NABOKV-L post 0011320, Wed, 13 Apr 2005 10:10:44 -0700

----- Forwarded message from gshiman@optonline.net -----
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 07:52:02 -0400
From: George Shimanovich <gshiman@optonline.net>
Reply-To: George Shimanovich <gshiman@optonline.net>
Subject: RE: Dissertation Abstract: Sympathy & Suffering in LOLITA
To: 'Vladimir Nabokov Forum'

It will take much more than a dissertation to harness VN to perform judicial
feats of the kind this abstract calls for. Good doublespeak for Orwell's
1984 makes bad criticism of VN. That would not fly, Mrs. Dawson.
Non-realities of such 'observations' are well illustrated by another VN's
novel, Bend Sinister, which, one may argue, 'challenges' your outlook.



>Through demolition of the stereotypes of "pervert" and "victim," Nabokov
teaches the reader to reject categories such as "pedophile" and "adolescent"
in favor of attention to the human beings we force into these roles.



- George Shimanovich



-----Original Message-----
From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum [mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU] On Behalf
Of Donald B. Johnson
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 10:35 PM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Dissertation Abstract: Sympathy & Suffering in LOLITA



Per Prof. Johnson's kind suggestion, below is my dissertation abstact.





PORTIONS OF HEAVEN AND HELL: SYMPATHY AND SUFFERING IN LOLITA

Kellie Dawson, Ph.D.

Cornell University

My fascination with the connection between literature and mainstream America
is the basis for this dissertation which intends to explore the roots of the
culturally-specific assumptions that a reader may bring to so notorious a
text as Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. Firmly grounded in my interest in
observing the vagaries of the American imagination, this work examines the
ways Lolita challenges those assumptions and how it may even have had the
effect of transforming them. In so doing I reveal the extent to which
cultural theory and literary products interact with and upon each other to
produce a society's collective ideals.

Although Vladimir Nabokov denies that he is a writer of didactic fiction,
Lolita does carry a valuable lesson. Unfortunately, even though it is the
most popular and widely read of his novels, it is also the most resisted.
Its characters, situations and themes are so sensational that they tend to
distract from the deeper inquiry that is at the core of this inflammatory
text. Even as scholars acknowledge it as a literary masterpiece it has never
lost its reputation as a "dirty" book - and this reputation still receives
more popular attention than do the issues it raises about the tenuous nature
of human civility. The overblown consideration given to pedophilic
narratives in our culture creates an imbalance of reader engagement that may
interfere with attention to the larger questions Nabokov tracks throughout
his oeuvre. Lolita, along with being an insightful report of 1950s American
culture and a masterful demonstration of the flexibility of the English
langu! age, is an extraordinary examination of both the heights and the
depths of human sensibility. In this novel, Nabokov demonstrates the
suffering of the most "monstrous" of men and convinces his readers to
sympathize with him even as they continue to abhor his crimes.

Through his extended reading of early sexologists and his research into
American adolescence, Nabokov was well aware of the image of "the pedophile"
and "the teen" his readers would bring to his novel. In Lolita he
systematically demolishes these expectations. His "pedophile" is not a
drooling pervert who lures little girls into the bushes - and since his
"teen" is no blushing innocent the reader must re-evaluate what she thought
she knew about adult sexual deviance and child sexuality. Complications such
as these, of suppositions the reader had assumed she could take for granted,
influence her to re-examine her own humanity, her own complicity in the
ideologies that usually cause her to pre-judge and condemn those who are
most in need of sympathy. Through demolition of the stereotypes of "pervert"
and "victim," Nabokov teaches the reader to reject categories such as
"pedophile" and "adolescent" in favor of attention to the human beings we
force into these roles.



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