Lolita
"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta."
-from Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (beginning paragraph)
I have always believed in the importance of beginnings. You can tell right away if a book is worth reading by looking at the beginning paragraph. So when I started reading Lolita, I knew it was going to be a great experience... (I don't think when a novel is this well-known you actually need to worry about the starting paragraph, but anyway...). I was deeply and truly sorry that sometimes I couldn't fully drown in reading, because I needed to go look up a word in the dictionary! This is when it truly sucks not to be super-fluent in English. Especially when you know that Nabokov, himself, wrote this in English as his second language! (I think I should be sent to jail for, even remotely, comparing myself to Nabokov in any way)
I don't need to say much about this book, just find it, read it, and see for yourself. (watch out for the content though, I'm not taking any responsibility if you happen to hate the whole idea behind the story!)
6 comments:
من دوتا فيلم ساخته‌شده‌ي ناباكوف رو ديدم. يكيش ساخته‌ي كوبريك بود كه پيتر سلرز بازي مي‌كرد (و بازيش محشر بود) و يكيش هم لوليتاي جديد بود كه البته به مذاق من بيشتر خوش اومد. (بس كه اين قديمي‌ها اخلاق‌گران حتا كوبريك در زمان‌هاي قديم!!)
داستان رو به شدت دوست داشتم. اميدوارم كتابش رو هم گير بيارم
If u felt Kubrick's take on Lolita is conservative, that doesn't mean it's out of his moralistic value, but it simply shows the extreme boundary of society tolerance at the time. Yeah, even Kubrick had to go through self-censorship.
About the paragraph at the beginning, I really liked it. Maybe I should give it a try...
Lelah,
From what I hear, Kubrik's version seems to have more fans! I, myself, only watched the new version and, honestly, didn't like it a whole lot. I like Jeremy Irons, but didn't think he was the greatest as H.H.
Mehdi,
You should!
One can make interesting social conclusions based on Lolita. I think Nafisi does a good job doing so, though her book, at the end of the day, has received more publicity than what it deserves.
Upshot, we are all lolitas of the social systems we grow in. We rely on the system to survive. Meantime we take the daily abuse...
Sabaaaaaa,
I am in the middle of reading it. isn't that ironic? And I absolutely love it! love it love it love it...it's awesome!
Amirali,
Guess you can be right! I just never really thought about it that way!
Raha!!!!
That's sooooooo cool!!! You'll probably enjoy it even more than I did... you know being a poet yourself.
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