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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I mean -- it's art. It's a reflection of life. People write about all kinds of troubling things. And the book is genius.

[b]If you can't handle it, or just don't want to read anything challenging in this way, by all means go back to your Sophie Kinsella novels.[/b] [/quote]

Why so rude? Why so all-or-nothing? 
One can interrogate subject matter as a part of an inquiry into art, even genius art.

"Don't you dare question a work of art, and if you do, it's a sure sign that you don't belong" is a statement wholly at odds with...well, most of the entire history of art.

[/quote]

Because you're "questioning it" in the stupidest way, honestly. Humbert Humbert is bad therefore I won't read this book. It's literally about a guy who murders a girl's mother because he thinks he's in love with the girl. Him being bad is baked right into the premise - it's not morally ambiguous, no! But it's still a beautifully written, really engrossing story. What do you think you're questioning, exactly? Whether he's good or bad? He's bad! [/quote]

I’m the pp but not the op. I weighed in because you met op with such judgement. I have read Lolita and happen to think it’s gorgeously written. But I also understand someone not wanting to read it and/or wanting to process its subject matter, and to do so without being insulted.

Defend Nabokov, sure. Say what you love about the book. Say what one loses by focusing only on subject matter to the exclusion of craft or structure or precision of language or the vertiginous sensation that results from all of these things coming together just so. But a cheap shot is just plain cheap, and that’s what you contributed. Look at this tangle of thorns. [/quote]

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