced Harold Bloom to support an argument. Why should I take you seriously?
sleepyballoons 2 years ago
sleepy. You are on the verge of injuring my feelings. But, anyway, please explain why you think Bloom is not to be taken seriously? Is it his insistence that Derrida and Company are frauds [ Robert Hughes, also a first rate critic, agrees, as I do]? Or because he is not a trans-racial amputee?
molloyx 2 years ago
This show has been made in October, 1958.
razdvatrichetiri 2 years ago
Hi, i'm an College student currently studying Lolita. I'd really appriciate it if anyone could provide me with the source of this clip and prefferably a method to obtain it, so that i can provide an accurate reference to it in in my work.
Many thanks.
kiltchthemauler 2 years ago
I just listened to the audio book version of Lolita and it's so perfectly read by Jeremy Irons--he captures the nuances of Humbert Humbert's personality impeccably, and his reading of the poetic sequences will break your heart.
lgoehl777 2 years ago
as a great fan of nabokov's writing, i say with nothing but love,
doesn't he sound like an intelligent porky pig?
3:45
chosundalk 2 years ago
Oh, yes! I love VN abidingly, but lord does he come as an old stuffpot, a cartoon of an intellectual! No matter, we have the books.
tcumbie 2 years ago
The writing in this book is on a different academic level than any other novel I've read; it sometimes is hard to understand quite what he's talking about. Nonetheless, he speaks English more fluently than 90% of America and it wasn't even his first language! That's remarkable.
GnawOnAaBrick 2 years ago 13
it's shameful isn't it - likewise josef conrad wrote in his third language when he wrote all of his great english language classics.
ollylawson 2 years ago