Why Nabokov Means Bad News

David Byrne showed some Powerpoint slides created as satires of the information-expressing capabilities of Powerpoint that were expressing the plots and nuances of great works of literature and culture in Powerpoint's unrefined, low-resolution style. They were funny. One of the works he picked to flash up on the screen before us before moving on was Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. It was nearly incomprehensible.

Before I go any further, Nabokov is pronounced Na-BOE-kuv, with the second vowel stressed and long.

I mentioned that I thought the slide was incomprehensible in my consumer culture class on Thursday, prompting the question from the prof as to whether I had ever read the book. I said that no, I hadn't, that I'd read a part of it, but for the most part I have a special aversion to Nabokov. But I wasn't able to say this before a certain female in the room spoke up with her ringing endorsement of the text as a wonderful piece of lit.

My aversion to Nabokov is not a direct result of his work in and of itself. It is more to do with the type of women he seems to appeal to and therefore tends to remind me of. What type of woman is this, you ask? It is the woman who knows exactly what she is doing. She lives for power in any situation and eschews all sincere contact. She lives for attention and the manipulation of any situation for maximum long-term attention and the reception of maximum personal benefit by means of that long-term lavishing of attention. They are the women who want to be Lolita, who, above all else, though they don't know it themselves, though they simply have an overpowering sexual appetite for him, want to destroy Nabokov, the man who sees through them and thus is the only man with power over them. Men like these are the only ones that such women will actively pursue.

I'm going to go have a beer. Ciao.