Well, Bob, clearly you don't get my meaning at all. Thompson
and Highsmith are being droll in those instances and their
descriptions are funny. Kevin Weeks' description of moving
victims in Brutal: the untold story of my life inside Whitey
Bulger's Irish Mob, was not very funny at all. Humbert's
comparison of Lolita's desire for him to her desire for
lunch, a Humburger to a Hamburger was somewhat funny but it
doesn't mark the book as a "very funny book." Personally, I
think people who want to pigeonhole Lolita as a "funny book"
are embarrassed by the fact that Nabakov used Lolita to
undermine his readers' sensibilites. It's a great novel
written from the perspective of America's most reprehensible
type of criminal. It puts that criminal in perspective as a
human, not a monster. It even strikes at the very real urge
of age to hunger for youth and beauty. Everyone does this.
Mary K. Letourneau can't restrain herself, many of the rest
of us can. By accepting Lolita as a great novel, we are also
forced to accept our own potential for evil. As Humbert finds
out, the reality is not as fine as the fantasy. Any good
novel employs humor, pathos, drama, and psychology in even
measures to move the reader. Lolita is at the very least a
good novel, but unlike Forest Gump, Breakfast of Champions,
or Huckleberry Finn, humor is not it's main objective. That's
my point.
Patrick King
--- bobav1 <
rav7@COLUMBIA.EDU> wrote:
>
> Dear Patrick:
>
> OK, you win.
>
> Lolita = not funny
>
> Corpse-moving = funny funny
>
> If I understand your concluding sentences, Lolita
is
> not funny any
> more than the lives of actual child molesters
are
> funny, but
> corpse-moving is funny because the lives of
actual
> murdering
> corpse-movers can be funny.
>
> And clearly, the discussion of humor in
>
www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/02/lifetimes/nab-v-obit.html
> is simply
> deluded.
>
> Thank you for making my day :) (No, really …quot;
your
> email is wonderfully
> Nabokovian!)
>
> Loving rara-avis,
>
> Bob V in NYC
>
> P.S. Amen to the superb stewardship of
Denton!
>
> P.P.S. Do Lankford and Doherty wish to weigh in
on
> how Altman got the
> Mexican dogs to hump on cue?
>
>
> The reply to Richard Moore:
>
> Okay, but there's a lot more humor in
Thompson's
> Recoil, when Pat has
> to get that corpse out of the elevator, or
in
> Highsmith's Ripley
> Underground when Ripley is trying to get the
corpse
> out of his wine
> cellar in the wheelbarrow and it keeps falling
over,
> than there is
> anywhere in Lolita. Lolita is a psychological
study
> of one type of
> child molester...and the child he molests, for
in
> Lolita, the child is
> NOT innocent. Nabokov makes Humbert a tragic but
not
> detestable
> figure. Clair Quilty is much easier to hate
than
> Humbert is. One can
> even relate in some ways to Humbert's problem.
In
> the wide world there
> is some crazy denial that children don't think
about
> sex until they're
> 16 or so. Anyone's who's actually lived life
knows
> children experiment
> with sex much much younger than that. That
adults
> have a
> responsibility to control their behavior
with
> children is the given.
> That some adults cannot and why, is the subject
of
> the novel. I'm sure
> there were passages in Lolita that made me
smile,
> but I would not
> categorize Lolita as a "very funny" novel. Any
more
> than the life of
> Paul Shanley was a very funny life.
>
> Patrick King
>
>
>
> --- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Patrick King
> <abrasax93@...> wrote:
> >
> > Frankly, Bob, no, I don't find those
passages
> "funny"
> > at all. I find them to be true and
beautiful.
> >
>
>
>
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