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| AV俱乐部 professor Yuri Leving poses with Vladimir Nabokov memorabilia, including photographs of the Russian 茅migr茅 author by Horst Tappe and Russian editions of Lolita.(Nick Pearce Photo) |
In the now-famous , 15-year-old Miley Cyrus is suggestively wrapped in a satin sheet, her hair disheveled, her red lips in a pout.
Some say the photo is nothing more than an artistic portrait of a pretty teenager. Others say it鈥檚 a disturbing, Lolita-like way for a young girl鈥攍et alone a Disney princess who鈥檚 every move is watched and emulated by legions of young fans鈥攖o be depicted.
But is it really so unusual? In an article published in a new edition of AV俱乐部鈥檚 Nabokov Online Journal, Meenakshi Gigi Durham argues the media鈥攆rom advertisements to Seventeen magazine鈥攁re circulating damaging myths that distort, undermine and restrict girls鈥� sexual progress.
The sexualization of tween girls鈥攚hich she dubs 鈥淭he Lolita Effect鈥� in her book of the same name鈥攊s part of a larger, marketing effort to create cradle-to-grave consumers. From Bratz dolls to girls鈥� T-shirts with suggestive slogans (鈥淪weet Treats,鈥� 鈥淭hat鈥檚 Hot鈥�) and the photo of a semi-nude Hannah Montana, it鈥檚 an unsettling trend that鈥檚 making us all feel disquietingly Humbert Humbertish.
Since the publication of Lolita more than 50 years ago, Lolita has become the favorite metaphor for a child vixen, yet that perception is a misreading of Vladimir Nabokov鈥檚 famous novel. Indeed, Lolita does nothing to attract Humbert Humbert鈥檚 devouring and doomed passion, as Dr. Durham points out in her essay.
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| Nabokov also wrote the screenplay for Stanley Kubrick鈥檚 1962 film version of Lolita starring James Mason and Sue Lyon. |
鈥淲颈迟丑 Lolita, we are entering the mind of this pervert. So it is about the cruelty of this world and is written like that precisely to alert us,鈥� says Yuri Leving, assistant professor in AV俱乐部鈥檚 Department of Russian Studies and editor of the Nabokov Online Journal.聽 Once banned as pornography, the novel is considered a 20th century classic. 鈥�Lolita is disturbing and it is meant to be.鈥�
Dr. Leving posted the first edition of the Nabokov Online Journal last summer. With a pince-nez on its masthead, the second edition just went up on April 23, Nabokov鈥檚 birthday.
There are contributions in several different languages, including English, French and Russian, and in different formats, including a video installation and an mp3 file, as well as traditional academic articles and reviews. Contributors range from experts like Nabokov biographer Brian Boyd to some of the students from Dr. Leving鈥檚 third-year class, simply called Nabokov (). Dennis Kierans, for example, contributed a music video inspired by Nabokov鈥檚 works, and Ashley Moran outlines the rules for a board game she created called Nabokov Dozen.聽
鈥淲e have tried very hard to make the journal accessible, which I think scholarship should be,鈥� says Dr. Leving. 鈥淪o that鈥檚 the big reason for publishing online.鈥�
The online journal also scored a major coup by publishing a Q&A with Dmitri Nabokov, Nabokov鈥檚 son and literary executor, in which he finally announces what he鈥檒l do with Nabokov鈥檚 unfinished book, The Original of Laura. His explicit instructions by his father on his deathbed were to destroy the manuscript鈥攚ritten in pencil on 50 index cards鈥� which has been shut away in a Swiss Bank Vault for more than 30 years.
Instead, as revealed in the Nabokov Online Journal, he鈥檒l publish.
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| Vladimir Nabokov at Montreux Palace in Switzerland. (Horst Tappe Photo) |
Dr. Leving is enthusiastic about the online magazine; Nabokov鈥檚 life and works (10 books in Russian, the final 10 in English) provide a rich legacy for scholarship. He himself first picked up a Nabokov novel as a 17-year-old living in Israel; although he says he didn鈥檛 understand what he was reading in the beginning, he became fascinated by the Russian 茅migr茅 author.
The author of Train Station 鈥� Garage 鈥� Hangar: Vladimir Nabokov and Poetics of Russian Urbanism, Dr. Leving is now working on two more books, one on how Nabokov used the success of Lolita to provoke public attention and grow his celebrity, and another on Nabokov鈥檚 Russian language masterpiece, The Gift. His work is supported by a three-year grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).
鈥淲hat intrigued me then and now too is that Nabokov is an opaque author,鈥� he explains. 鈥淗e offers challenges on different levels so every reader can find something, depending on their depth of literary insight.
鈥淎nd then, almost like detective fiction, there are clues and persistent motifs throughout his oeuvre 鈥� If you鈥檙e an attentive reader, you will find a key to each riddle embedded in the text. You know somewhere there is a key and that鈥檚 what makes it so interesting.鈥�
LINKS: | | in The Spectator | in The Times