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]

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.