Subject
Re: Nabokov and McCarthyism (what is Lolita about?)
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Date
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Jansy: I was about to stress VN as essentially "apolitical" but even
this
predicate falls into the old traps of "cherrypicking" (from any large
corpus, biblical, koranic, marxist or nabokovian, we can pull out plums
that
confirm and sharpen our axes!) and pigeonholing (classifying pests that
all
look the same to me). VN encountered close up the extremes of both left
and
right totalitarianisms, and, as the idiom goes, "voted with his feet"
(several times, in fact!)
I detect some fashionable French knee-jerk anti-Yanquism in suggesting
that
"the TRUE subject of LOLITA is the USA and its gross deficiencies" (my
paraphrase.) VN's America is surely the real, complex mix of its history
&
peoples -- refuge, haven, melting-pot, warts go leor -- yet there's the
inescapable, implied contrast with VN's native land:
"Shiroka strana moya rodnaya" (I blush to add: "gde tak volno dishet
cheloviek!!")
namely, the relative freedom to criticize.
One cannot defend McCarthyist excesses, except to note that we now have
ample proof from NKVD/KGB archives that Uncle Joe not only personally
sanctioned the murder of "degenerate" writers or confined them to "camp
dust," he also exploited the well-meaning "Peacenik" movements and
academics
throughout the West. (See e.g., "Martyrdom for Poets," and
"Fellow-Travellers Abroad and Dissent at Home" in Donald Rayfield's
"Stalin
and his Hangmen," Penguin, 2004)
I speak from the inside-fringes as a bright-eyed, anti-Fascist (aren't
we
all?) Daily-Worked-Up YCLer (British Young Communist League) marching in
the
1940s ("Open the Second Front, NOW!") and, later, singing "The
Rosenbergs
were Murdered" (half-true, alas. Ethel was innocent).
So, Jansy, there's an excess of "history" to be digested, both USA and
European -- all mist to the Nabokovian grill. Left-wing jokes such as
"Kremlin Gold" and "Reds under the bed" turned out to have some chilling
facts to spoil the satire. A novelist worth re-reading (for background
rather than literary pleasure!) is Howard Fast, who distinguishes "true
patriotism from hatred of US policies."
Like me and countless thousands, Howard admitted his error and shame by
deserting the Communist Party in 1956 (the Soviet invasion of Hungary.)
To
prove that artists are beyond fathomage, the poet Hugh McDiarmid
RE-JOINED
the Party in 1956!
So ABOUT what is LOLITA? I call this a FUQ (Frequently Unanswered
Question).
I haven't READ it yet, nor SEEN the movies. I have LISTENED to the
audio-book (narrated ironically by Jeremy Irons). Dare I admit to
moments of
tumescence while denying perversion? Joyce never achieved such
stirrings. To
mangle Georges Brassens:
Quand j' pense a Lolita, je bande
Quand j' pense a Martha, je bande aussi
Quand j' pense a Ada, mon dieu je bande encore
Mais quand j' pense a Molly Bloom
NON, j' ne bande PLUS
Stan Kelly-Bootle
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
this
predicate falls into the old traps of "cherrypicking" (from any large
corpus, biblical, koranic, marxist or nabokovian, we can pull out plums
that
confirm and sharpen our axes!) and pigeonholing (classifying pests that
all
look the same to me). VN encountered close up the extremes of both left
and
right totalitarianisms, and, as the idiom goes, "voted with his feet"
(several times, in fact!)
I detect some fashionable French knee-jerk anti-Yanquism in suggesting
that
"the TRUE subject of LOLITA is the USA and its gross deficiencies" (my
paraphrase.) VN's America is surely the real, complex mix of its history
&
peoples -- refuge, haven, melting-pot, warts go leor -- yet there's the
inescapable, implied contrast with VN's native land:
"Shiroka strana moya rodnaya" (I blush to add: "gde tak volno dishet
cheloviek!!")
namely, the relative freedom to criticize.
One cannot defend McCarthyist excesses, except to note that we now have
ample proof from NKVD/KGB archives that Uncle Joe not only personally
sanctioned the murder of "degenerate" writers or confined them to "camp
dust," he also exploited the well-meaning "Peacenik" movements and
academics
throughout the West. (See e.g., "Martyrdom for Poets," and
"Fellow-Travellers Abroad and Dissent at Home" in Donald Rayfield's
"Stalin
and his Hangmen," Penguin, 2004)
I speak from the inside-fringes as a bright-eyed, anti-Fascist (aren't
we
all?) Daily-Worked-Up YCLer (British Young Communist League) marching in
the
1940s ("Open the Second Front, NOW!") and, later, singing "The
Rosenbergs
were Murdered" (half-true, alas. Ethel was innocent).
So, Jansy, there's an excess of "history" to be digested, both USA and
European -- all mist to the Nabokovian grill. Left-wing jokes such as
"Kremlin Gold" and "Reds under the bed" turned out to have some chilling
facts to spoil the satire. A novelist worth re-reading (for background
rather than literary pleasure!) is Howard Fast, who distinguishes "true
patriotism from hatred of US policies."
Like me and countless thousands, Howard admitted his error and shame by
deserting the Communist Party in 1956 (the Soviet invasion of Hungary.)
To
prove that artists are beyond fathomage, the poet Hugh McDiarmid
RE-JOINED
the Party in 1956!
So ABOUT what is LOLITA? I call this a FUQ (Frequently Unanswered
Question).
I haven't READ it yet, nor SEEN the movies. I have LISTENED to the
audio-book (narrated ironically by Jeremy Irons). Dare I admit to
moments of
tumescence while denying perversion? Joyce never achieved such
stirrings. To
mangle Georges Brassens:
Quand j' pense a Lolita, je bande
Quand j' pense a Martha, je bande aussi
Quand j' pense a Ada, mon dieu je bande encore
Mais quand j' pense a Molly Bloom
NON, j' ne bande PLUS
Stan Kelly-Bootle
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm