I like the way Trilling drapes his arm and Nabokov practically lays down on his end of the couch. And the conversation is great. I wish we had shows as good as this these days.
@@vincentwhite7693 Not they haven't, and I am pretty tired of this type of statement. There are millions of intelligent people out there, among all sectors of society. It is just that the media networks have a policy of making money from sensationalism which is used to bamboozle the masses. The podcast work is where intelligent conversations are based these days.
Wow, this shook my world. Never having seen Nabokov speak, I was expecting someone smooth and urbane, maybe arrogant. Sorta like Martin Amis with a Russian accent. In person, he was the opposite. Fumbling, awkward, unassuming. However his fierce intellect does shine through if you pay attention. A most interesting video...
@@muzammilibrahim5011 Anticipating an Orson Wells-type persona of Nabokov doesn't strike me as unreasonable, brosef; accepting the self-portrayal of anyone as -fiendishly- -infernally- -egregiously- -drastically- strenuously _devious,_ -devilishly- -transcendentally- -preternaturally- relentlessly _cunning,_ and -imperiously- -stultifyingly- u-u-u-u-uh, uhhhhhh, anyone as, as, as, anyone as friggin' _impenetrable?_ As _Nabokov?_ As totally, y'know... -legit- -kosher- -4Realz- _genuine?_ _100%?!_ Based on, on what, like face value? Alone? In the immoral words of The Dude, bro: h-hasn't it ever _occurred to you (man),_ that, uh, instead of, aah,...y'know *_running around,_* a-aah, buying whatever this Nabokov-a *_known Russian,_* by the way-y'know, given the nature of all this *_new shit,_* y'know i-i-it-it-it this could be a ah, ah ah a lot more, ah, ah, ah, ah-ah-ah, uh *_COMPLEX..._* ...I mean it's not just, it might *_NOT BE_* just such a simple, aah...y'know -dude- -bro- -Duder- -my man- DudeBro?
I think ideas of smooth and urbane were a bit different in his time. He was an aristocrat, literally, and they were allowed to have that kind of manner. He basically has the air of a PG Wodehouse rich uncle. That said, he was a writer who lived inside his head and no doubt nervous in front of a camera.
Yeah I actually find significant issue with supposing that a story about continually raping a child is any sort of art as opposed to the most vile smut. But I suppose I’m just cliched, I must not know what love is - or sex either - I’m just just not sophisticated enough or intelligent enough to understand this curious species of love. What an absolutely horrible reading of this vile nonsense; that it is in ANY WAY about love!
Well observed. French is his first language. He was about 7yrs old when his father realised he couldn't speak Russian, so hired a tutor for him (speak mnemonic ).
Wow, and wow again, thanks Jiffyspook for posting this. What absolute astral brilliance!! Trilling and Nabokov were thrillingly and passionately explicating the very soul of ideas.
@@peterivankovich2990 I am an Asian-American woman originally from Taiwan and lived in Chinatown, and I find this conversation indeed brilliant and charming. And by feeling that way I am admitted into its "inner sanctum." Literature and humanity know no exclusion.
@@jadefields5246 Yours are loud pretty word with no inner core. I`m a Belarusian believed to be a pure Russian in the US. When I was in Russia, no one took me for a Russian there. Some Russian people told me I didn`t speak like a Russian, didn`t pronounce Russian sounds and, least but not last, I didn`t think like a Russian. But Americans want to see a Russian in me because of my last name. They spit my last name into two parts - Ivan Kovich. While I`m Peter Ivankovich. My ancient ancestor was called Ivanko and vich is like as son of. But our dear Americans will interpret everything according to their brainwashed brain. The only place I can socialize with people here is a French conversation group. Where folks who don`t know me take me for a Frenchman. I have also been branded as ''a non-human being in the US'' by Soviet Jews, and an anti-Semite by American Jews. That`s an example of much vaunted all-inclusiveness here. I can`t say anything about your experience here. But you seem to belong to a protected minority. At least in theory. I beg to differ with you that literature and humanity ''know no exclusion''. I`d thought so too before living in America. People here are divided up into their own racial groups and keep others shut out. In the State where I live this is very pronounced. I am hard put to it to determine what you mean by being admitted in its ''inner sanctum''. As far as I`m concerned, there`s no sanctity about Nabokov and his Lolita. It`s just ''modern culture'' - to recognize as a masterpiece what used to be banned and decried in the past. Tastes differ and it`s hard to determine what you find ''Brilliant and charming' 'in this conversation. Nabokov does not impress and behaves like he is out to put on an act. He speaks in a mediocre English pronunciation with put-on pomp and self-importance. By the way, I hope you know he comes from an aristocratic Russian family that fled Russia after the Bolshevik revolution. He has a versatile aristocratic education. I hope you will get one too some day.
Nabokov wouldn't be the least concerned with what "little girls" are wearing. The character Humbert Humbert wouldn't either, being that he believed in a select population of "nymphets" who he identified by certain physical traits and behaviors. His "romance" or "love" is a manipulation. Remember that the story is told from his point of view, and is an attempt to persuade the reader, or his judges, to accept his perspective.
One of Nabokov's first languages was English, learned as a child in St. Petersburg according to his memoir, Speak, Memory. He also obtained his degree at Cambridge University. Nabokov might have had an idiosyncratic way of speaking but it didn't in anyway mean that he spoke in "broken English."
Having English as one of one's first languages does not necessarily mean it is Standard English. Have met people from former British colonies in Asia who learned English as children but their English is by no means Standard English. Singaporean English, for example, is devoid of grammar because Chinese is devoid of grammar and they have a strong accent that comes from Chinese. There are also a number of English words they use with Chinese meanings. For example, a tangerine is called an orange because in Chinese both tangerines/oranges have the same word.
His "Volshebnik" in Russian has a very similar story like Lolita. He wrote it in France 15 years before Lolita and before coming to US. I love all of his works and his poetry in Russian in particular.
@@peterivankovich2990 Its hard to explain in a few words. There are some similiraties in our life stories and constant longing to return to the place and time where you were once happy but that is lost forever.
@@osen-z3v Is Nabokov the only writer and poet who wrote about the constant longing to return to the places and time where you were once happy and that`s lost forever? I wonder what similarities in your lives were there. Were you born in a noble family in a vast building in Saint Petersburg, Russia? Were you crazy about chasing butterflies? Did you yearn for the period of your life in Switzerland? Do try to compress your answer in a few sentences. I knew some people from Russia who admired the heck out of Nabokov. But my feeling was they professed admiration for Nabokov to be in with the literary crowd. By the way, I learned recently that one of the hardcore admiresses of Nabokov O.D.ed last year down in Los Angeles. She loved both Nabokov`s literary creations and hard drugs. She was from Leningrad/Petersburg like Nabokov, but she hated that city and Russia and never wasted her time to long for it. America was freedom, money, sleeping around and hard drugs for her. Is there anything in Nabokov`s creativity that helps you hang on to life?
@@peterivankovich2990 You have so many questions...I wonder what makes you so curious ? You sound a little aggressive and demanding, but I know what you mean when you say that people in Russia like V. Nabokov only to seem cool (same with Castaneda, Tolkien, Coelyo, Hemingway and others). Out of all Russian, French, English, American writers - I feel the closest to him. Not only as a writer but as a philosopher, historian, artist. I left my country, my city, my friends, my love, my memories at the same age as he did and thats when I discovered him. Have you read his "Другие Берега?" His poetry in Russian - "Отвяжись, я тебя умоляю". You can only understand when you are away from your motherland. The way he plays with words, his love to St. Petersburg, Vyra, Rozhdestvenno, Batovo, russian nature - its colors, its light, childhood memories. When tbey asked him why he never came back he said :" I took the keys from my Russia with me." Russia that he loved before 1917 revolution. In all his writings you can find hidden smiles, sorrows, memories about Russia, his childhood, blissful moments of his family being together. Its very poetic, its very delicate, its very fragile. ( I dont support his passion for butterflies. But he was a genius who taught about Tolstoy, Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky in US university)
@@peterivankovich2990 To answer your last question ? The way he is weaving the words, his thoughts, precise details and descriptions of nature, characters, the LOVE to his country, full comprehension that physically he will never go back but he lived there all his life. Only in his dreams he felt free to travel and cross the borders of time, place and circumstances. "Бывают ночи, только лягу. В Россию поплывет кровать". Same story with me....now we are back to my first reply - restoring the past, desire to witness and cherish those moments again. Admiration for the literature, the heritage, for the art, history - all this is inspiring me. Along with music - but thats a different conversation. Nabokovs younger brother Sergey was a good piano player, but music seemed boring and redundant for Nabokov - he never developed appreciation for classical music)
Writers,I believe ,have such a hard time speaking because. either they come up with different words.gor the same thing or they are already consumed by their next thought
Lolita is a great read. I don't consider it a "love story" tho (lol). Humert tries to convince us it is about love...but his motivation was pure lust? (Idk, I'm not smart enough to analyze..but it was a great book) Dude was definitely a genius
@Indigo Rodent Thanks. It made sense why so many media critics talk as if love stories supposed to be a guide for life instead of a state of emotions. Humbert do love Lolita but that does not meant he do not destroy her for his lust.
@@Account.for.Comment He doesn't love her, he LUSTS after her. He even used the word specifically "LOLITA" as a dehumanising and derogatory way to take away from her humanity instead of actually referring to regular name. Humbert is a sick man who took advantage and used Doleraz for his own sick desires. He tired to portray himself as the "victim" in his unreliable narration and there are parts in where he downplays his twisted actions and behaviours trying to pin the blame on Dolores in a discreet way. I mean for christ sakes the guy had a sick attraction towards to young girls and used the term nymphet as a way of him to describe that as "young seductress". And the way he treated Dolores was just sick overall. They were in a sick, toxic and in a extremely unhealthy "relationship". So no there was no sense of love only lust. If he truly loved her he would have had sense of control on his desires and behaved more of a decent father figure then to act like a revolting creep and hurt in so many unimaginable ways.
@@funanimation8253 Since you miss the point, let me remind you: Love is not always a healthy, good thing and it should not be defined as such. Love is an emotion, a person have toward another person, object, subject. It can be toxic, destructive, obsessive. Countless lives was ruined because of love. At the end, Dolores is pregnant and have an adult body. HH still asked her to be his lover, and the rejection drove him to end his life as the murderer of Clair Quilty. During the years they are together, HH try to make her to be his soul mate but their relationship resembled a controlling father and rebellious daughter much more. It is the combination of love and lust that turned that relationship into the pseudo-incest shitfest. I also reccommend the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez "Love in the Time of Cholera" to see how toxic the state of being in love and how it led to destructive for self and others. Love is often portrayed as the best thing, but many in society seem to forget that it is also the most hurtful things to experience. Cultural critics seem to forget that, and I could not understand how they kept pointed tropes in love stories as toxic. Of course it is, love made people do stupid things.
@@Account.for.Comment "HH still asked her to be his lover" And there's your problem right here. You are normalising the romantisation of Pedophilia. HH never cared about Dolores. Why you may ask? Because someone who is supposed to be the father figure to dolorez would never ask a child that they took to look after, to be in such innapropiate relationship like that. So I don't understand how you people view their relationship as "loving" that's BS. You do you know that HH was a creep right. In no way does the relationship between humbert resemble that of a controlling father and rebellious daughter. Where did you even get that idea from? Litteraly HH never loved Dolores at all. You people are trying to romantise the predatory behaviour of a Pedophile. That's sick as hell. HH litterally married Dolores mother just so he get to Dolores alone and typically that's what pedophiles do in order to seek out to their next victim of target. Pedophiles typically target vulnerable children who come from broken homes or come from a family that only has one parent because they know that the child is vulnerable and defenseless in those types of situations. And because of that they insert themselves to target the child. Which was Humbert did. If the author saw what you had wrote he would have been quite disappointed because you are LITTERALY trying to romanticise the idea of Pedophilia. Something the author was against. There was loving relationship. None. Only lust. "It is the combination of love and lust that turned that relationship into the pseudo incest shitfest" Are you forgetting that Humbert is a Pedophile? If not for the fact he was living with Dolores this man would have targeted ANY girl. So no its not pseudo type of "relationship". What Humbert did to that poor child actually DID happen and he only did that so because he is a depraved character who happens to be attracted to children in a sick way. Let me remind you Dolores was only just 12 in book when Humbert moved in and started being so horrendous towards that girl. Because he himself has admitted to being attracted to KIDS. He even calls young girls as "nymphets" meaning he considers young girls as seductress. Adults who are not pedophiles don't describe children in such a way like Humbert did in the book. I don't know why you trying to make Humbert (the villian) of the story as this normal OK human. He's not OK. He is wicked and evil but it's like you are purposely ignoring the imporantant messages and signs within the book that the author wrote in to warn about Humbert. "Love is often portrayed as the best thing" Listen I know that when it comes to love not everything within it is perfect. And sometimes certain relationships they do tend do be destructive and aren't so perfect. And while yes in some relationship there is a sense of balance between love and lust. But the thing is here is that you are conflating the two here. You areconflating love with lust when it comes to the interaction between Humbert and Dolores. Renember when you read the novel or watch the film you are in the perspective or in the mind of an UNRELIABLE narrator who happens to be a Pedophile. So anything he could says in the book could or is a lie to the viewers to get you people to side and pitty with Humbert. So that he would feel less guilt about all the atrocious disgusting acts that he did to poor Dolores. What you are doing here is trying to romantise the relationship between the abuser and the victim. That's not OK and thats extremely toxic. He did not much care about dolores at all he only used her for his sick depraved desires so that he could satisfy and gratify his disgusting needs. His attitude towards young girls and females in general is also repugnant and revolting so much so that even the author HATED Humbert. You trying to make the relationship between Dolorez and Humbert normal which is not normal at all and is actually horrible. You people actually need to know the difference between love and lust and you also need to stop twisting the authors intentions and message, because you are doing him quite a disservice to him and his work you. It's line you didn't pay attention the book or something.
@@funanimation8253 Such a long 4-paragraphed essay putting words into my mouth, and still missing the point. What you said is nothing more than your imagination of what I am thinking or saying. Grow up, learn to control your emotion, some critical thinking skills and some reading comprehension.
English was the first language he learned how to speak at the age of 3. His father had to hire a Russian teacher from the local school. Nabokov spoke and wrote in 4 languages evenly perfect.
The prose in _Lolita_ is fantastic but as Nabokov himself admitted in interviews in the 60s, there is a subjacent level of reading in Lolita. Examples among a ton of such things: Humbert etymologically means “famous warrior”. It is at least three times in the novel made reference to his kind of Celtic looks. Nabokov associates him to Tristram, a Celtic Knight of the (Celtic) Arthurian Legend who is a symbol of eternal and fatal love (remember "Tristram and Iseult"?). Notice how Tristram is referenced several times in this novel, directly (e.g. Ilse Tristramson) and indirectly. All of this is linked to what he called _"a beautiful puzzle - its composition and its solution at the same time, since one is a mirror view of the other, depending on the way you look"_ in an interview in the 60s. . If you want more infos about this specific point about Humbert (and other charachters of the novel), you can go in this subpart of this website.
@@botero01 Darn youtube. Apparently at some point they removed the links in case it was commercial spam or something... I don't think I can provide an actual link or it will be removed too, but let's try this: lolitasriddle d ot blogspot do t c om. You should be able to see the name of the page, right? Have a nice day.
This must have been one of the last live TV interviews Nabokov ever did. I didn't know much about Lionel Trilling before I watched this, but this video has not raised him in my estimation, let's just put it that way.
"Why did you choose this rather odd...debased love?" Oh, come on. The answer to that is easy. I can't believe anyone actually wonders about this. He wrote it because he could. Some people try to evaluate writing as if it is this mystical thing and it isn't. People who write just write about the shit they want to read. As far as Lolita, it hadn't been done before by such a visible writer and it was only a matter of time until someone did.
Cynical and straightforward. Thank you. It first explain why I liked to read it in my surly twenties. I was swept by Nabokov brilliance and writing style. Who else could compare. However the novel is dangerous.
@Indigo Rodent I read it when I was 16, and I fully comprehended the egotism and terrific deprivation of humanity that HH's crime inflicted on a young girl like myself. If I had any inclination to romanticize older men, this book nipped that in the bud. Also, any girl who can comprehend this book is no longer "young" in intellect or understanding. Nabokov said the epithet "touching," compassionately but erroneously applied to HH, belonged rather with his "poor little girl." I understand this book allows multiple perspectives, as all great literature does, but my personal takeaway was it made life safer for young girls.
INTERVIEWER (at 5:14): Let me ask one fast question before we close, Mr. Nabokov. You've put a word in the language, 'nymphet.' Is this going to be your 娘 (馬?!? -- ed.) -- your monument? Do you feel that you have accomplished something? VN: It is a very small monument, but it is a delicate monument, and it is -- it is pleasant to have that, somewhere in the garden, in the shade. INTERVIEWER: It is a word that is cropping up -- you must see this word staring out at you! VN: I see it constantly, and it is a pleasant feeling. . .. INTERVIEWER: It won't have any clothes very soon! ~ ~ ~ Line 413: a nymph came pirouetting In the draft there is a lighter and more musical: 413 A nymphet pirouetted . . . Line 475: A watchman, Father Time The reader should notice the nice response to line 312. . . . Line 490: Exe Exe obviously stands for Exton, a factory town on the south shore of Omega Lake. It has a rather famous natural history museum with many showcases containing birds collected and mounted by Samuel Shade. . . . Line 550: debris I wish to say something about an earlier note (to line 12). Conscience and scholarship have debated the question, and I now think that the two lines given in that note are distorted and tainted by wistful thinking. It is the ONLY time in the course of the writing of these difficult comments, that I have tarried, in my distress and disappointment, on the brink of falsification. I must ask the reader to ignore those two lines (which, I am afraid, do not even scan properly). I could strike them out before publication but that would mean reworking the entire note, or at least a considerable part of it, and I have no time for such stupidities. Lines 557-558: How to locate in blackness with a gasp, Terra the Fair, an orbicle of jasp The loveliest couplet in this canto. . . .. Line 680: Lolita Major hurricanes are given feminine names in America. The feminine gender is suggested not so much by the sex of furies and harridans as by a general professional application. Thus any machine is a she to its fond user, and any fire (even a "pale" one!) is she to the fireman, as water is she to the passionate plumber. Why our poet chose to give his 1958 hurricane a little-used Spanish name (sometimes given to parrots) instead of Linda or Lois, is not clear. --- Владимир Владимирович Набоков [Vladimir Nabokov], PALE FIRE
Has anyone read Reading Lolita in Tehran? It's very useful as a discussion of Lolita, great incites, esp. from a woman';s perspective (as a man I find it fascinating how different women see the character of Lolita)what's more, women living under a theocratic regime.
To Imematt: After thinking about it for a couple of weeks I decided that you are probably right. Still, when NV made that comment notice that he prefixed it with the phrase "of course." In my mind this was his way of inviting further discussion of his sweeping statement. Seems like no one took the challenge until now. Thanks to RUclips
@soffer I'm much the same. I'm an aspiring writer (obviously nothing compared to Nabakov) but I find writing so much easier than speaking. I can write a few pages of prose, come back to them the next day and marvel at their eloquence; but directly ask me a question and I'll stammer and struggle far worse than our genius here. I am assuming it has something to do with the language centres in the brain: the generation of words and their physical utterances controlled by different parts and such.
Can someone please help me translate this part? I'm writing a paper on it and can't seem to figure out what Trilling is saying. At 2:05 he says: "...but that is very full of tenderness, full of passion as well as __?__ ..." It sounds like he says "passion" again, but I can't tell if he might be saying that same word with a different accent/enunciation or if he might be saying a different word.
I do not agree with the guy that smokes. I did not think the book was erotic. I found it very good in general and also surprisingly funny but hardly erotic.
@@55archduke The author who wrote the book said it's erotic but it's not about sex. Obviously Artur and you did not watch video and you do not understand the book. You're the type of readers he said was stupid. 🙄
I don’t see why. I mean the book was considered scandalous and pornographic when it came out and couldn’t be published in the US for a bit because of that, and Kubrick’s movie adaptation was so censored that afterwards he said he probably wouldn’t have made it had he known beforehand how much he would have to alter what he wanted to do. I think our free speech rights in art have actually come a long, long way from this time, not the other way around. I think people are more concerned about pedophilia and grooming (as they should be), but as Nabokov says, he doesn’t agree with Humbert, he’s just trying to explore the themes made possible by this particular story. The only way I could see someone objecting to this conversation is if they misunderstood it to be in support of sexual abuse. But in that case wouldn’t you want people to be up in arms?
His accent sounds considerably more German than French as his tonic accents fall in the teutonic tradition more than the Latin although you are right that it is a strange hybrid or mixture.
Lolita is a great novel, but I really can't buy it as a love story on any level. And if it is, then a quote from Angels in America might be appropriate here: "He loves, but his love is worth nothing." All he does is ruin her life............ not only does he sexually abuse her (drugging the girl and f*cking her as she sleeps; I don't care how old she is, that is 100% rape), he totally robs her of her entire personhood. He fetishizes her so much that she has no sense of who she is outside of that. At no point does Humbert give or bring anything positive at all to Lo's existence. If that constitutes as love, then the word is utterly worthless.
onetouchofvenus I think the idea that love is only meaningful if it is mutual and symbiotic, is the perfect example of the clichéd thinking Nabokov was talking about. Why does the fact that love can be a solely destructive and tragic emotion make the world worthless?
@@BlueRonin2015 I don't agree either, w the idea that love is only meaningful when mutual and symbiotic. Love can often time be nothing but tragic and destructive. But at the foundation of love, true love, not lust, infatuation or obsession, the other parties interests are a main priority. Their wellness is a main priority, even when not reciprocated or ending in tragedy. To abuse and to destroy someone for your own selfish reasons isn't truly loving someone, to intently take advantage of someone else isn't love, more of loving the image, the aura you've created of them, loving what you can take from them. His intentions and actions are often pseudo analyzed and rationalized by himself in efforts to explain his warped perspective on his 'love', a better descriptor would be the unhealthy obsession for Lolita that in the end drives him mad. Humbert Humbert cant love Lolita, for the Lolita he thinks he sees, the person he's created in his state of delusion isn't even Lolita. Him being an unreliable narrator helps this point, that the way he views lolita, their interactions etc, just cannot be trusted. Glimpses of reality shine through at times, making us second guess everything we've been fed my H.H so far. He's simply infatuated by the image of Dolores he's made up in his head, he's infatuated by his lust, the desire he holds of touching her prepubescent body to which he will go to any extreme to achieve, even if it means drugging and raping her.
Kenna Andrade - We’re in danger of diving too deep into philosophical water here and missing the point of the novel completely. But this notion that ‘true love’ needs to be entirely selfless is a fairly modern and romantic idea. It’s a mature and reasonable view, but I don’t agree that selfish, all consuming love isn’t real or ‘true’. If Humbert was only projecting his perverted ideal onto Lolita he just would’ve found another little girl after she disappeared, as opposed to driving round the country searching for three years and eventually murdering her kidnapper. For all he deliberately subverts and manipulates the reader into sympathising with his evil, there’s no doubt he is utterly obsessed and devoted to her. He loves her.
@@BlueRonin2015 I agree, that view on love is fairly modern, the mature and reasonable view. It is the healthy view on love. Humberts view on love is the complete opposite, that is why Humberts love can only be described as a monster’s love. A narcissist’s love. An abuser’s love. The “love” to the monster is very real, but to the rest of us, is monstrous. He kidnaps and rapes her by manipulating her immature emotions. He wants to justify his own righteousness. He wants to believe he loved her and is trying to convince us and himself. From the very beginning, he believes he did no wrong. The rest is warping the story to suit his world view. Nabokov is showing us what words and power can do. The beauty makes it so easy to forget that this is written from a jail cell to the jury. You have an interesting point. Why doesn’t he just find another Lolita after she is gone? I've contemplated thoroughly on that part of the novel, the obsession of this Lolita being his redemption for his childhood love that ended in tragedy. Time and time again my conclusion for the end of the novel (after killing Quilty) on the shred of regret ‘we see’ from Humbert hearing the children singing and knowing he took Lolitas voice from the choir, to me, is another perfect example of him being an unreliable narrator. I don't believe that is what he truly believes. Again, he’s talking to the jury. He’s manipulating them and us. This correlates to him looking for Lolita for so long. I do not believe love is what drove him to do it, neither pure sexual deviance.
@@Firespawnable Trilling thought the book was about HH's love. Nabokov did not demur on the spot, but said HH was the ape that could only paint the bars of its cage. As a woman I take my cue from his comment that the epithet "touching" does not apply to the monstrous HH but rather his "poor little girl." If the obsession Nabokov limns qualifies as love, it is certainly only the touching and consummate love that the worthy Trilling projects and that HH clutches to his scrotum as protection in a hall of mirrors, with neither substance nor integrity. Trilling strikes me as the soul of kindness here. Can't bear to see the full truth about Nabokov's ironically rendered anti-hero. Seduced by the goodness of Trilling's own nature.
@MrsMxyptlk (great name!) I agree that the book is about love. Humbert is in love with Lolita, and this is what gives the book a great deal of its power to shock. If Humbert was just a pervert who abuses Lolita he wouldn't shock the reader so much. The book raises the question of what is love. As you say, Lolita doesn't love Humbert. But what if she did? Would their relationship then be appropriate, once she becomes 18?
The question is interesting but is immediately shut down once you remember the simple concept, true love isn't selfish. He never had lolitas interests in mind, he never had the real interests of the child in mind. True love doesn't manipulate the other party, doesn't take advantage of the lack of maturity in the other party.
[T]he only real, authentic worlds are, of course, those that seem unusual ... Average reality begins to rot and stink as soon as the act of individual creation ceases to animate a subjectively perceived texture. --Vladimir Nabokov, from "Strong Opinions"
Your comments are to the point. What have you read since summer? You might try "The Annotated Lolita" by VN's student Alfred Appel. Also on YT Marlon Brando interview-1965
Why would he have a thick Russian accesnt if he was taught English and French along with Russian in his early childhood? Three languages spoken fluently in his family. In fact he learned English before Russian. He emigrated from Russia at the age of 18 and studied in Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and America.
Is HH capable of love? I am not convinced. He strikes me as a fairly ruined,isolated personality on something of a death trip, 'free', then, [imprisoned, really] only to follow his basest instincts to ground. HH, tender, stricken sociopathic avalanche that he is, makes no clear effort to deliver himself from evil and so, ultimately, composes his eulogy from jail. [Then and there becoming the ape that paints only the bars of its cage. ]
vanderbilt. Novelists and Novels. I happen to love the inexhaustible old buffalo even though he over-estimates Pynchon and Delillo and, however slightly, under-estimates Roth.
Why do you think "Lolita" has become a modern classic in the first place? Exactly because it touched on the nerve of modern civilization. Not by dealing with main protagonist as a psycopath( in fact if you think of other characters in the book, they are just worse than H.H. and Lol), but by depicting a vast American tapestry as an epitome of this civilization.
It's odd and curious to find Vladimir Nabokov's accent is more ambiguous in nationality than his name would suggest. I expected a thick Ruso accent like Solzhenitsyn has. He sounds more French then Russian. It probably comes from his trilingual background and his citizen of the world status.
All of his interviews are self interviews: Nabokov wrote the dialogue in full, his own lines and the supposed interviewers questions/comments. I wouldn't interpret his accent in this performance (which is exactly what it is) as genuine by default; I expect the answer is attainable for those interested enough to spend the time searching, but until and unless I'd done so, I would regard it as an open question. There's a blatantly obvious coded covert dialogue happening, a layer or three beneath the surface. The first sentence of the first part of the interview (video 1 of 2) is a rather obviously arcane example of a Code 33 drop, for example (C = 3rd letter of alphabet, ergo CC = 33). The final question, re. the legacy of the Nabokov-coined term nymphet, seems strenuously difficult to interpret seriously as anything other than a very lightly coded in-jokey expression of admiration for nymphets by Nabokov, at least, with the interviewer most likely in agreement and in on the joke: VN: _"It is a very small monument, but it is a delicate monument, and it is -- it is pleasant to have that, somewhere in the garden, in the shade."_ INTERVIEWER: _"It is a word that is cropping up -- you must see this word staring out at you!"_ VN: *_"I see it constantly, and it is a pleasant feeling."_* INTERVIEWER: *_"It won't have any clothes very soon!"_*
@IllegalInAmsterdam - I have noticed similar something similar in the past, but there are certainly ways to bring greater eloquence to speech if it is desired. For instance you might practise reading aloud your most eloquent writings, i have found this increases my verbal eloquence...
Romance would have you believe that real love stands the test of time. However, time (and not the law) is the greatest enemy of the pederast. Humbert's love does not endure because Lolita grows up. One doesn't think of Nabokov as being an existentialist writer because he's got such a light touch. But I wonder.
Except for several stronger 's', but they were not as strong and frequent as in that or other Slavic accents; Владимир Владимирович talked this old-style English with softer consonants
Arguing that L seduced HH is ridiculous. But I don't think the issue is whether to trust HH's narration. L was undoubtedly promiscuous for a 12 year old, and she had Hollywood inspired fantasies about HH, but claiming that she seduced him (an adult male, who should know better) is like blaming children for believing in Santa--as if their naivete was to blame for the invention.
Well, you're great, so who can disagree with you. But you're wrong. He was the most esteemed literary critic of the mid-century, and he's completely on target here.
Stephen King actually unalived hundreds of people, that's why he writes so realistically about unaliving people. Instead of discussing Nab's book, let's talk about how I was touched when I was a child. My story is soooo much more important than anything else in this comment section.
'Early defenses of 'Lolita' by Hollander and Trilling center on the insistence that it was an authentic love story.....I marvel that acute readers could take it as a portrayal of human love, since Humbert and Lolita are hardly representations of human beings. They are deliberate caricatures...solipsistic nightmares.'- Harold Bloom. I entirely agree.
Appalling to see three men gloss over the sexual abuse and cruelty to a 12 year old girl, and talk like spectators. Never mind art, the soul is corrupt here.
I wonder what Nabokov would have made of the tabloid obsession with Jon Bennet Ramsey? I think she was even younger than Lolita and seems to reappear every few years in the supermarket checkout racks. How long has that little girl been dead? She is more famous dead than she ever was alive and I can never understand why? I can never understand how mothers will try to make their very young children imitate the style of much older women. I've never seen one but maybe those beauty pageants are a thing of the past by now? Never read the book but recently watched Kubrick's movie. It wasn't at all judgemental as far as I could tell. Sex and violence are closely associated in the brain and love can encapsulate both. Isn't that Nabokov's point?
Even though I agree that "Lolita" is a masterpiece, I have to take issue with Nabokov's assertion that "all worthwhile novels are concerned with passionate love." What about "Moby Dick" to name just one "worthwhile novel." Surprised that Lionel Trilling did not jump all over Nabokov's ridiculous assertion.
Lolita is an great American novel written by a Russian just like Victory or Lord Jim are great English novels written by a Pole. Lolita is about the confrontation of decadent European culture with the juvenile, adolescent and corrupt American culture.
"You should have had plumbs tonight, In an eighteenth-century dish" --Wallace Stevens the stuff of TODAY will feed us, like plums to make it thru the night. but the stuff of today being held by 18TH CENTURY plate. not one or the other, but BOTH. perhaps, humbert humbert is the "old" and lolita the "new", aka, young. thru the stories of BOTH, of their adventures across america, nabokov created HIS america, his version of what life is like. perhaps.
i don't know what is so muddled about my argument. merely that great art is tough to say with commonplace's, aka. phillistine's, ways of thinking (if they even think!). u sound like a bitter old man who are clinging to some old world's precepts. i am young, smart, and appreciate great art. AM I great art?--that's for others to decide, not i. i DO make--or attempt to make--art. i have no idea what the rest of ur post means. phillistine--btw, a nv i brought into the convo ;)
Fascinating to see Nabokov on video, this is exactly what I imagined the character of such a degenerate writer would be; weak, evasive, amoralist. As I predicted, he's so careful to dissociate morality from his art because he senses in his deep psychological convictions that judging his work morally will destroy him, and the reason of his so called success is because millions of his fans have the exact same tendency, only an amoralist moderate will think you can escape from moral choices, and that writing such a story is beyond good and evil.
As another said here, "The VN's novel is much richer than you interpret it. If you try to think a little bit above the common vernacular of blanket labeling (psychopathic, paedophile, etc.) and hysterical puritanism, but actually read the book, or some other works by VN, like "Invitation to beheading", "Despair", you might think differently."
As Trilling alludes to here, it's interesting how the progression of depictions of old man/young girl love throughout literary history contain some of the best encapsulations of any given era's mindset: in medieval court romances, a knight saving a 'damsel in distress' was the peak of idealist themes. In Romeo & Juliet, the age difference isn't even a relevant plot point, it's just taken for granted. In Ibsen's "The Master Builder" it's more taboo, yet still seems to represent some form of idyllic, albeit ultimately tragic, idealism. Whereas in Lolita, it's become almost the epitome of evil and is deemed scandalous obscenity. Meanwhile, a song like "Going Blind" by KISS (in contrast to "Aqualung") seems to invert this theme, so that the old man almost becomes a pathetic victim.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
He's just sitting there like "ya'll don't know shit about my book"
Nabokov approves of Trillings comments, at least he gives that impression by the way he shakes his after Trlling spoke.
@@jackarnon5483 I agree with you Jack. I think that's pretty clear.
Indeed....
Vladimir Nabokov is a writing genius, and I love him dearly for that.
I like the way Trilling drapes his arm and Nabokov practically lays down on his end of the couch. And the conversation is great.
I wish we had shows as good as this these days.
How can we. The adults left the room some time ago.
@@vincentwhite7693 Not they haven't, and I am pretty tired of this type of statement. There are millions of intelligent people out there, among all sectors of society. It is just that the media networks have a policy of making money from sensationalism which is used to bamboozle the masses. The podcast work is where intelligent conversations are based these days.
Wow, this shook my world. Never having seen Nabokov speak, I was expecting someone smooth and urbane, maybe arrogant. Sorta like Martin Amis with a Russian accent. In person, he was the opposite. Fumbling, awkward, unassuming. However his fierce intellect does shine through if you pay attention. A most interesting video...
I really expected an Orson Welles type of character. I was pleasantly disturbed when i saw this. He was so goofy
@@muzammilibrahim5011
Anticipating an Orson Wells-type persona of Nabokov doesn't strike me as unreasonable, brosef; accepting the self-portrayal of anyone as -fiendishly- -infernally- -egregiously- -drastically- strenuously _devious,_ -devilishly- -transcendentally- -preternaturally- relentlessly _cunning,_ and -imperiously- -stultifyingly- u-u-u-u-uh, uhhhhhh, anyone as, as, as, anyone as friggin' _impenetrable?_ As _Nabokov?_ As totally, y'know... -legit- -kosher- -4Realz- _genuine?_ _100%?!_ Based on, on what, like face value? Alone?
In the immoral words of The Dude, bro: h-hasn't it ever _occurred to you (man),_ that, uh, instead of, aah,...y'know *_running around,_* a-aah, buying whatever this Nabokov-a *_known Russian,_* by the way-y'know, given the nature of all this *_new shit,_* y'know i-i-it-it-it this could be a ah, ah ah a lot more, ah, ah, ah, ah-ah-ah, uh *_COMPLEX..._*
...I mean it's not just, it might *_NOT BE_* just such a simple, aah...y'know -dude- -bro- -Duder- -my man- DudeBro?
thank god you got Martin Amis out of your mind!
He was just nervous being in front of tv. He was not a showman in his personality. This is why in other interviews he had pre-written answers.
I think ideas of smooth and urbane were a bit different in his time. He was an aristocrat, literally, and they were allowed to have that kind of manner. He basically has the air of a PG Wodehouse rich uncle. That said, he was a writer who lived inside his head and no doubt nervous in front of a camera.
Thanks so much for uploading this, it was really fascinating to watch Mr. Nabokov on video.
Thank you for sharing this footage with us. I was delighted to listen to Nabokov in his own voice.
Like a message from another world. No conversation like this could possibly happen in our time, for better or worse.
Why not?
Utter nonsense. You are right in that it won't occur on the TV networks. But the podcast sphere is where intelligent conversations are based today.
"...(T))hey think in cliches...They don't know what love is and perhaps they don't know what sex is, either."
The money shot. Beautiful.
Yeah I actually find significant issue with supposing that a story about continually raping a child is any sort of art as opposed to the most vile smut. But I suppose I’m just cliched, I must not know what love is - or sex either - I’m just just not sophisticated enough or intelligent enough to understand this curious species of love.
What an absolutely horrible reading of this vile nonsense; that it is in ANY WAY about love!
fascinating vintage interview. Nabokov is delightful.
These guys are making me want a cigarette. I gave up smoking 40 years ago.
Ow! Just don't! Keep it up.
@@boukouchaouafa4187 That's what SHE said.....
I know why, unbelievably they call an erotic novel , a romantic , and sick pedophilia, Love!
Well observed.
French is his first language.
He was about 7yrs old when his father realised he couldn't speak Russian, so hired a tutor for him (speak mnemonic ).
I recommend the tv series Mad Men
Okay so there is a great difference between erotic and sexual, Lolita will NEVER be erotic
I wish Nabokov was still around today, his astute observations forever resonate
if he was still around today he would be 119 , so his observations may be a bit fusty .
Wow, and wow again, thanks Jiffyspook for posting this. What absolute astral brilliance!! Trilling and Nabokov were thrillingly and passionately explicating the very soul of ideas.
This incredibly brilliant, charming, witty conversation underscores just how far we have sunk in this forlorn year of 2020.
I don't see anything great about it.
Is your ''we'' all-inclusive'', or ''we'' as opposed to ''not us''?
@@peterivankovich2990 I am an Asian-American woman originally from Taiwan and lived in Chinatown, and I find this conversation indeed brilliant and charming. And by feeling that way I am admitted into its "inner sanctum." Literature and humanity know no exclusion.
@@jadefields5246 Yours are loud pretty word with no inner core.
I`m a Belarusian believed to be a pure Russian in the US. When I was in Russia, no one took me for a Russian there. Some Russian people told me I didn`t speak like a Russian, didn`t pronounce Russian sounds and, least but not last, I didn`t think like a Russian. But Americans want to see a Russian in me because of my last name. They spit my last name into two parts - Ivan Kovich. While I`m Peter Ivankovich. My ancient ancestor was called Ivanko and vich is like as son of. But our dear Americans will interpret everything according to their brainwashed brain.
The only place I can socialize with people here is a French conversation group. Where folks who don`t know me take me for a Frenchman.
I have also been branded as ''a non-human being in the US'' by Soviet Jews, and an anti-Semite by American Jews.
That`s an example of much vaunted all-inclusiveness here.
I can`t say anything about your experience here. But you seem to belong to a protected minority. At least in theory.
I beg to differ with you that literature and humanity ''know no exclusion''.
I`d thought so too before living in America. People here are divided up into their own racial groups and keep others shut out. In the State where I live this is very pronounced.
I am hard put to it to determine what you mean by being admitted in its ''inner sanctum''. As far as I`m concerned, there`s no sanctity about Nabokov and his Lolita. It`s just ''modern culture'' - to recognize as a masterpiece what used to be banned and decried in the past.
Tastes differ and it`s hard to determine what you find ''Brilliant and charming' 'in this conversation.
Nabokov does not impress and behaves like he is out to put on an act.
He speaks in a mediocre English pronunciation with put-on pomp and self-importance. By the way, I hope you know he comes from an aristocratic Russian family that fled Russia after the Bolshevik revolution. He has a versatile aristocratic education. I hope you will get one too some day.
This is incredible! Thank you so much for posting this rare thing!
Nabokov wouldn't be the least concerned with what "little girls" are wearing. The character Humbert Humbert wouldn't either, being that he believed in a select population of "nymphets" who he identified by certain physical traits and behaviors. His "romance" or "love" is a manipulation. Remember that the story is told from his point of view, and is an attempt to persuade the reader, or his judges, to accept his perspective.
Nabokov's look of amusement and subtle disdain at Trilling's awkward outburst @ 2:55. Delicious.
Not awkward at all, and Nabokov clearly laughs at 2:56.
One of Nabokov's first languages was English, learned as a child in St. Petersburg according to his memoir, Speak, Memory. He also obtained his degree at Cambridge University. Nabokov might have had an idiosyncratic way of speaking but it didn't in anyway mean that he spoke in "broken English."
Having English as one of one's first languages does not necessarily mean it is Standard English. Have met people from former British colonies in Asia who learned English as children but their English is by no means Standard English. Singaporean English, for example, is devoid of grammar because Chinese is devoid of grammar and they have a strong accent that comes from Chinese. There are also a number of English words they use with Chinese meanings. For example, a tangerine is called an orange because in Chinese both tangerines/oranges have the same word.
Thank you for these. I'm a fan of Mr. Trilling. It's great to see and hear him for the first time.
5:01 - Great line.
His "Volshebnik" in Russian has a very similar story like Lolita. He wrote it in France 15 years before Lolita and before coming to US. I love all of his works and his poetry in Russian in particular.
What in his stories and poetry speaks to your soul? What makes you love them?
@@peterivankovich2990 Its hard to explain in a few words. There are some similiraties in our life stories and constant longing to return to the place and time where you were once happy but that is lost forever.
@@osen-z3v Is Nabokov the only writer and poet who wrote about the constant longing to return to the places and time where you were once happy and that`s lost forever? I wonder what similarities in your lives were there. Were you born in a noble family in a vast building in Saint Petersburg, Russia?
Were you crazy about chasing butterflies? Did you yearn for the period of your life in Switzerland?
Do try to compress your answer in a few sentences.
I knew some people from Russia who admired the heck out of Nabokov. But my feeling was they professed admiration for Nabokov to be in with the literary crowd.
By the way, I learned recently that one of the hardcore admiresses of Nabokov O.D.ed last year down in Los Angeles. She loved both Nabokov`s literary creations and hard drugs. She was from Leningrad/Petersburg like Nabokov, but she hated that city and Russia and never wasted her time to long for it. America was freedom, money, sleeping around and hard drugs for her.
Is there anything in Nabokov`s creativity that helps you hang on to life?
@@peterivankovich2990 You have so many questions...I wonder what makes you so curious ? You sound a little aggressive and demanding, but I know what you mean when you say that people in Russia like V. Nabokov only to seem cool (same with Castaneda, Tolkien, Coelyo, Hemingway and others). Out of all Russian, French, English, American writers - I feel the closest to him. Not only as a writer but as a philosopher, historian, artist. I left my country, my city, my friends, my love, my memories at the same age as he did and thats when I discovered him. Have you read his "Другие Берега?" His poetry in Russian - "Отвяжись, я тебя умоляю". You can only understand when you are away from your motherland. The way he plays with words, his love to St. Petersburg, Vyra, Rozhdestvenno, Batovo, russian nature - its colors, its light, childhood memories. When tbey asked him why he never came back he said :" I took the keys from my Russia with me." Russia that he loved before 1917 revolution. In all his writings you can find hidden smiles, sorrows, memories about Russia, his childhood, blissful moments of his family being together. Its very poetic, its very delicate, its very fragile. ( I dont support his passion for butterflies. But he was a genius who taught about Tolstoy, Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky in US university)
@@peterivankovich2990 To answer your last question ? The way he is weaving the words, his thoughts, precise details and descriptions of nature, characters, the LOVE to his country, full comprehension that physically he will never go back but he lived there all his life. Only in his dreams he felt free to travel and cross the borders of time, place and circumstances. "Бывают ночи, только лягу. В Россию поплывет кровать". Same story with me....now we are back to my first reply - restoring the past, desire to witness and cherish those moments again. Admiration for the literature, the heritage, for the art, history - all this is inspiring me. Along with music - but thats a different conversation. Nabokovs younger brother Sergey was a good piano player, but music seemed boring and redundant for Nabokov - he never developed appreciation for classical music)
"If sex is the sermon made of art, love is the lady of that tower." Did he say that? That's beautiful
He would have prepared it before hand.
*Serving maid
Writers,I believe ,have such a hard time speaking because. either they come up with different words.gor the same thing or they are already consumed by their next thought
*_Tarnsman of Gor?_*
Lolita is a great read. I don't consider it a "love story" tho (lol). Humert tries to convince us it is about love...but his motivation was pure lust? (Idk, I'm not smart enough to analyze..but it was a great book)
Dude was definitely a genius
@Indigo Rodent Thanks. It made sense why so many media critics talk as if love stories supposed to be a guide for life instead of a state of emotions. Humbert do love Lolita but that does not meant he do not destroy her for his lust.
@@Account.for.Comment He doesn't love her, he LUSTS after her. He even used the word specifically "LOLITA" as a dehumanising and derogatory way to take away from her humanity instead of actually referring to regular name. Humbert is a sick man who took advantage and used Doleraz for his own sick desires. He tired to portray himself as the "victim" in his unreliable narration and there are parts in where he downplays his twisted actions and behaviours trying to pin the blame on Dolores in a discreet way. I mean for christ sakes the guy had a sick attraction towards to young girls and used the term nymphet as a way of him to describe that as "young seductress". And the way he treated Dolores was just sick overall. They were in a sick, toxic and in a extremely unhealthy "relationship". So no there was no sense of love only lust. If he truly loved her he would have had sense of control on his desires and behaved more of a decent father figure then to act like a revolting creep and hurt in so many unimaginable ways.
@@funanimation8253 Since you miss the point, let me remind you: Love is not always a healthy, good thing and it should not be defined as such. Love is an emotion, a person have toward another person, object, subject. It can be toxic, destructive, obsessive. Countless lives was ruined because of love. At the end, Dolores is pregnant and have an adult body. HH still asked her to be his lover, and the rejection drove him to end his life as the murderer of Clair Quilty. During the years they are together, HH try to make her to be his soul mate but their relationship resembled a controlling father and rebellious daughter much more. It is the combination of love and lust that turned that relationship into the pseudo-incest shitfest.
I also reccommend the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez "Love in the Time of Cholera" to see how toxic the state of being in love and how it led to destructive for self and others. Love is often portrayed as the best thing, but many in society seem to forget that it is also the most hurtful things to experience. Cultural critics seem to forget that, and I could not understand how they kept pointed tropes in love stories as toxic. Of course it is, love made people do stupid things.
@@Account.for.Comment
"HH still asked her to be his lover"
And there's your problem right here. You are normalising the romantisation of Pedophilia. HH never cared about Dolores. Why you may ask? Because someone who is supposed to be the father figure to dolorez would never ask a child that they took to look after, to be in such innapropiate relationship like that. So I don't understand how you people view their relationship as "loving" that's BS.
You do you know that HH was a creep right. In no way does the relationship between humbert resemble that of a controlling father and rebellious daughter. Where did you even get that idea from? Litteraly HH never loved Dolores at all. You people are trying to romantise the predatory behaviour of a Pedophile. That's sick as hell. HH litterally married Dolores mother just so he get to Dolores alone and typically that's what pedophiles do in order to seek out to their next victim of target. Pedophiles typically target vulnerable children who come from broken homes or come from a family that only has one parent because they know that the child is vulnerable and defenseless in those types of situations. And because of that they insert themselves to target the child. Which was Humbert did. If the author saw what you had wrote he would have been quite disappointed because you are LITTERALY trying to romanticise the idea of Pedophilia. Something the author was against. There was loving relationship. None. Only lust.
"It is the combination of love and lust that turned that relationship into the pseudo incest shitfest"
Are you forgetting that Humbert is a Pedophile? If not for the fact he was living with Dolores this man would have targeted ANY girl. So no its not pseudo type of "relationship". What Humbert did to that poor child actually DID happen and he only did that so because he is a depraved character who happens to be attracted to children in a sick way. Let me remind you Dolores was only just 12 in book when Humbert moved in and started being so horrendous towards that girl. Because he himself has admitted to being attracted to KIDS. He even calls young girls as "nymphets" meaning he considers young girls as seductress. Adults who are not pedophiles don't describe children in such a way like Humbert did in the book. I don't know why you trying to make Humbert (the villian) of the story as this normal OK human. He's not OK. He is wicked and evil but it's like you are purposely ignoring the imporantant messages and signs within the book that the author wrote in to warn about Humbert.
"Love is often portrayed as the best thing"
Listen I know that when it comes to love not everything within it is perfect. And sometimes certain relationships they do tend do be destructive and aren't so perfect. And while yes in some relationship there is a sense of balance between love and lust. But the thing is here is that you are conflating the two here. You areconflating love with lust when it comes to the interaction between Humbert and Dolores. Renember when you read the novel or watch the film you are in the perspective or in the mind of an UNRELIABLE narrator who happens to be a Pedophile. So anything he could says in the book could or is a lie to the viewers to get you people to side and pitty with Humbert. So that he would feel less guilt about all the atrocious disgusting acts that he did to poor Dolores. What you are doing here is trying to romantise the relationship between the abuser and the victim. That's not OK and thats extremely toxic. He did not much care about dolores at all he only used her for his sick depraved desires so that he could satisfy and gratify his disgusting needs. His attitude towards young girls and females in general is also repugnant and revolting so much so that even the author HATED Humbert. You trying to make the relationship between Dolorez and Humbert normal which is not normal at all and is actually horrible. You people actually need to know the difference between love and lust and you also need to stop twisting the authors intentions and message, because you are doing him quite a disservice to him and his work you. It's line you didn't pay attention the book or something.
@@funanimation8253 Such a long 4-paragraphed essay putting words into my mouth, and still missing the point. What you said is nothing more than your imagination of what I am thinking or saying. Grow up, learn to control your emotion, some critical thinking skills and some reading comprehension.
"Never make fun of someone who speaks broken English. It means they know another language."
-- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
How about never make fun of a genius?
Broken English?? Nabokov’s English? Ahaha
Few English speakers can even dream of ever being able write prose as eloquently as Nabokov in English.
English was the first language he learned how to speak at the age of 3. His father had to hire a Russian teacher from the local school. Nabokov spoke and wrote in 4 languages evenly perfect.
@@osen-z3v four languages? Hmm, as I know, he spoke Russian, English and French. Also, although he lived in Germany, he seemed not to speak in Deutsh
Nabokov is brilliant here- just how I would hope him to be. Watch his eyes when trilling speaks!
"They don't know what love is, perhaps, and perhaps they don't know what love is, either."
BURN.
You completely misquoted that! He said, "They don't know what love is, perhaps, and perhaps they don't know what sex is, either."
amazing document, thanks
The prose in _Lolita_ is fantastic but as Nabokov himself admitted in interviews in the 60s, there is a subjacent level of reading in Lolita. Examples among a ton of such things:
Humbert etymologically means “famous warrior”. It is at least three times in the novel made reference to his kind of Celtic looks. Nabokov associates him to Tristram, a Celtic Knight of the (Celtic) Arthurian Legend who is a symbol of eternal and fatal love (remember "Tristram and Iseult"?). Notice how Tristram is referenced several times in this novel, directly (e.g. Ilse Tristramson) and indirectly. All of this is linked to what he called _"a beautiful puzzle - its composition and its solution at the same time, since one is a mirror view of the other, depending on the way you look"_ in an interview in the 60s.
.
If you want more infos about this specific point about Humbert (and other charachters of the novel), you can go in this subpart of this website.
Which website? (6 years later)
@@botero01 Darn youtube. Apparently at some point they removed the links in case it was commercial spam or something...
I don't think I can provide an actual link or it will be removed too, but let's try this:
lolitasriddle d ot blogspot do t c om. You should be able to see the name of the page, right?
Have a nice day.
Agreed...which website?
Search for lolitasriddle on your favorite search engine.
Thank you so much for this. It's great!
This must have been one of the last live TV interviews Nabokov ever did. I didn't know much about Lionel Trilling before I watched this, but this video has not raised him in my estimation, let's just put it that way.
"Why did you choose this rather odd...debased love?" Oh, come on. The answer to that is easy. I can't believe anyone actually wonders about this. He wrote it because he could. Some people try to evaluate writing as if it is this mystical thing and it isn't. People who write just write about the shit they want to read. As far as Lolita, it hadn't been done before by such a visible writer and it was only a matter of time until someone did.
Exactly.
Because it is interesting.
Cynical and straightforward. Thank you. It first explain why I liked to read it in my surly twenties. I was swept by Nabokov brilliance and writing style. Who else could compare. However the novel is dangerous.
@@Ivorybird09 Dangerous? You think it will induce grown men to rape 12 year olds???
@@Ivorybird09 You greatly overestimate art's effect.
@Indigo Rodent I read it when I was 16, and I fully comprehended the egotism and terrific deprivation of humanity that HH's crime inflicted on a young girl like myself. If I had any inclination to romanticize older men, this book nipped that in the bud. Also, any girl who can comprehend this book is no longer "young" in intellect or understanding. Nabokov said the epithet "touching," compassionately but erroneously applied to HH, belonged rather with his "poor little girl." I understand this book allows multiple perspectives, as all great literature does, but my personal takeaway was it made life safer for young girls.
He's my literary star, Nabokov, that is. Pierre Berton is pretty good too.
INTERVIEWER (at 5:14): Let me ask one fast question before we close, Mr. Nabokov. You've put a word in the language, 'nymphet.' Is this going to be your 娘 (馬?!? -- ed.) -- your monument? Do you feel that you have accomplished something?
VN: It is a very small monument, but it is a delicate monument, and it is -- it is pleasant to have that, somewhere in the garden, in the shade.
INTERVIEWER: It is a word that is cropping up -- you must see this word staring out at you!
VN: I see it constantly, and it is a pleasant feeling. . ..
INTERVIEWER: It won't have any clothes very soon!
~ ~ ~
Line 413: a nymph came pirouetting
In the draft there is a lighter and more musical:
413 A nymphet pirouetted
. . .
Line 475: A watchman, Father Time
The reader should notice the nice response to line 312.
. . .
Line 490: Exe
Exe obviously stands for Exton, a factory town on the south shore of Omega Lake. It has a rather famous natural history museum with many showcases containing birds collected and mounted by Samuel Shade.
. . .
Line 550: debris
I wish to say something about an earlier note (to line 12). Conscience and scholarship have debated the question, and I now think that the two lines given in that note are distorted and tainted by wistful thinking. It is the ONLY time in the course of the writing of these difficult comments, that I have tarried, in my distress and disappointment, on the brink of falsification. I must ask the reader to ignore those two lines (which, I am afraid, do not even scan properly). I could strike them out before publication but that would mean reworking the entire note, or at least a considerable part of it, and I have no time for such stupidities.
Lines 557-558:
How to locate in blackness with a gasp, Terra the Fair, an orbicle of jasp
The loveliest couplet in this canto.
. . ..
Line 680: Lolita
Major hurricanes are given feminine names in America. The feminine gender is suggested not so much by the sex of furies and harridans as by a general professional application. Thus any machine is a she to its fond user, and any fire (even a "pale" one!) is she to the fireman, as water is she to the passionate plumber. Why our poet chose to give his 1958 hurricane a little-used Spanish name (sometimes given to parrots) instead of Linda or Lois, is not clear.
--- Владимир Владимирович Набоков [Vladimir Nabokov], PALE FIRE
He speaks English with a French accent, Russian with an English accent, and French with no accent at all.
yeah he sounds more French than Russian when speaking English lol
What about his German?
While he was speaking French, if your attention is focused, you will might suddenly notice a small Italian accent.
He speaks Russian without any accent (I'm Russian)
In his autobiography he says he spoke French before he ever spoke Russian
so great to watch this. thanks
I am pleased with his accent
Has anyone read Reading Lolita in Tehran? It's very useful as a discussion of Lolita, great incites, esp. from a woman';s perspective (as a man I find it fascinating how different women see the character of Lolita)what's more, women living under a theocratic regime.
wonderful thanks for posting!
"This is not a love story. This is a horror novel." Ditto for eroticism.
To Imematt:
After thinking about it for a couple of weeks I decided that you are probably right. Still, when NV made that comment notice that he prefixed it with the phrase "of course." In my mind this was his way of inviting further discussion of his sweeping statement. Seems like no one took the challenge until now. Thanks to RUclips
@soffer I'm much the same. I'm an aspiring writer (obviously nothing compared to Nabakov) but I find writing so much easier than speaking. I can write a few pages of prose, come back to them the next day and marvel at their eloquence; but directly ask me a question and I'll stammer and struggle far worse than our genius here. I am assuming it has something to do with the language centres in the brain: the generation of words and their physical utterances controlled by different parts and such.
Can someone please help me translate this part? I'm writing a paper on it and can't seem to figure out what Trilling is saying. At 2:05 he says: "...but that is very full of tenderness, full of passion as well as __?__ ..." It sounds like he says "passion" again, but I can't tell if he might be saying that same word with a different accent/enunciation or if he might be saying a different word.
first he said compassion and then passion. I can't understand the full sentence as well. but i'm sure he said compassion and passion
Yes! Thank you for responding!
I do not agree with the guy that smokes. I did not think the book was erotic. I found it very good in general and also surprisingly funny but hardly erotic.
fapable certainly.
How is it not erotic?
It's a sexual book.
😂😂😂
@@Firespawnable ok, explain to me why you consider it to be erotic?
@@Firespawnable I agree with Artur. you find a book about a disturbed man raping a 12 year old to be erotic? who is your psychiatrist?
@@55archduke The author who wrote the book said it's erotic but it's not about sex. Obviously Artur and you did not watch video and you do not understand the book. You're the type of readers he said was stupid. 🙄
Trilling is also a good writer: The Middle of the Journey I enjoyed very much.
Какой красивый английский у Набокова. Гений❤
Just thinking if this conversation were had today, there would be heads on plates.
I don’t see why. I mean the book was considered scandalous and pornographic when it came out and couldn’t be published in the US for a bit because of that, and Kubrick’s movie adaptation was so censored that afterwards he said he probably wouldn’t have made it had he known beforehand how much he would have to alter what he wanted to do. I think our free speech rights in art have actually come a long, long way from this time, not the other way around. I think people are more concerned about pedophilia and grooming (as they should be), but as Nabokov says, he doesn’t agree with Humbert, he’s just trying to explore the themes made possible by this particular story. The only way I could see someone objecting to this conversation is if they misunderstood it to be in support of sexual abuse. But in that case wouldn’t you want people to be up in arms?
I love the way the host turns the author's name into innuendo.
His accent sounds considerably more German than French as his tonic accents fall in the teutonic tradition more than the Latin although you are right that it is a strange hybrid or mixture.
Lolita is a great novel, but I really can't buy it as a love story on any level. And if it is, then a quote from Angels in America might be appropriate here: "He loves, but his love is worth nothing." All he does is ruin her life............ not only does he sexually abuse her (drugging the girl and f*cking her as she sleeps; I don't care how old she is, that is 100% rape), he totally robs her of her entire personhood. He fetishizes her so much that she has no sense of who she is outside of that. At no point does Humbert give or bring anything positive at all to Lo's existence. If that constitutes as love, then the word is utterly worthless.
onetouchofvenus I think the idea that love is only meaningful if it is mutual and symbiotic, is the perfect example of the clichéd thinking Nabokov was talking about. Why does the fact that love can be a solely destructive and tragic emotion make the world worthless?
That's exactly what love does to us though.
@@BlueRonin2015 I don't agree either, w the idea that love is only meaningful when mutual and symbiotic. Love can often time be nothing but tragic and destructive. But at the foundation of love, true love, not lust, infatuation or obsession, the other parties interests are a main priority. Their wellness is a main priority, even when not reciprocated or ending in tragedy. To abuse and to destroy someone for your own selfish reasons isn't truly loving someone, to intently take advantage of someone else isn't love, more of loving the image, the aura you've created of them, loving what you can take from them. His intentions and actions are often pseudo analyzed and rationalized by himself in efforts to explain his warped perspective on his 'love', a better descriptor would be the unhealthy obsession for Lolita that in the end drives him mad. Humbert Humbert cant love Lolita, for the Lolita he thinks he sees, the person he's created in his state of delusion isn't even Lolita. Him being an unreliable narrator helps this point, that the way he views lolita, their interactions etc, just cannot be trusted. Glimpses of reality shine through at times, making us second guess everything we've been fed my H.H so far. He's simply infatuated by the image of Dolores he's made up in his head, he's infatuated by his lust, the desire he holds of touching her prepubescent body to which he will go to any extreme to achieve, even if it means drugging and raping her.
Kenna Andrade - We’re in danger of diving too deep into philosophical water here and missing the point of the novel completely.
But this notion that ‘true love’ needs to be entirely selfless is a fairly modern and romantic idea. It’s a mature and reasonable view, but I don’t agree that selfish, all consuming love isn’t real or ‘true’.
If Humbert was only projecting his perverted ideal onto Lolita he just would’ve found another little girl after she disappeared, as opposed to driving round the country searching for three years and eventually murdering her kidnapper.
For all he deliberately subverts and manipulates the reader into sympathising with his evil, there’s no doubt he is utterly obsessed and devoted to her. He loves her.
@@BlueRonin2015 I agree, that view on love is fairly modern, the mature and reasonable view. It is the healthy view on love. Humberts view on love is the complete opposite, that is why Humberts love can only be described as a monster’s love. A narcissist’s love. An abuser’s love. The “love” to the monster is very real, but to the rest of us, is monstrous.
He kidnaps and rapes her by manipulating her immature emotions. He wants to justify his own righteousness. He wants to believe he loved her and is trying to convince us and himself.
From the very beginning, he believes he did no wrong. The rest is warping the story to suit his world view.
Nabokov is showing us what words and power can do.
The beauty makes it so easy to forget that this is written from a jail cell to the jury.
You have an interesting point. Why doesn’t he just find another Lolita after she is gone? I've contemplated thoroughly on that part of the novel, the obsession of this Lolita being his redemption for his childhood love that ended in tragedy. Time and time again my conclusion for the end of the novel (after killing Quilty) on the shred of regret ‘we see’ from Humbert hearing the children singing and knowing he took Lolitas voice from the choir, to me, is another perfect example of him being an unreliable narrator. I don't believe that is what he truly believes. Again, he’s talking to the jury. He’s manipulating them and us. This correlates to him looking for Lolita for so long. I do not believe love is what drove him to do it, neither pure sexual deviance.
At 4:07 he knew he fucked up
No Mr. Nabokov, No 1997 Lolita rest in paradise maestro author
Trilling's comment about the literary tradition of "Scandalous Love" is fascinating (whether VN likes it or not)
Lionel Trilling was actually a good critic, but this clip shows up his limitations rather than his strengths.
What Limitations?
Lionel made great points here.
I agree with Firespawn. He made great points.
@@Firespawnable Trilling thought the book was about HH's love. Nabokov did not demur on the spot, but said HH was the ape that could only paint the bars of its cage. As a woman I take my cue from his comment that the epithet "touching" does not apply to the monstrous HH but rather his "poor little girl." If the obsession Nabokov limns qualifies as love, it is certainly only the touching and consummate love that the worthy Trilling projects and that HH clutches to his scrotum as protection in a hall of mirrors, with neither substance nor integrity.
Trilling strikes me as the soul of kindness here. Can't bear to see the full truth about Nabokov's ironically rendered anti-hero. Seduced by the goodness of Trilling's own nature.
i am curious, who was the man on that poster in Lolita's room;
I know it's been 7 years, but if you're still wondering, I believe it was Clare Quilty, with his dromes cigarretes
@MrsMxyptlk (great name!) I agree that the book is about love. Humbert is in love with Lolita, and this is what gives the book a great deal of its power to shock. If Humbert was just a pervert who abuses Lolita he wouldn't shock the reader so much. The book raises the question of what is love. As you say, Lolita doesn't love Humbert. But what if she did? Would their relationship then be appropriate, once she becomes 18?
The question is interesting but is immediately shut down once you remember the simple concept, true love isn't selfish. He never had lolitas interests in mind, he never had the real interests of the child in mind. True love doesn't manipulate the other party, doesn't take advantage of the lack of maturity in the other party.
Humbert consumed by his own infatuation and desire, cloaked in lust not love.
it doesn't matter whether she cared for humbert-she's twelve, she can't consent. she doesn't know what romantic/sexual love is.
He would not have loved her at 18. He wouldn't love her as she got older.
Nabokov actually does have a slight french accent when speaking russian.
So we have Vladimir Nabokov and Lionel Trillick. Anyone know who the third guy is?
4:24 "If sex is the sermon made of art, love is the lady of that tower."
If sex is the serving maid of art, love is the lady of that tower.
it's interesting to listen to it today
it's a metaphore, i think, for our passionate and curious yearn to learn. then hunt.
Remarkable.
it is captain ahab and his egomaniacal "love" for the white whale. then hunt. a metaphor, i think, for learning.
[T]he only real, authentic worlds are, of course, those that seem unusual ... Average reality begins to rot and stink as soon as the act of individual creation ceases to animate a subjectively perceived texture.
--Vladimir Nabokov, from "Strong Opinions"
_"the act of individual creation"_
Coded reference to sex, surrounded by turbo-blather.
Is that Lionel Trilling? 😳
Your comments are to the point. What have you read since summer? You might try "The Annotated Lolita" by VN's student Alfred Appel. Also on YT Marlon Brando interview-1965
Who is the other guest ?
Lionel Trilling
Nabokov is a genius writer, a contrarian and maybe just a little bit brutal.
The interviewer is the late great Canadian icon, author and pot smoker, Pierre Burton! ( BTW )
Why would he have a thick Russian accesnt if he was taught English and French along with Russian in his early childhood? Three languages spoken fluently in his family. In fact he learned English before Russian. He emigrated from Russia at the age of 18 and studied in Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and America.
Is HH capable of love? I am not convinced. He strikes me as a fairly ruined,isolated personality on something of a death trip, 'free', then, [imprisoned, really] only to follow his basest instincts to ground. HH, tender, stricken sociopathic avalanche that he is, makes no clear effort to deliver himself from evil and so, ultimately, composes his eulogy from jail. [Then and there becoming the ape that paints only the bars of its cage. ]
vanderbilt. Novelists and Novels. I happen to love the inexhaustible old buffalo even though he over-estimates Pynchon and Delillo and, however slightly, under-estimates Roth.
Why do you think "Lolita" has become a modern classic in the first place? Exactly because it touched on the nerve of modern civilization. Not by dealing with main protagonist as a psycopath( in fact if you think of other characters in the book, they are just worse than H.H. and Lol), but by depicting a vast American tapestry as an epitome of this civilization.
It's odd and curious to find Vladimir Nabokov's accent is more ambiguous in nationality than his name would suggest. I expected a thick Ruso accent like Solzhenitsyn has. He sounds more French then Russian. It probably comes from his trilingual background and his citizen of the world status.
All of his interviews are self interviews: Nabokov wrote the dialogue in full, his own lines and the supposed interviewers questions/comments. I wouldn't interpret his accent in this performance (which is exactly what it is) as genuine by default; I expect the answer is attainable for those interested enough to spend the time searching, but until and unless I'd done so, I would regard it as an open question.
There's a blatantly obvious coded covert dialogue happening, a layer or three beneath the surface. The first sentence of the first part of the interview (video 1 of 2) is a rather obviously arcane example of a Code 33 drop, for example (C = 3rd letter of alphabet, ergo CC = 33).
The final question, re. the legacy of the Nabokov-coined term nymphet, seems strenuously difficult to interpret seriously as anything other than a very lightly coded in-jokey expression of admiration for nymphets by Nabokov, at least, with the interviewer most likely in agreement and in on the joke:
VN: _"It is a very small monument, but it is a delicate monument, and it is -- it is pleasant to have that, somewhere in the garden, in the shade."_
INTERVIEWER: _"It is a word that is cropping up -- you must see this word staring out at you!"_
VN: *_"I see it constantly, and it is a pleasant feeling."_*
INTERVIEWER: *_"It won't have any clothes very soon!"_*
are you saying Lolita is being done on the school syllabus?
@IllegalInAmsterdam - I have noticed similar something similar in the past, but there are certainly ways to bring greater eloquence to speech if it is desired. For instance you might practise reading aloud your most eloquent writings, i have found this increases my verbal eloquence...
Romance would have you believe that real love stands the test of time. However, time (and not the law) is the greatest enemy of the pederast. Humbert's love does not endure because Lolita grows up. One doesn't think of Nabokov as being an existentialist writer because he's got such a light touch. But I wonder.
Except for several stronger 's', but they were not as strong and frequent as in that or other Slavic accents; Владимир Владимирович talked this old-style English with softer consonants
@Oscar301 in heard "servant-maid of art" :)
Arguing that L seduced HH is ridiculous. But I don't think the issue is whether to trust HH's narration. L was undoubtedly promiscuous for a 12 year old, and she had Hollywood inspired fantasies about HH, but claiming that she seduced him (an adult male, who should know better) is like blaming children for believing in Santa--as if their naivete was to blame for the invention.
I really, really disagree with the man smoking.
Well, you're great, so who can disagree with you. But you're wrong. He was the most esteemed literary critic of the mid-century, and he's completely on target here.
@@55archduke Being 'esteemed' doesn't mean he's always right ... Just because I think for myself doesn't mean you have to act like a bitch.
Stephen King actually unalived hundreds of people, that's why he writes so realistically about unaliving people. Instead of discussing Nab's book, let's talk about how I was touched when I was a child. My story is soooo much more important than anything else in this comment section.
'Early defenses of 'Lolita' by Hollander and Trilling center on the insistence that it was an authentic love story.....I marvel that acute readers could take it as a portrayal of human love, since Humbert and Lolita are hardly representations of human beings. They are deliberate caricatures...solipsistic nightmares.'- Harold Bloom. I entirely agree.
i believe, it's Elvis
what do you think?
He bears a close resemblance to Rodney Dangerfield. By the way, Pierre Berton wrote at least one erotic novel under a pseudonym.
THEY DON'T DO THEM LIKE THIS ANYMORE.
i cannot post for some reason. testing...
Appalling to see three men gloss over the sexual abuse and cruelty to a 12 year old girl, and talk like spectators. Never mind art, the soul is corrupt here.
It's a novel. It isn't real. It isn't merely about pedophillia.
Trilling concerns me.
And Nabokov looks very uncomfortable with what trilling was saying.
I wonder what Nabokov would have made of the tabloid obsession with Jon Bennet Ramsey? I think she was even younger than Lolita and seems to reappear every few years in the supermarket checkout racks.
How long has that little girl been dead? She is more famous dead than she ever was alive and I can never understand why?
I can never understand how mothers will try to make their very young children imitate the style of much older women. I've never seen one but maybe those beauty pageants are a thing of the past by now?
Never read the book but recently watched Kubrick's movie. It wasn't at all judgemental as far as I could tell.
Sex and violence are closely associated in the brain and love can encapsulate both. Isn't that Nabokov's point?
Even though I agree that "Lolita" is a masterpiece, I have to take issue with Nabokov's assertion that "all worthwhile novels are concerned with passionate love." What about "Moby Dick" to name just one "worthwhile novel." Surprised that Lionel Trilling did not jump all over Nabokov's ridiculous assertion.
Newsflash to the feuders: Pretty Hilarious, Insipid, Listless, Insane Stupidity. The Inspired Nabokov's Empire's Shamed! Figure it out kids.
Ha! 1st class TV.
Lolita is an great American novel written by a Russian just like Victory or Lord Jim are great English novels written by a Pole.
Lolita is about the confrontation of decadent European culture with the juvenile, adolescent and corrupt American culture.
"You should have had plumbs tonight,
In an eighteenth-century dish"
--Wallace Stevens
the stuff of TODAY will feed us, like plums to make it thru the night. but the stuff of today being held by 18TH CENTURY plate. not one or the other, but BOTH.
perhaps, humbert humbert is the "old" and lolita the "new", aka, young. thru the stories of BOTH, of their adventures across america, nabokov created HIS america, his version of what life is like. perhaps.
i don't know what is so muddled about my argument. merely that great art is tough to say with commonplace's, aka. phillistine's, ways of thinking (if they even think!). u sound like a bitter old man who are clinging to some old world's precepts. i am young, smart, and appreciate great art. AM I great art?--that's for others to decide, not i. i DO make--or attempt to make--art. i have no idea what the rest of ur post means. phillistine--btw, a nv i brought into the convo ;)
Fascinating to see Nabokov on video, this is exactly what I imagined the character of such a degenerate writer would be; weak, evasive, amoralist. As I predicted, he's so careful to dissociate morality from his art because he senses in his deep psychological convictions that judging his work morally will destroy him, and the reason of his so called success is because millions of his fans have the exact same tendency, only an amoralist moderate will think you can escape from moral choices, and that writing such a story is beyond good and evil.
So what you're saying is Nabokov overestimated his audience. Literature is wasted on the likes of you.
It’s definitely at least a little about sex. Lol.
I can not believe these people call pedophilia , love ,I can not believe theQ. Is it a love after !or sex !
As another said here, "The VN's novel is much richer than you interpret it. If you try to think a little bit above the common vernacular of blanket labeling (psychopathic, paedophile, etc.) and hysterical puritanism, but actually read the book, or some other works by VN, like "Invitation to beheading", "Despair", you might think differently."
As Trilling alludes to here, it's interesting how the progression of depictions of old man/young girl love throughout literary history contain some of the best encapsulations of any given era's mindset: in medieval court romances, a knight saving a 'damsel in distress' was the peak of idealist themes. In Romeo & Juliet, the age difference isn't even a relevant plot point, it's just taken for granted. In Ibsen's "The Master Builder" it's more taboo, yet still seems to represent some form of idyllic, albeit ultimately tragic, idealism. Whereas in Lolita, it's become almost the epitome of evil and is deemed scandalous obscenity. Meanwhile, a song like "Going Blind" by KISS (in contrast to "Aqualung") seems to invert this theme, so that the old man almost becomes a pathetic victim.