# Is Lolita good writing or bad writing?



## cinderblock (Jan 31, 2016)

Not sure how many of those have read this book. My original post was about certain baffling passages that I read during the first 30 pages, and it received no replies, so now that I've finished the book, I guess I'll make my question more general.

I just wanted a "writer's take," I guess, on whether or not Lolita constitutes good writing or bad writing.

Now, I'm not experienced at all with these type of books - whatever you call these books. Is there a "sub-genre" or cultural niche term for this type of book? Is it called intellectualist-academia? Some call this post-modernist, but I think there are other post-modern books that don't share some of the classic traits exhibited in Lolita. So whatever category this book falls under, I'm theorizing from having read about others like it (Gravity's Rainbow, Ulysses, Finnegans Wake, Proust, etc, which I have not read) that this - much like the beats era - was part of a literary movement. This period, I theorize, was full of writers who were in a contest of "intellectual" wits and wordplay and try-to-figure-out-what-I-meant-by-this! and guess-what-obscure-allusion-this-means! and I-know-more-words-than-you!

If there's anything like Lolita today, please let me know. I'm guessing this style of writing has been discontinued. I would describe it as a faux-archaic European style. Many authors employ this style despite not coming from such background, and I've seen it done with far better precision (Flan O'Brien's Third Policeman) or with common words and clear expression (Jon Fante's Ask The Dust). 

My problem with Lolita is that it has no flow. It doesn't read like natural writing to me. It reads like someone wrote it, and then busted out the thesaurus of archaic words and expressions and then with the help of a French-speaking friend, added French for the effect of look-how-learned-and-cultured-I-am! But I also could not help but notice the French is also used as a crutch at certain junctures of the novel, as opposed to during casual, simple small talk. This also happens with his tendency to name drop old writers and poets and make obscure time-capsulated - if not cryptographic - references to heavy-handedly impress and impose upon the reader that the author is well-researched. 

I could also see the appeal of such writing when there weren't that many things to do. Nobokov and the obscure writers of his time grew up in a period where reading was a hugely favorite past time. A book like this with so many hidden allusions and references and labyrinthian qualities was like a videogame with massive replay value, a true treasure. It was considered "interactive" for its time. At the same time, it also reads like an intellectual jest or game of duel among likeminded authors. It definitely is not aimed at maximizing readership. It seems to exclude dullards. 

One of the things that really surprised me about Lolita is the wordplay. I would've thought such games would be left to young adult books like Alice in Wonderland, but I guess wordplay was an actual thing among the intellectualists. 

I've read many reviews of this book, and the consensus among the public seems to be - bad subject/great writing. Personally, I didn't rate the book on the subject matter. I simply rated it on the effectiveness of the writing, although I must admit, I had to pause everytime he used the word "nymphet." Not only is it the connotation that's disturbing, but it's also - dare I say - cheesy, lame. Yes, I found Nobokov mostly lame. Like an old man waxing pretentious and trying too hard to impress. I've read many readers talk about what an evil genius Nobokov is because he's "charming." I did not at any point think he was charming, and this is coming from someone who loves a well-concocted, cool anti-hero and tends to root for the villains. I found him eccentric certainly, but never did his narrative style charm me, not even close. I don't think I've ever read a book that made me sigh more, in fact. The subject matter beyond the shock factor was boring. And despite making excuses for his ephemeral memory and thus glossing over, swiftly paraphrasing the milestones of the story, he would wax endlessly about what people wore, how they looked, their expressions, hand gestures, geography, technical data. And again, there's an artificiality to his sentence structure. It's disruptive, and it doesn't flow. The opening page with the Foreword even mentions the solecism of the author.

That said, there are passages where I admit that he nailed. When Nabokov is on, he's brilliant. And he's also a great closer. The last four paragraphs of the story is one of the greatest "single pages" of any book. I only wish he wrote like this throughout the 300-some pages, which read more like 600 pages - if not more - because I had to re-read so many passages to understand what he was blathering about. 

I guess in the end, I wish this book would've been a novelette. There's too much padding, self-indulgent musings, and most of the themes repeat, repeat, repeat to nauseating effect. 

So what do you think?


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## Patrick (Feb 12, 2016)

The modernists were very pretentious. I've given my thoughts on Joyce before, and he's the only one from that period writing experimental prose that I enjoy. I think Ulysses is fantastic, but where Joyce goes into gigantism, I get very frustrated with him. Joyce was so experimental that large parts of Ulysses work (particularly the first 250 pages or so) and other parts are just excruciating. Episode 14, which mirrors the cattle of Hyperion in the Odyssey, is sheer pretension. I don't want the evolution of the English language condensed into one insufferable passage. Yes, it's impressive, but it's a dreadful read. In places throughout the novel, the stream of consciousness is so loaded with obscure references that it is more like a crossword than a novel, and this is Joyce trying to write something approaching an encyclopedia, while incorporating the structure of the Odyssey and bits of Shakespeare into his novel. It's all very clever, but I most enjoy Joyce when he's not trying so hard to show off. Nausicaa and Hades are great, and I enjoy Stephen's artistic and philosophic musings as he walks along the strand (which is a bit pretentious too, but there's some brilliant stuff in there). The parallel of the Sirens is also a cracking read, and the lewd sexuality, incorporated in the onomatopoeia, is quite funny.

I've not devoted the energy and concentration to reading Nabokov that I have in reading Jimmy Joyce, but Nabokov doesn't have any music in the language. Nabokov's Pnin is just urgh. It's so dense with description that it wears you down in a way that Joyce, no matter how obscure he's being, never does. Joyce can make a character jump out from the page in just a single sentence; it really is his greatest quality as a writer, while Nabokov is a bit more plodding, in my opinion. There are many who love Nabokov, and while I don't really get it, I respect the fact many of these judgements are subjective. 

You really do have to form your own opinions. Try to be balanced in your approach to an author's writing so that you get the best experience you can, ditching the pablum. It's good to stretch oneself as a reader and writer. Ulysses is not a book for those who haven't read extensively, however. Few people read the Bible, Homer and Shakespeare any more, and so Ulysses would be lost on those who haven't.


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## Flint (Feb 12, 2016)

I've only read 'Invitation to a Beheading' by him. I thought the style was interesting and it had some humour in it. However, I gave up after about maybe 50 pages: I just got bored of it.


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## cinderblock (Feb 12, 2016)

Patrick said:


> The modernists were very pretentious. I've given my thoughts on Joyce before, and he's the only one from that period writing experimental prose that I enjoy. I think Ulysses is fantastic, but where Joyce goes into gigantism, I get very frustrated with him. Joyce was so experimental that large parts of Ulysses work (particularly the first 250 pages or so) and other parts are just excruciating. Episode 14, which mirrors the cattle of Hyperion in the Odyssey, is sheer pretension. I don't want the evolution of the English language condensed into one insufferable passage. Yes, it's impressive, but it's a dreadful read. In places throughout the novel, the stream of consciousness is so loaded with obscure references that it is more like a crossword than a novel, and this is Joyce trying to write something approaching an encyclopedia, while incorporating the structure of the Odyssey and bits of Shakespeare into his novel. It's all very clever, but I most enjoy Joyce when he's not trying so hard to show off. Nausicaa and Hades are great, and I enjoy Stephen's artistic and philosophic musings as he walks along the strand (which is a bit pretentious too, but there's some brilliant stuff in there). The parallel of the Sirens is also a cracking read, and the lewd sexuality, incorporated in the onomatopoeia, is quite funny.
> 
> I've not devoted the energy and concentration to reading Nabokov that I have in reading Jimmy Joyce, but Nabokov doesn't have any music in the language. Nabokov's Pnin is just urgh. It's so dense with description that it wears you down in a way that Joyce, no matter how obscure he's being, never does. Joyce can make a character jump out from the page in just a single sentence; it really is his greatest quality as a writer, while Nabokov is a bit more plodding, in my opinion. There are many who love Nabokov, and while I don't really get it, I respect the fact many of these judgements are subjective.
> 
> You really do have to form your own opinions. Try to be balanced in your approach to an author's writing so that you get the best experience you can, ditching the pablum. It's good to stretch oneself as a reader and writer. Ulysses is not a book for those who haven't read extensively, however. Few people read the Bible, Homer and Shakespeare any more, and so Ulysses would be lost on those who haven't.



Interesting.

I plan on reading Ulysses one day, but not anytime soon. These type of books, I would categorize more as research/studying, than reading for pleasure, at least in my case. It's always fascinating to know what's acceptable, or what was acceptable at a certain time period. 

Who knows, my tastes may change over the years, although the older I get, the less time and patience I have for long works. I just want the meat. 

I've been moving a lot lately, and I've been unloading all the books I read when I was younger, donating to the library, etc, and I'm surprised how lengthy some of them are. I used to tear through LOTR and Game of Thrones and Wizard's First Rule. I remember Jurassic Park being very short, but I looked, and I was surprised to find out it was like 400 pages, hah. I never used to mind how long a book was. I even read the Bible from front to back when I was sixteen and didn't know any better. But at least the Bible is straightforward. I just don't seem to be brimming with the enthusiasm to decipher over-engineered sentences. 

I just started reading my first Philip Roth book (Ghost Writer). Already, I don't like his long sentence structure, where it's like sentence-in-a-sentence-in-a-sentence-and-another-sentence-plus-semi-colon... Do you have an opinion on him? And can you enjoy Roth without being Jewish? I guess growing up, I've always found Jewish humor intimidating, because I never found it funny, which implies to me that I never quite "got it," leaving me with the impression that Jewish humor/angst is very inside.


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## Patrick (Feb 12, 2016)

cinderblock said:


> Interesting.
> 
> I plan on reading Ulysses one day, but not anytime soon. These type of books, I would categorize more as research/studying, than reading for pleasure, at least in my case. It's always fascinating to know what's acceptable, or what was acceptable at a certain time period.
> 
> ...



Ulysses is the sort of book you have to devote months to and read 10-20 pages at a time. If you try to parse it in the same way you would a normal novel, you will simply take none of it in. It's hard work, and it's intimidating at first, and it's not something you can love from beginning to end when reading it for the first time, but unlike any other author, the stuff Joyce writes just sticks in the mind, and it's both disconcerting and encouraging when you start to think about the novel like him (if you really go down the rabbit hole). But when you come out the other side, with all the ambivalence anybody who engages seriously with Joyce has, you will have expanded your mind and vocabulary.

I know I am biased, but nothing compares to the Bible, and no book, or 66 books if you prefer, is as important for understanding narrative, motif, foreshadowing, symbolism, etc. The best thing about it is that a child can understand it, but there's more depth to it than any other book. I read it twice a day almost every day, from cover to cover, and I can't remember how many times exactly I have read it.

My dad likes Roth, but I had the same reaction to his prose as you. I only have so much time and mental energy, so I sometimes pass on an author, even though they might be really good if given the time and concentration, just so I can reserve it for those I feel I have to read. Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Homer and probably Joyce are all very important to me. And it is more of an intellectual curiosity than a deep love I have for the complex, antiquated and difficult. Much of the time I just can't be bothered, just like anybody else. I think because I am quite lazy I tend to read deeply rather than widely. I save up all my energy for the "essentials". I am sure Roth's great if you give him a chance, but I just don't view him as essential reading. I like Jewish humour, so I probably will read him again at some point.

You don't have to read every author, but it's healthy to feed your intellect, to adorn one's mind with beauty.


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## Flint (Feb 13, 2016)

cinderblock said:


> I plan on reading Ulysses one day, but not anytime soon. These type of books, I would categorize more as research/studying, than reading for pleasure, at least in my case.



Yeah, the only person apart from Patrick I've come across who liked Joyce was an ex English teacher. 

I suspect these kind of authors are a bit like guitarists such as Satriani, Steve Vai, Malmsteen, etc. A lot of people dismiss them as boring or pretentious, but when I was younger I played the guitar for years. In my opinion, these people are really guitarists' guitarists rather than for the average person to listen to. I imagine if I had studied English literature and creative writing long term, I'd be more appreciative of people like Joyce and Nabokov, even if it were just on a research/studying level.


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## Patrick (Feb 13, 2016)

Flint said:


> Yeah, the only person apart from Patrick I've come across who liked Joyce was an ex English teacher.
> 
> I suspect these kind of authors are a bit like guitarists such as Satriani, Steve Vai, Malmsteen, etc. A lot of people dismiss them as boring or pretentious, but when I was younger I played the guitar for years. In my opinion, these people are really guitarists' guitarists rather than for the average person to listen to. I imagine if I had studied English literature and creative writing long term, I'd be more appreciative of people like Joyce and Nabokov, even if it were just on a research/studying level.



Some authors probably do end up being thought of as writers' writers, but they all want to be read by readers just like any other author. A couple of my close friends studied English at University and Joyce was optional for them, but they didn't stick with Ulysses or take much of what they did read in. The problem is that undergraduates typically haven't done anywhere near enough reading for it. It's really more for autodidactic opsimaths and those studying for a masters degree.


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## Flint (Feb 13, 2016)

Yeah, that's interesting. 

To add another layer, I would suspect 100 years ago more people would have been taught the Bible and Classics at school (I caught the tail end of it about 30/40 years ago - I have no idea what they teach in schools these days). I'm guessing it would have been a lot more accessible to the average reader back then?


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## Patrick (Feb 13, 2016)

Flint said:


> Yeah, that's interesting.
> 
> To add another layer, I would suspect 100 years ago more people would have been taught the Bible and Classics at school (I caught the tail end of it about 30/40 years ago - I have no idea what they teach in schools these days). I'm guessing it would have been a lot more accessible to the average reader back then?



The education system is awful. When I was at college my tutor asked me why I didn't study some of the subjects that would appear in the exams, and I told him that I only studied the things that interested me. My history teachers apparently didn't know that I was quite clever, so were shocked when I wrote my personal study on the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the allotted three-hour exam time and had the better paper than one of our Oxford candidates. The students from our college who ended up going to Oxford were just hard workers. There was no way of knowing whether they were actually talented or not; today's education just rewards memorisation and internet savvy (which I never had as a child because I received my first computer when I was 16). I spent most of my time bored witless. I used to sketch cartoons in class and play countdown and paper battleships with friends.

I would either achieve the maximum grade or pick up my D grade, all depending on the bits of the curriculum that interested me. Most of the lessons revolved around learning somebody else's formula for essay writing. Again, memorisation. Just insipid, uninspiring, worthless drivel.


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## ppsage (Feb 13, 2016)

I find the comparison of Nabokov to Joyce incongruous. Nabokov is a talented, conservative writer with roots in the nineteenth century, whose subject matter and trope is somewhat liberated by modern (at the time) literary approaches, but his text still retains a density not much in fashion. Thomas Wolfe not Virginia. Lolita is by consensus good writing but nobody's required to agree. The question is not really answerable as stated. I am myself not overly fond of his work and, although he is obviously clever and has sometimes an amazing take on things, find him a little too ponderous to be as entertaining or as imitable as, say, Tom Robbins. Although I have a volume of his in my bedside library, I have pretty much decided he's not that pertinent to my literature endeavors.


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## cinderblock (Feb 13, 2016)

Patrick said:


> Ulysses is the sort of book you have to devote months to and read 10-20 pages at a time. If you try to parse it in the same way you would a normal novel, you will simply take none of it in. It's hard work, and it's intimidating at first, and it's not something you can love from beginning to end when reading it for the first time, but unlike any other author, the stuff Joyce writes just sticks in the mind, and it's both disconcerting and encouraging when you start to think about the novel like him (if you really go down the rabbit hole). But when you come out the other side, with all the ambivalence anybody who engages seriously with Joyce has, you will have expanded your mind and vocabulary.
> 
> I know I am biased, but nothing compares to the Bible, and no book, or 66 books if you prefer, is as important for understanding narrative, motif, foreshadowing, symbolism, etc. The best thing about it is that a child can understand it, but there's more depth to it than any other book. I read it twice a day almost every day, from cover to cover, and I can't remember how many times exactly I have read it.
> 
> ...



Funny thing happened. The book (Ghost Writer) has picked up. The protagonist (aspiring writer) has met his idol, and now there's dialogue and insightful flashbacks. His insecurity is absolutely fantastic. We'll see how this plays out. Roth has a reputation for being a Jewish author (which is intimidating for aforementioned reasons). Hell, one of the articles on him that floated up when I was trying to find which book to read of his, was something along the lines of "Is Roth Too Jewish for the Nobel?" Haha. The intro started out pretty wonky: long sentence structure, Jewish allusions, at times like an essay. Now it's flowing really well. Anyway, we'll see.

And yeah, one of the things I struggle with is trying to read as many authors as I can, but I know that the era of reading everything is over. There's too much content, and it's exponentially multiplying at a frightening rate. Bruce Wagner was talking about how he only reads genre books, as opposed to books on social commentary, because books take so long to write, and before you're even done, we've already moved on to the next thing. I suppose it depends, but it's an interesting thing to consider.

I do particularly enjoy reading things that not a lot of others have. Sometimes you think a work is original, and then you read a predecessor with strikingly similar themes and in a lot of cases, the older version is superior. And I like making that literary discovering of ah-so-that's-where-the-author-drew-his-influence. But also, sometimes, we all just think alike. I believe we're all just one superorganism. I've had so many instances where I write something and afterward, I'll read something very similar that was written decades before. Heck, even the current Roth book I'm reading has so many parallels to some stories I've written before.

There are also a lot of current works that reference books. Like after I read Cukoo's Nest, the very next thing I watched happened to be American Horror Story Season 2, where it's about a mental asylum, and one of the characters was named after a Cuckoo's Nest character. It was an obvious tribute, but I would've never got that, had I not read Cuckoo's Nest. And it made me think how many other references had blown by me unawares and still continue to. Recently, I read Of Mice and Men, and literally the very next movie I watched was Slow Learners, where they're talking about it at the book club. And then just lately on Bates Motel Season 3, one of the neighbors cracks a joke and says something along the lines of, "You guys remind me of two guys I read about. You don't happen to have rabbits, do you?" which is an obvious reference to the book. I'm pretty sure less than 1% of the audience got that. 

But I digress. Going back to reading everything, I don't think there's anything wrong about writing something, and someone saying, "Your writing reminds me of so-and-so," and you're like, "I've never read that person," just as much as you're likely to say, "Oh yes, that author was an influence." 




Flint said:


> Yeah, the only person apart from Patrick I've come across who liked Joyce was an ex English teacher.
> 
> I suspect these kind of authors are a bit like guitarists such as Satriani, Steve Vai, Malmsteen, etc. A lot of people dismiss them as boring or pretentious, but when I was younger I played the guitar for years. In my opinion, these people are really guitarists' guitarists rather than for the average person to listen to. I imagine if I had studied English literature and creative writing long term, I'd be more appreciative of people like Joyce and Nabokov, even if it were just on a research/studying level.



I'm appreciative of writers like Joyce and Nabokov. But again, there's a lot to do and very little time. If all I did was go to work and read to myself at night, then yes, I'd probably be all about reading all the classics. It would be a tremendous leisurely hobby of mine. But I juggle a lot of interests, all of which require complete devotion and concentration and energy, so adding something else like "studying/researching" will not bode well for managing stress. 

Again, I do plan to read Ulysses one day. Just not right now, haha.



Patrick said:


> Some authors probably do end up being thought of as writers' writers, but they all want to be read by readers just like any other author. A couple of my close friends studied English at University and Joyce was optional for them, but they didn't stick with Ulysses or take much of what they did read in. The problem is that undergraduates typically haven't done anywhere near enough reading for it. It's really more for autodidactic opsimaths and those studying for a masters degree.



But even then, there's disagreement about what exactly is a "writer's writer." I don't know if I can call Nabokov a "writer's writer." He seems like somebody else's writer, although I don't know what. It seems to me more than writers themselves, it's the non-writers fawning over Nabokov's writing style. Because even when I account for his style (flowery, dense, purple), I've read others who've done it better - Flann O'Brien. And as far as themes, in fact, the author who I continue to reference (haha) John Fante does what Nabokov does in 300+ pages, in one chapter of Ask The Dust (written before Lolita). And that chapter is one of the most profound experiences in all my readings. 

I do agree that it feeds the intellect and I derive satisfaction and fulfillment from the exercise. And best case scenario, you incorporate certain interesting and perhaps esoteric techniques into your own story. 

That said, a writer's writer and reader's writer don't have to be mutually exclusive. 



Patrick said:


> The education system is awful. When I was at college my tutor asked me why I didn't study some of the subjects that would appear in the exams, and I told him that I only studied the things that interested me. My history teachers apparently didn't know that I was quite clever, so were shocked when I wrote my personal study on the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the allotted three-hour exam time and had the better paper than one of our Oxford candidates. The students from our college who ended up going to Oxford were just hard workers. There was no way of knowing whether they were actually talented or not; today's education just rewards memorisation and internet savvy (which I never had as a child because I received my first computer when I was 16). I spent most of my time bored witless. I used to sketch cartoons in class and play countdown and paper battleships with friends.
> 
> I would either achieve the maximum grade or pick up my D grade, all depending on the bits of the curriculum that interested me. Most of the lessons revolved around learning somebody else's formula for essay writing. Again, memorisation. Just insipid, uninspiring, worthless drivel.



Fact is, some people are absolutely great at digesting information and retaining it, and they're in luck, because the education system happens to reward their setup.

Even in 12th grade English, I barely escaped with a C (bumped up from a D), only because I had a crush on the teacher and I'd bring her food from cooking class, to which she'd say, "I appreciate you bringing me food, but you know I can't eat any of this because I don't know what you put in it." I think she'd be shocked if she learned I was a writer. 

And yeah, I didn't have smart phones or the internet growing up. We had those lousy Tiger handheld games, which is utterly antiquated by today's standards. I didn't even have cable in my house, so I was always bored. I think this is why I'm not wired to be content just consuming. I had no other choice but to daydream.

I do envy children who're growing up with smart phones or iPods. They could download free games. There was no such thing as a free game when I had the time to actually play them. They were all terrible and costed a minimum of $50 a cartridge. But I also wonder if this'll have an effect on their creativity, because all they're doing is consuming since there's plenty of things to keep them locked into this reality.


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## Patrick (Feb 13, 2016)

ppsage said:


> I find the comparison of Nabokov to Joyce incongruous. Nabokov is a talented, conservative writer with roots in the nineteenth century, whose subject matter and trope is somewhat liberated by modern (at the time) literary approaches, but his text still retains a density not much in fashion. Thomas Wolfe not Virginia. Lolita is by consensus good writing but nobody's required to agree. The question is not really answerable as stated. I am myself not overly fond of his work and, although he is obviously clever and has sometimes an amazing take on things, find him a little too ponderous to be as entertaining or as imitable as, say, Tom Robbins. Although I have a volume of his in my bedside library, I have pretty much decided he's not that pertinent to my literature endeavors.



They may well be incommensurable, but I can understand the desire to group them together in a 21st-century discussion of serious writers from the 20th century. We should also consider the fact English wasn't his native language, as it obviously affects the style of his prose. Those who have English as their second language tend to be a bit more formal and stilted.


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