Posted on 02/23/2015 9:41:24 AM PST by Borges
One of Lolita’s first supporters, the great critic Lionel Trilling, addressed what is perhaps a central issue at the heart of this controversial novel, when he warned of the moral difficulty in interpreting a book with such an eloquent narrator: “We find ourselves the more shocked when we realize that, in the course of reading the novel, we have come virtually to condone the violation it presents… We have been seduced into conniving in the violation, because we have permitted our fantasies to accept what we know to be revolting.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
How do you know how or why I appreciate something? Do you know me or my needs? I am relaxed by Chopin as well as other musicians. You tell me I should be challenged instead. Don't tell me what I like or need.
Check out Nicolas Slonimsky’s ‘lexicon of musical invective’. It gathers contemporary reviews of all the major composers since Beethoven. It’s a hoot.
Once again you are missing my point. I stated the historical fact that Chopin was a highly challenging and dissonant composer to his contemporaries. The fact that you now find him soothing is because you are aurally accustomed to his innovations.
The whole story is about debasement. Unless you believe kidnapping and fornicating with little girls is uplifting.
Crime and Punishment is about a guy who kills people and feels he has the right to get away with it because he is an intellectual and knows better. Macbeth is about a guy who kills people for expedience sake. Do you have a problem with those works?
What is a le?
Check out this 1833 review of Chopin’s music by the German poet/critic Ludwig Rellstab.
“In search of ear-rending dissonances, torturous transitions, sharp modulations, repugnant contortions of melody and rhythm, Chopin is altogether indefatigable. All that one can chance upon, is here brought forward to produce the effect of bizarre originality, especially the strangest tonalities, the most unnatural chord positions, the most preposterous combinations in regard to fingering, But it is not really worth the trouble to hold such long philippics for the sake of the perverse creations of Herr Chopin. Had he submitted this music to a teacher, the latter, it is to be hoped, would have torn it up and thrown it at his feet - and this what we symbolically wish to do.”
Nice try. The problem is twofold with Lolita, subject matter and presentation. The way in which it is presented is meant to titilate. This is unlike Macbeth which is presented as a cautionary tale of hubris.
That’s it’s a leftist idea. Plenty of conservatives want art to be challenging too. If only because non-challenging art is so damn boring.
I’m sorry but have you read L? It contains no sex scenes. No four letter words. Nothing ‘meant to titillate’. The character’s behavior is depicted as destructive and delusional.
No, I got this point:
My point was that you would appreciate Chopin even more if you heard how shocking and dissonant his music really was
You seem to know what, how, why I appreciate. I appreciate Chopin for what he does in my life. I don't need to learn how dissonant some considered his music in order to appreciate him more. That would defeat the purpose for why I listen. I think you need to get off your high horse by thinking your can read into people's needs and what art feeds those needs. Really smacks of elitism.
Yes I have and you can titlate without being explicit.
Let me ask you this; when there is “art” that is truly exhalting, why continue to wallow in refuse?
Franz Kafka, in a letter to Oskar Pollak (1904): "Altogether, I think we ought to read only books that bite and sting us. If the book does not shake us awake like a blow to the skull, why bother reading it in the first place? So that it can make us happy, as you put it? Good God, we'd be just as happy if we had no books at all; books that make us happy we could, in a pinch, also write ourselves. What we need are books that hit us like a most painful misfortune, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, that make us feel as though we had been banished to the woods, far from any human presence, like a suicide. A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us. That is what I believe."
L is exalting. If you’ve read it then it should be pretty obvious that it does not glorify pedophilia any more than C&P glorifies murder. It’s blindingly obvious actually. Most of the text consists of precise and hilarious descriptions of American landscapes and cultural institutions and the they would be seen by a corrupt European intellectual.
If you prefer listening to music in a historical/aesthetic vacuum that’s cool - I was responding to your notion that you now find Chopin soothing by pointing out that many did not. That’s it. Not telling you that you should no longer find him soothing.
Which makes me wonder about how much my concert-pianist (never quite made it a career sadly) grandmother’s fondness for Chopin informed my love of Zappa (and other oddballs) who had a lot of those criticisms thrown at him by the rock press (especially the dissonance and torturous transitions). I never put the two together because I grew up on her playing Chopin so it never sounded weird to me, if I hear him along side others of the era I can tell that he’s working things at a different level, but it’s normal for me. Much like the discordant rock I lean towards, I know the genre enough to know it’s weird, but it sure feels normal.
My comments were about the post, not the book.
My comments were about the post, not the book.
Do you think I thought the whole world has the same reaction to Chopin as I? Who cares if many do not? Lolita is panned by many yet you enjoy it. It's a simple truth that there are all kinds of art liked by some disliked by others.
Think I didn't already know this? It must be your elitist mentality that thinks the most basic truth is not known by me.
Nothing I said was any sort of attack on you or your taste.
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