Vladimir Nabokov?s controversial novel Lolita has endured heavy criticism ever since its publication in 1955. Criticism, however, is always met with opposition, and in the case of Lolita critics and supporters have expressed their concerns and applause vehemently. ?Throughout its history, Lolita has been the subject of arguments veering between the two points of literary value and pornographic reprehensibility.? (Bowlby 156). Objectors of the book have always said that it is pornographic and thus a tale of immorality that does not belong in the Canaan or even in publication for that matter. However, if immoral literature like Lolita should be destroyed then shouldn?t other works like Paradise Lost or The Bible be subjected to such a fate. The distinctions between what is deemed acceptable and unacceptable only exist of a plane of current trends and intolerable taboos. Incest in royal blood lines (real life) like Cleopatra (she was her aunt?s daughter and her brother?s wife) was socially and morally acceptable in ancient Egypt, and is even pompously tolerated now because we are so much wiser and civilized than our predecessors?even though they built the pyramids.
the grave of Vladimir Nabokov (Russian-American wr...
Nabokov House in Saint Petersburg where Nabokov wa...
"House of Vladimir Nabokov in RozhdestvenoAdam and Eve came from one another, from the ribcage, but sex between clones is tolerated in Adam and Eve?s case because we accept their naivety, but today the mere mention of even experimental human cloning (not sex) is considered off limits. ?Incest?is the last, or the first taboo of human culture.? (Bowlby 156). Lolita did survive its critics though, because the book offers more than a picture of incest, pedophilia, and rape; the aesthetic literary value supersedes predisposed taboos, and presents to the reader with beauty not pornography.
The beauty is in the ability of Nabokov to turn a cynical plot, with an abhorred protagonist, into a lyrically poetic novel that ultimately reveals...