When Jawaharlal Nehru Read ‘Lolita’
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Just a reminder that this is not a book 'glorifying sexual relationships'. This is not a book about a seductress. This is not a book that plays with ideas of consent.
Nabakov is playing a game with the reader, trying to trick the reader into believing that there is any truth in Humbert's narrative. I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that many readers still fall for it.
It's an amazing book, one of my favorites, but it's a book that has to be read - not skimmed.
This is the issue. And a misunderstanding. That's not at all how I took the book when I read it. It does not glorify anything - it is quite the opposite. What made the book an interesting read (although I have no interest in revisiting it) was the contrast between the tragedy of the story, and the playful language. The unreliable first person narrator is trying to make himself look sympathetic to the reader, all the while confessing to all his despicable endeavors.
Overall, quite jarring and I can see how it can be misunderstood.
Do you know any other books like that? About some different topic?
Wikipedia's list of banned books shows that Nehru and his daughter, Indira, were the most prolific banners of books. Nehru's reign saw over 14 books banned or roughly 1 every year. [1]
Since his daughters murder in 1984, by Sikh extremists, whose movement she had originally funded to topple rivals, the pace of banning has notably slowed down. Only 5 books were banned since 1984, 3 for critiquing Islam (including the Satanic Verses) and one for a critiquing some Hindu saints and one by Seymour Hersh, a known political conspiracy theorist.
Amazingly, no books have been banned since 2014, the year Narendra Modi took power.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_in_India
[2] https://www.firstpost.com/india/nehru-was-liberal-no-doubt-b...
1. Not moving fast enough on Kashmir issue after instrument of accession signed by Maharaj Harisingh. If not for Sardar Patel, there would have been multiple festering issues with other areas as well. 2. Creating a political legacy of family and cronies only. 3. Setting up of a license permit raj which held back Indian economic development for decades.
Condescension was also a specialty of Nehru given his upbringing and that might have played a role. Nehru condescended to those he did not considered polished enough - be they Indian or Chinese. In Gentlemen Spymaster, RN Kao's quotes an interesting incident which lends credence to this:
"‘This was my first presence at an international meet and I was impressed with the solemnity of the occasion and the gravity which seemed to hang in the air. At that time, China had not widely been accepted as a respectable member of the international comity of nations, and as we (India) were one of the few countries that had established diplomatic relations with China, Prime Minister Nehru had taken upon himself the responsibility of introducing Zhou Enlai on the world scene. Or, at least, so he thought. In later years, I learned that Zhou Enlai had mentioned to some reporter that he had not met anyone as arrogant as Jawaharlal Nehru and in support of his statement, he had said that it was incredibly presumptuous on the part of the Prime Minister of India to have introduced the Prime Minister of China on the world scene. Well, whatever Zhou’s ego might have been, the fact of the matter is Nehru did help China to gain recognition in the international field. In fact, in that process, we (India) earned a lot of odium,’ Kao observed."
Also, he didn’t have censorship power. Rather if you read the article, he convinced the people who wanted to censor it to not do so.
We seem to have forgotten what statesmanship is these days. India was and is a very conservative country. For him to not do the easy thing was indeed a reflection of his character. For all his faults, he was a great leader.
Nevertheless, I don't see how either of them can be considered to have equalled Nehru. For one he remains the longest serving PM during the most transformative period of modern India. During Nehru's term India went from having to import even cars to building jet fighters.
My daughter had to finish it for a uni project and she confirmed for me that the depressingly boring tone continued to the morally inadequate end.
I’ve read a few of the “greatest” books of the last 200 years and simply cannot fathom how this one was so well received.
I can see why some people "don't get it", may be there is more to it. This is my interpretation atleast and I personally think Lolita deserves its reputation as one of the greatest books ever written.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_Bosch#/media/File:T...
I'm sure I'll be derided for this, but I think a good alternative that you might want to consider is Perfume by Suskind. It has a similar over-the-top style of prose, but it was very enjoyable to me and it had an interesting story. Only the ending was a bit strange, but it was well worth my time.
Give it a shot!
It is interesting how truly by-lingual Nabokov was. He wrote Lolita in English and then translated it himself into Russian. The original and the translation show profound mastery in both languages.
One of the central points of the book is that art and fiction deals with the imagination and the aesthetic (mirrored in the fantasy or fairy tale like descriptions of landscapes in the book), and that moralizing has no place in it. This idea that novels need a moral end, or that the protagonist needs to be either moral or disowned that has become so commonplace is just an absolutely annoying feature of a puritan culture.
One is that many of the people who like it seem not to have read it; or if they have read it, they did not understand it. Many men have described it as "a love story" or otherwise indicated that they feel the book approves of pedophilia. Two movies have been made based on the book, and both portray Dolores Haze (the girl the narrator calls "Lolita") as a seductress rather than as a victim. A substantial portion of the fan base of the book are, rather distressingly, men who appear to be quite enamored of the notion of having sex with children.
Another is that Nabokov was a clever writer who excelled at writing books which reward close reading. Lolita is the story of Dolores Haze, but the narrator is a man who has no interest in her other than as than the victim of his sexual attentions. He drones on at great length about trivialities, while completely skipping over vital information. He is deliberately constructing an exculpatory narrative, which opens fascinating questions about how we can find any truth when everything we read is lies. Sifting through his self-serving prose to find glimpses of the actual Dolores Haze is challenging, and--to me at least--interesting.
It's not an easy book, in many senses. The narrator is a monster. The bulk of the story is obscured behind lies and misdirection. There is no catharsis, no happy ending.
Contrary to the opinion of many people who have not read the book, and some who have, Nabokov was extremely well aware that "Humbert Humbert", the narrator, is a monster. Humbert is a pedophile who abducts a 12-year-old girl and rapes her repeatedly over the course of years. Dolores Haze is a victim, not a seductress, and is in no way responsible for or desirous of her abuse. Humbert is not a reliable narrator, and nothing he says can be trusted.
Nabokov himself was a victim of childhood sexual abuse. He knew what he was writing about. There's one scene that is almost certainly directly based on his own personal experience.
I'd have difficulty saying that I enjoyed Lolita, but it's a rewarding book, and I'm glad to have read it.
Contrast that with the movie Pretty Baby where the main character becomes obsessed with a 12 year old prostitute and then sleeps with her. I find that movie to be more bordering on the obscene than Lolita.
It surprised me to find that this movie is available on several streaming platforms. Given the content I always wonder how this works within the legal framework of the US. BTW, my take on that movie was that he actually didn't sleep with her (though likely planned to eventually).
Is there a definite source for this? I was under the impression this was just a 'fan-theory' of sorts.
Have you seen either of the films?
It's an interesting book as a French since the character is French, the road trip was amazing for me because I dont know the backside america, and I like the fact americans are so prude they call that pedophilia, when frankly, it puts you off of it more than drags you.
This section of the book then concludes with one of the most chilling passages I have ever read in fiction:
“At the hotel we had separate rooms, but in the middle of the night she came sobbing into mine, and we made it up very gently. You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go.”
That makes me wonder. What if the girl was adult but power imbalance was the same. How many people would then notice it's not a romance but something horrible?
"a system of monetary bribes"
"hours of blandishments, threats and promises"
"how sweet it was to bring that coffee to her, and then deny it until she had done her morning duty"
Should books only be morality tales, where Good always vanquishes Evil in the end?
If that is what the author wanted to write then I don't have a problem with that. Not every book needs to be a story with underlying morality teachings.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_govern...
I suspect Nehru might not have liked that one as much.
(a good review of his work is at https://www.emptymirrorbooks.com/literature/collage-novels-a...)
In some political systems, empathy and understanding are viewed as undesirable characteristics in the population. I won’t name any in particular, but I live in one.
For a lot of affluent liberals (champagne socialists, if you will), this is horrifying. Thus, nostalgic pieces like these to celebrate a time when the power was concentrated in the hands of the enlightened elites, rather than the ethno-nationalists or populists who appeal to the unwashed horde.
This liberal nostalgia is just as predictable as the bile that is spewed in the direction of Nehru and Gandhi by the currently ruling bigots. Unfortunately, only one of those sections of society seems to be losing power. One step at a time, I suppose...
The issue of being drawn to a 12 year old is .... complex. When Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, 13 was the age of consent, and Juliet was 13. Evolutionarily, once a woman is ovulating, I assert it's 'natural' to be attracted to her, regardless of how young she is or the age difference. BUT in a modern world, the power differential between an adult male and a 12 year old, or 14 year old (Sue Lyons was 14 when she played Lolita in the Stanley Kubrick film) is too large to condone. The potential for psychological damage to the younger person is vast. So we've made it illegal. But my sense is that it has become tarred with too broad a brush. "Unthinkable that any moral person could have these desires" seems to be the theme in much of the book-banning crowd.
And, as others have pointed out, it was rape, which is despicable, and does not 'glorify' the sexuality, but it's done in a complex (literary) way that makes it possible to miss the rape element. !!!
> In this note, Nehru also pointed out that he would not hesitate to ban horror comics or books that deal with sex and crime and have no literary merit.
> In the end, Nehru favoured the release of the stock withheld by the Customs
> This case not only demonstrates Nehru’s sensitivity and open-mindedness, but is also a rare example of statesmanship, where the prime minister himself read a book in question to decide whether it should be censored.