Here's a defense of Nabokov against his worst readers (like Jeffrey Epstein) who took Lolita to be a manual for their lives:
https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/jeffrey-epsteins-lolita/
It occurred to me Vladimir would Think, Write and then Speak. In reverse; Trump speaks, then writes, ...we haven’t seen the “think” part yet.
Somebody, I forget who, said Nabokov wrote the best parenthesis of all time in describing the death of of Dolores Haze, Lolita's mother:
"(picnic, lightning)."
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@SMS
That is my favorite line from the book. A whole character in two words and a parenthesis.
It wasn't Mrs. Haze's death being described. It was Humbert Humbert's very photogenic mother. In the ensuing paragraphs he (HH) refers to his "cheerful motherlessness," and that is the last we hear of her.
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Where to start? Does Garner really believe that Lawrence's oeuvre in any way measures up to that of Nabokov? Laughable. Pale Fire alone is one of the greatest works of the 20th, indeed probably any, century. Lawrence is dated and overwrought, and everything he ever wrote reeks of actual misogyny, not what the teenage Ms Winterson naively thought she saw in Lolita.
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@theresa . I couldn't agree with you more on all counts!!
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D.H. Lawrence repurposed E.M. Forster’s “Maurice,” a novel about homosexual love, and published it as “Lady Chatterly’s Lover.” So how much of a “literary giant” is he?
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Boy. Nabokov deserves better. Than this review.
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I am expecting all of his works to be banned from college campuses for his "Lolita."