Episode 72: Lolita, Part 2

We close up our discussion of Lolita and try not to reflect too much on what has brought us to this point. We consider what sort of people would read this as a morality play, and what in the actual eff is wrong with them (everything). We talk about the road novel as a genre, the doppelgänger (doing a Freud while simultaneously hating the Good Doctor), what reading “with” a character is like, and why this book makes it so difficult not to talk about word objects as though they’re “people.” Also, Tristan is still feeling pretty bolshy, and we indulge in a fun round of “you might be a Russian novelist if.”

We read the Alfred Appel, Jr. Annotated Lolita published by Vintage. As before, we’re kinda not into Nabokov criticism, so either go watch the Kubrick movie (really good! veeeeerrrry different) and have a Kubrick-fest, or read some of Nabokov’s other books—Ada if you’re a word pervert, The Defense if you’re a chess pervert, or Pnin if you’re an academic and therefore every kind of pervert.

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