story announcement and a meditation upon writing in foreign languages

[edenfalling]

I am being sneaky and using my writing icon even though this post contains no actual fiction.

It's really an announcement that Chapter 3 of First You Have to Get There is now up at FictionAlley. Go! Read! Review!

*begs shamelessly for feedback*

Um. And in RL, I spent the day napping, grousing about the icky rain, splitting logs, learning to use a chainsaw, and starting to read Nabokov's Lolita, which I'm finding very interesting. Then again, I'm approaching it as a Russian novel rather than as smut, which I think will keep me going where a lot of other people give up because it's not all that pornographic really, and has a lot of flowery language.

It's interesting to read works written by people for whom English is not a native language. In some ways, Nabokov reminds me very much of Joseph Conrad, who for some reason decided to write in English rather than his native Polish. I occasionally get the sense that, not knowing the exact word for a certain object or impression, they looked one up in the dictionary and didn't have a native speaker's sense that their chosen word is... well, not common and not understood by native speakers of English. There's also a certain careful cadence to their sentence structure, something that feels almost on the edge of poetry rather than standard English prose of whatever genre.

Of course, this goes to show that both men knew English very well. When I try to write fiction auf Deutsch -- yes, I have tried that once or twice -- it doesn't have that careful, delicate sense of the perfectly chosen word. It just sounds stilted and grammatically awkward at best.

My few bits of German poetry, however, came out better. Poetry, being oddly structured to begin with, is perhaps more forgiving to foreign speakers than prose.

Comments

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

Really? I found Lolita much smuttier than I'd expected.

You know, one of the reasons I wouldn't let a young teenage child of mine read that? Way to fuck them up about puberty. No girl who's growing extra bits of flesh and pubic hair and all that needs to be exposed to Humbert's passionately expressed disgust for the grown female form.

[edenfalling]

The smut assessment is probably the result of different national backgrounds. In America, Lolita is often regarded, or spoken of, as one of the dirtiest books around. And frankly, after reading Harlequin romances, let alone BDSM and non-con fanfiction, Lolita is peanuts. Granted, really sick and twisted peanuts, but peanuts. I'm more interested in Humbert's screwy worldview and the intricacies of Nabokov's prose.

As to the other, yes, a thousand times yes! I don't mind young teens reading about sex (it would be damned hypocritical of me to mind), but I remember wanting absolutely nothing to do with this whole puberty thing. And Lolita would certainly not have helped.

I suppose it might be managed so long as a mother or other respected adult woman explained that Humbert is one fucked up, sad, sorry, pathetic waste of space, and that none of his views should be taken at all seriously... but still, why risk it? And even if you made the book "forbidden fruit," I think it's written in such a way as to bore and drive away most girls of that age within thirty pages at maximum.

So it's probably a moot point.

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

The smut assessment is probably the result of different national backgrounds.

Mhm. Whenever I'd heard Lolita spoken of before, it was just as a great novel - after reading it, I was quite shocked that people glossed over the Fucking Of Prepubescents so much.

I think it's written in such a way as to bore and drive away most girls of that age within thirty pages at maximum.

Oh, I disagree - remember, they're her age. It'd sicken them and make them paranoid, but they'd read on. It's not like it's a slow start, either - isn't the first line something like "Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, fire of my loins, light of my life"? And then we hop right into analysis of why nymphets are so attractive to him, encounters with prostitutes, et cetera...

[edenfalling]

Well, yes, it does start off with Teh Sex, but then this is a book with loads of random interjections in French (a sure interest-killer for us down-home, plain-folks, ethnocentric Americans), and one filled with sentences like this:

"When I try to analyze my own cravings, motive, actions, and so forth, I surrender to a sort of retrospective imagination which feeds the analytic faculty with boundless alternatives and which causes each visualized road to fork and re-fork without end in the maddeningly complex prospect of my past."

Enough of that will kill the interest of all but the most determined young, female, American readers. Because we are anti-intellectual and anti-philosophical, yo. *grouses at the stupidity of her own native culture*

Also, Humbert whines. Which is a big turn-off when reading for Teh Sex. *grin*

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

Oh, and to elaborate - I had got the definite impression that Humbert's obsession with Lolita never went beyond beautifully phrased longing, and that their physical relationship never went beyond her squirming on his fully clothed lap. I was definitely shocked by the book itself.

[edenfalling]

Given that he implies from the beginning that, while his initial intentions were innocent, he later slid down the slippery slope, I haven't been surprised by anything so far. (I'm about a third of the way in, and he's already bought sleeping pills so as to molest Lolita in her sleep without "technically" abusing her, in the sense of leaving her with mental trauma. Sick bastard.)

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reminding me that you hadn't finished it! I might have spoiled you at some point, forgetting.

Part of the sick magic the book holds over readers is that we become complicit in Humbert's actions. Maybe I'm just a bad person, but when I was reading that part, I was caught up in his narrative and agreeing with him 'yes, yes, this is the sensible course to take'. Especially since he makes it pretty clear there that he intended little more than fondling, albeit naked fondling.

Similarly, earlier in the book where her antics on the couch and the consequent friction make him come, I, too, was hoping that Lolita's squirming would have the desired effect.

That kind of mindfuck is another thing I wouldn't want a young reader to have to deal with.

[edenfalling]

I like that complicity of the reader... partially because it's a reminder that we all have our dark places, and partially because it can sort of drain out those dark places for a while, without harm to anyone. I will grant you, though, it could be freaky if you're not prepared to delve through parts of yourself you'd really rather not acknowledge.

(I've always wanted to write a torture scene in which the reader becomes complicit in the torturer's actions and esthetic satisfaction in his/her work. Because mindfucks are damn fun... for the author. *evil grin* I don't think I could pull it off at this point, though. *sigh*)

Don't worry about spoilers. I am singularly hard to spoil, mostly because I have a terrible habit of flipping ahead to read the last chapter or so of a book, and then having fun seeing how the writer gets there. Because of that, I'm an old hand at shunting foreknowledge aside for the duration of a book. See, I tend to get absorbed into good writing to the point where I start forgetting it isn't real... which is why I like knowing what's going to happen. It lets me relax my sympathetic tension.