The 'Obama was (possibly) groomed by the CIA' thread

[lupercal]

Barracuda, they're both funny and all, and like I said he's very polished and cool, but don't you think that both those quotes offer a kind of degraded and diminished view of literature? One as a purely professional commodity and the other as a physical thrill. I mean it's fresh and defamiliarizing, but the conclusion I came to with Nabokov is that he isn't hiding his burning idealism behind a screen of irony; he's just jaded.

[barracuda]

May I take it that you require some sort of practical value to the novels you read beyond an encounter with art? Nabokov was a professional butterfly collector; it doesn't much less jaded than that.

[bks]

I don't hear Nabokov saying the purpose of literature is the provision of physical thrill. The spine tingle is the registration of artistic delight. If we could get a spine tingle only through eating ice cream, I doubt he'd have the same reverence for it.

[lupercal]

Lupercal, I realize that there exists a world of wonderful books to read, and this is surely not the appropriate venue for a discussion of the merits of Lolita, but mindful of the former and in lieu of the latter I will pass on two quotes of Nabokov's just in case your lack of appreciation or interest in the book is leavened with expectations for the work beyond the author's intention, or literature's possibilities.

"Let us not kid ourselves; let us remember that literature is of no practical value whatsoever, except in the very special case of somebody's wishing to become, of all things, a professor of literature."

"Although we read with our minds, the seat of artistic delight is between the shoulder blades. That little shiver behind is quite certainly the highest form of emotion that humanity has attained when evolving pure art and pure science. Let us worship the spine and its tingle. Let us be proud of our being vertebrates, for we are vertebrates tipped at the head with a divine flame. The brain only continues the spine: the wick really goes through the whole length of the candle. If we are not capable of enjoying that shiver, if we cannot enjoy literature, then let us give up the whole thing and concentrate on our comics, our videos, our books-of-the-week."

Hi Barracuda, I should have quoted you in the post above but I didn't realize it was time for a new page. Practical value. Well, that's how I read the first quote, i.e. what's the point unless you have a professional investment in it. But I can see how you could read it the other way.

BKS: that little shiver is a measure of something, sure, but what? A thrill. Not even a sublime moment, just a thrill, like you'd get from a scary movie. Maybe I've got him all wrong, but I kind of lump Nabokov in with Ayn Rand as a propagandist for capitalism. But hey I'm no expert in Nabokov. I just thought Lolita was way overrated because it makes an amoral predator sympathetic. But then I never liked Burroughs either.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

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Hey, Lupercal, sorry if it's off-topic, but do you agree that I am the King of the Limited Hangout?

http://progressiveindependent.com/dc/dc ... c_id=11634

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If only you knew more about nukes at the WTC...

[lupercal]

Hugh, it's a little late in the day to throw in with the gatekeepers, and surely you're not going to start believing in coincidences like this one:

[Sweejak]

[lupercal]

LBJ, you're no Malcolm X.

p.s great pic!

[AlicetheKurious]

I only read Lolita because of all the acclaim. I felt no shiver. I didn't like it. I felt it was way, way overrated as "literature". Sorry. It may be a guy thing.

[JackRiddler]

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Nabokov thread:
http://rigorousintuition.ca/board/viewtopic.php?t=16017

So anyone else see anything to back such speculations? Given the history since 1963 at the latest, who could become president without being part of or being taken over at some point by the national security state? That Clinton started his run as a satrap in the Bush mob seems certain, but with Obama it would be more subtle...

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[sunny]

"Lyndon, calm down fer gawd's sake! I've got 1200 Cuban cigars stashed in the oval office."

[IanEye]

[compared2what?]

Maybe I've got him all wrong, but I kind of lump Nabokov in with Ayn Rand as a propagandist for capitalism. But hey I'm no expert in Nabokov. I just thought Lolita was way overrated because it makes an amoral predator sympathetic. But then I never liked Burroughs either.

You've got him so wrong you might as well not have read him. Also, Ayn Rand was not a propagandist for capitalism. She was a propagandist for a neo-fascist corporate totalitarianism. Not that capitalism isn't bad. It's just a different kind of bad.

Also, I'm with you on Burroughs.

[OP ED]

Maybe I've got him all wrong, but I kind of lump Nabokov in with Ayn Rand as a propagandist for capitalism. But hey I'm no expert in Nabokov. I just thought Lolita was way overrated because it makes an amoral predator sympathetic. But then I never liked Burroughs either.

You've got him so wrong you might as well not have read him. Also, Ayn Rand was not a propagandist for capitalism. She was a propagandist for a neo-fascist corporate totalitarianism. Not that capitalism isn't bad. It's just a different kind of bad.

Also, I'm with you on Burroughs.

i thought Lolita was overrated. i found it rather more boring than shocking, personally. I prefer Pale Fire. i also liked Отчаяние, but they never get it right in English.

wait...there's a Nabokov thread? have i posted innit before? if not how come no one told me about it?

Although i'm not sure, frankly, he'd even make my top twenty five.

...
[course i also liked the Jewel of Seven Stars and no one else ever reads anything but Dracula]

...

I think Ayn Rand should be distinguished between the propoganda and the novels. I'd suggest that what she thinks her characters represent and the values she actually champions aren't even the same thing.

and while her apologetics for corporate culture may be overdone [burnt] she does occassionally hit the weak pseudo-populism that props up horrible art and degrading culture right between its beady little eyes.
[but only in fiction, and only when the villains themselves are talking]

...

Burroughs. Jesus.

I prefer E.R. to W.S. almost anyday.

[compared2what?]

Maybe I've got him all wrong, but I kind of lump Nabokov in with Ayn Rand as a propagandist for capitalism. But hey I'm no expert in Nabokov. I just thought Lolita was way overrated because it makes an amoral predator sympathetic. But then I never liked Burroughs either.

You've got him so wrong you might as well not have read him. Also, Ayn Rand was not a propagandist for capitalism. She was a propagandist for a neo-fascist corporate totalitarianism. Not that capitalism isn't bad. It's just a different kind of bad.

Also, I'm with you on Burroughs.

i thought Lolita was overrated. i found it rather more boring than shocking, personally. I prefer Pale Fire. i also liked Отчаяние, but they never get it right in English.

wait...there's a Nabokov thread? have i posted innit before? if not how come no one told me about it?

Although i'm not sure, frankly, he'd even make my top twenty five.

...
[course i also liked the Jewel of Seven Stars and no one else ever reads anything but Dracula]

...

I think Ayn Rand should be distinguished between the propoganda and the novels. I'd suggest that what she thinks her characters represent and the values she actually champions aren't even the same thing.

and while her apologetics for corporate culture may be overdone [burnt] she does occassionally hit the weak pseudo-populism that props up horrible art and degrading culture right between its beady little eyes.
[but only in fiction, and only when the villains themselves are talking]

...

Burroughs. Jesus.

I prefer E.R. to W.S. almost anyday.

Lolita doesn't have any shock value. Except to the frequent fliers on the professionally morally outraged circuit of the American media, back in the day of its original publication. It's non-shockingness is a feature, not a bug. And this is way off-topic. If anyone cares enough, kick the thread in the lounge and I'll elaborate further.

But personally, I don't regard a group of individual who are unable to achieve a thumbs-up or thumbs-down consensus on any specific work of art in any medium as a bad thing. I regard it as natural, inevitable, and -- in a very minor way -- a sign of a free society.

For example, lupercal doesn't speak for me in saying:

that little shiver is a measure of something, sure, but what? A thrill. Not even a sublime moment, just a thrill, like you'd get from a scary movie.

Because I sometimes find pure human truths in art that are objectively as of as much practical importance as anything else of practical importance that I know, but happened to have learned through more conventionally direct means. However, it's perfectly okay with me if lupercal doesn't, and why shouldn't it be? I respect his process, whatever it is, and have neither any wish nor any motive for seeking to quash it and replace it with mine. I'm opposed to that kind of personal-process-quashing as a matter of principle, whether I myself share the process or not. And I assume that we're all more or less down with that. As long as nobody's getting hurt or violated by the process in question, or anything like that, obviously.

Right?