Lo, Lola, Lolita

I find the aesthetics of Lolita particularly enchanting. Beyond the immediate lucidity and cascading intricacies of his prose, the whole work creates questions that I find compelling. In my mind, the exceptional beauty of the prose is a linguistic ploy that draws you in to questioning the role of beauty and ethics. The words themselves, separated from their role, leave you reeling (sometimes, like now, I think the words in this book somehow transcribe the world in clearer terms than I see them myself, perhaps because they also address in a particular way the spirit and poetic function of experience in a way that regular revelations cannot. Perhaps this describes the luxury and distinguishing marks of a unique talent: knowing and deploying images and experience in a constellation that shows more than stars.) but the role leaves you repulsed. The somewhat irredeemable Humpbert animates the words, and you can’t help but wish they were still again, because enjoying them almost hurts. So then, you have to ask: ‘what makes something aesthetically pleasing?’ Is it possible (or acceptable) to divorce purpose from method? Essentially, the question of why I enjoy books, words, and life keeps getting raised at moments I don’t expect.

Duncan