Posted on 09/12/2018 6:51:55 PM PDT by Borges
The “space race” was a competition, but with only two rivals — “us” and “them.” And this odd partnership, or dance, spilled over into realms of the imagination, particularly the novel. In the aftermath of Sputnik three towering and best-selling works of fiction by dissident Russians — “Atlas Shrugged,” “Lolita” and “Doctor Zhivago” — were published in quick succession, crowded into an 11-month span, from October 1957 to September 1958. Today, all three still live on, each a universe in itself, read and discussed — and fought over — as if written not in prose but in hieroglyphics or code.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Nothing beneath the surface, reliance on cliches and hackenyed images. Lolita is about a bunch of things at once. People quote from it.
Lolita is endlessly re-readable. Even to read out loud.
lol
I like her work. Looks a lot better than some of the art I’ve seen in museums.
She paints wonderfully now, watercolors only, and learned it all herself from library books and YouTube!
:-)
Nabokov was a writer’s writer. A polymath, he worked with words like a prestidigitator.
The supposed theme of Lolita is Old Europe and Young America mutually seducing each other.
His prose is brilliant but I found Pale Fire more intriguing.
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