My Dad Published Lolita

I know it's not the article title but that title is not what the article is about, and the interesting part is the author's own story.

What a terrible cookie consent from

The actual article title is "How Would the Publishing World Respond to Lolita Today?" The title here is a small bit from the article. Unless the submitter here is the author I don't think it's appropriate to link this article under this title.

The article consists of the story of how Lolita was published in the US mixed with background on the political setting of the era it was published in.

The overall claim of the article seems to be that Lolita is still politically interesting and sparks debate.

I disagree with this conclusion. The world is all too fond of sexuality, and especially with controversial sexuality.

I am actually the author of a somewhat popular website involving written erotica, and what I've found is that controversial erotica is wildly popular regardless of the specific content. You could publish all manner of twisted crap today and it would mostly be met with praise.

There are, of course, puritanical haters that will go out of their way to whine and cry about it, but the world has reached a point where it is broadly understood that written erotica is freedom of speech and trying to ban it or make it stop is pointless.

I just reread Lolita at 45, for the first time since I was 14.

I slogged through it the first time, and didn't particularly enjoy it. All I remember from the first reading is that HH seemed kind of icky. I was barely older than Delores was in the first half of the novel, and I didn't really understand all the implications. I probably skimmed a great deal of the book without paying attention to it. Much of the subtlety of the story and all of the brilliant writing went right over my head.

Then I happened to pick up The Fued, about the friendship and subsequent falling out between Nabakov and Edmund Wilson. It mentioned several times that Lolita was a runaway success, and it made Nabakov famous.

I thought there must be something more to Lolita than I remembered, so I picked up a copy at the library. It was a whole different book. This time, I found the story both riveting and disturbing. On the first read, I knew that what he was doing would be called abuse, but I didn't really understand how he took advantage of her trust and naivety and adolescent rebelliousness. Or how awful it is to dehumanize pre teen girls and characterize them as sexual objects called nymphets.

HH claims to know that he took something irreplaceable from her and ruined her childhood. But - and I think this is why they say he is an unreliable narrator - it's not clear if he really believes what he's saying, or if it's a calculated ploy to garner sympathy.

The writing is incredible. The story is troubling and fascinating, and stayed in my mind a long time after. RIP Delores Schiller.

> the world has reached a point where it is broadly understood that written erotica is freedom of speech and trying to ban it or make it stop is pointless.

Unfortunately, this isn't entirely true, even today.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/3a8nv3/canadian-author-charg... This is the most famous recent one.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/man-convicted-multiple-obscen... There is also a Texas Man, by the name of Thomas Arthur, who hosted far more disturbing things on his website who got convicted of obscenity.

He appears to have been trafficking in obscene drawings, however the text material is listed as charges as well.