esrosedotblog

CHILD PORN?

This is Lolita's 50th birthday.

She was published in Paris in 1955 just as I was starting college. She was finally published in the United States as I ended my MIT tenure in 1958.

I did a side in the 'humanities' (as it was called at Tech). The department was abuzz with news and opinion 24/7 about this outrageous novel.

Here is a pretty good rundown by Stacy Schiff in the NYTimes of what and how it happened:

Forever Young.

It is hard to describe the stir this caused. It was at a time when all the 'dirty' classics were being published. The walls were crashing.

To an impressionable country boy, this was all very heady stuff. Furthermore, for a closeted gay boy, it gave considerable permission.

While I was never really able to read Lolita with any comfort (I think this is one of Nabakov's intentions), her very presence was transgressive enough to allow other outrages to be accepted or, at least, more tolerated.