One thing we should toss out: Marie Arana’s rant April 20, 2009

This weekend, Marie Arana wrote an editorial for the Washington Post detailing how the Nobel Prize in Literature is decided by a bunch of anti-American meanies and we should get rid of it. I don’t have a problem, necessarily, with her thesis, but her reasoning is so shallow and strange that I had to draft a response:

Marie Arana’s derisive depiction of the Nobel Prize in Literature in the Post’s feature “10 Things We Should Toss” was such a thinly cloaked move towards inserting politics where there are none that I’m surprised you ran it. To read an argument that several of the Academy’s selections are out of touch with modern literature would be interesting; however, Arana’s editorial concludes that we should dismiss the Nobel Prize in Literature because a) the academy is snobby towards Americans and b) they have failed to recognize several great authors.

While compelling works such as Lolita stand out among their peers, they do not confer the sense of “idealism” the literature prize seeks to reward. The prize is awarded to those whose body of work, and specific work during the year of their award, conveys a sense of idealism– not excellence alone. Books are not rewarded solely for their literary merit; they’re rewarded for meeting Nobel criteria. These are not left-wing or right-wing beliefs. They don’t even register on the conventional American political spectrum. This editorial is the literary equivalent of demanding that a popular snack be re-named Freedom Fries.

Additionally, the Academy is under no mandate to be kind towards American attempts; take a look at the NYT bestsellers list and you will see little American proclivity towards literary fiction. Suggesting the elimination of a worldwide literary prize because an Academy member was snide towards Americans is the very type of provincial hubris that frustrates much of the rest of the world.

Selecting a few controversial choices for commentary and deigning the Prize irrelevant because of those choices is also disingenuous. I would say that I found it disappointing that Salman Rushdie was not recognized, but recognizing him would certainly be providing a reward to someone who meets the Nobel criteria and whose cause could be construed as “liberal”– so I have no doubt she is pleased about his exclusion. Marie Arana failed to mention whether J.M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, or Toni Morrison fall within her 15 deserving laureates, but I would be shocked to hear otherwise. If Arana wishes to argue against the Nobel Prize again, I hope she will choose meaningful criteria for her critique, and will provide an example of a worldwide literary prize that does a better job.

…Thoughts?

After a mini-hiatus… September 10, 2007

Sorry I’ve been away so long; I was wrapped up in a string of back-to-back shifts and every spare second I had in those days was spent devouring Lolita. I’ve heard so much about the novel and was ambivalent about it given the subject matter. Pedophilia being the central fixation of the narrator, I thought I’d have a tough time reading what’s also been called the greatest love story of our century. And it’s true– No one I’ve ever read loves like Humbert Humbert.

‘Pornographic’ and ‘obscene’ are too narrow of terms to properly express the sensuality in HH’s chronicling of his obsession with Lolita. The quality of Nabokov’s writing– really, the voice of HH narrating– is striking on each page. I can’t choose a demonstrative quote because each line is so lyrical, and some are revolting and tender at the same time. The heartbreak of what HH puts that little girl through is tempered by the skilled expression of a passion so consuming that you can’t help feeling on HH’s side. His justification, his depiction of Lolita as a woman-child with a seductive air, will make you forget for a moment that his love is twelve or thirteen and, for a moment, you will cheer their affair.

Lolita is more than a softcore work. The novel contains almost no true ’sex scenes’ that compare to HH’s fantasies and daydreams. The sensuality of his imagination drives his passion to simply sit near Lolita, a fixation that’s easy to confuse with what the sexually normal experience as nurturing affection. But HH’s obsession, viewed through his own narcissistic lens, comes through on the page as the love of a lifetime. And Nabokov’s genius is to actually make us see things through HH’s eyes. Remembering that you are in fact not a pedophile, just a pedophile’s voyeur, feels uncomfortable when you realize HH’s perception of events doesn’t justify the reality of his actions.

There is something else in Lolita that’s uncomfortably familiar to me, not so far removed from my own girlhood. I imagine each nymphet, as HH has called them, charms her Odysseus differently. Not every girl holds the same appeal for every man. But in the passage where Lolita frolics in the pool, putting on a show of her pubescent form, on the precipice of wielding her own sexuality without fully understanding its nuances, I see a very real experience. Through the lens of adulthood, I see memories of first wearing makeup, skin still youthfully perfect, or showing off a pre-womanly figure while still sporting girl-thin arms and small feet, and I recall several men who I’d venture to say felt attracted. I remember the brazenness of men driving over bridges and shouting to impossibly young girls swimming, men ogling girls strutting the shopping mall in cheap heels and skirts bought when we were three inches shorter, and Lolita suddenly has less of an air of dark perversion and one more of worldly truth. Still unacceptable, still the ugliness of men being attracted to children, but also a portrayal of reality.

There’s more. Nabokov’s writing has served to inspire me to a degree, one I’m holding out on so it doesn’t affect me too much. When writing, I have a hard time reading masters without their work influencing my voice. All of it makes me want to detail the profane and the perverse in my own works of fiction as expertly as I detail the positive or the insane-yet-lovely. The beauty with which Nabokov handles something so dark makes me believe it is possible to handle the nastiest matter. Then again, Nabokov has at his command a lexicon I don’t believe I could amass (especially in a second language!). Without being verbose, he owns all the perfect terms on his pages. His command of language is stunning.

I’ve been marinating on Lolita for a week now. It’s time to come back to writing. Also, after a few days I picked up my original intent, Reading Lolita in Tehran. It promises to be a fascinating memoir, but the author’s attempts at lyricizing her daily life turn me off when compared to my memory of Lolita’s prose.

Tomorrow’s my birthday. I have coming some notes on love, the Baltimore mayoral elections (crackheads vs. candidates with no money), and the next book I’m reading. Much love.