Nabokov: God of the sexual revolution?
“…and she was mine…Naked, except for one sock and her charm bracelet…spread-eagled on the bed…”, writes Nabokov, in his Lolita. It’s the story of forty year old man, profusely “in love” with his twelve year old stepdaughter. Our film studies professor, with the lines of his face dancing in wonder and enthusiasm, proceeded to tell us the story of Nabakov’s Lolita. We gasped in disbelief (at least I did) at the ease and fervor at which he was talking about the genius of Nabokov’s “exceptionally well written”novel.My ethics seemed to toss me into terrible misgivings about the credibility of my teacher and I thought to my self “what has the darn world come to?”. Here we are sitting in a classroom talking about a repulsively psychotic pervert seducing his step child and talking about it like it was “wonder” that saved the world.
After awhile I had to stop myself and take back every derogatory word I ever thought, about my lecturer and the genius of a man “Nabokov”.
Apart from the novel being a true literary wonder, it began to shape itself to me as a book of profound truth and morality.Thats the power of binaries. Sometimes it is only profound pain that drives you to seek bliss. The experience of success is heightened in repeated failure. Therefore we realize the definition of one binary by experiencing the other.
Therefore Lolita to me became as lofty as the Bibles Song of Solomon. The clarity that Lolita offers to its readers is stark and so is its reality. “I have differentiated between, love and lust” says Nabokov, and by doing so he is telling us that such a lustful obsession will meet a fitting an end as that which the main characters of Lolita meet.
That is paradox of life, someone said, I don’t recollect who, “you find out the truth, by submerging yourself in lies”. And that’s what Lolita did to me; I saw the purity of it all from the repulsion that it evoked. Such books are magical, because they seek evolved souls to understand them, to unravel the secrets of truth that are otherwise hard to find. When you get hold of Lolita, do not open it with out putting on the spectacles of discernment. The book deserves it.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
the baboon and the religion ibelong to
The baboon and the religion I belong to.
An interesting thing happened in college today. In one of our humanities classes, an anecdote was shared by a teacher. She had asked a class that she was teaching to write a piece on the evolution of the baboons, as supposedly they shared several characteristics with us humans. This is what she said she noticed. There were several Christian students who narrated the Darwin’s theory of evolution was the popular “scientific” belief ,but concluded that they do not believe in it because they believe in a certain religion that taught them that God created the heavens and the earth and everything in it in seven days. And so, the teacher said that one ought not to be confined to a boxed idea, but be open to rational thought.
“Well said’ I thought and perfectly rational. But then is everything about our world rational? I can’t answer that question, because I do not know the answer. I am in the twilight of knowing and yet not knowing. Being in the twilight is firstly about asking questions, numerous questions. Answers will come when they will.
So then am I saying that Darwin can go to hell for all I care? Evolution is Darwin’s truth, it need not become mine. I will have to find my own. The truth to why I am here? And what made me be?
Neither will I tell you to make my truth yours. I can only tell my truth when I find it, but I cannot make you believe it. And that’s why this twilight is special. It helps you believe in what you are called to believe. And that’s what the story of the baboon’s evolution did to me. Made me wonder about that truth which is exclusively mine.
An interesting thing happened in college today. In one of our humanities classes, an anecdote was shared by a teacher. She had asked a class that she was teaching to write a piece on the evolution of the baboons, as supposedly they shared several characteristics with us humans. This is what she said she noticed. There were several Christian students who narrated the Darwin’s theory of evolution was the popular “scientific” belief ,but concluded that they do not believe in it because they believe in a certain religion that taught them that God created the heavens and the earth and everything in it in seven days. And so, the teacher said that one ought not to be confined to a boxed idea, but be open to rational thought.
“Well said’ I thought and perfectly rational. But then is everything about our world rational? I can’t answer that question, because I do not know the answer. I am in the twilight of knowing and yet not knowing. Being in the twilight is firstly about asking questions, numerous questions. Answers will come when they will.
So then am I saying that Darwin can go to hell for all I care? Evolution is Darwin’s truth, it need not become mine. I will have to find my own. The truth to why I am here? And what made me be?
Neither will I tell you to make my truth yours. I can only tell my truth when I find it, but I cannot make you believe it. And that’s why this twilight is special. It helps you believe in what you are called to believe. And that’s what the story of the baboon’s evolution did to me. Made me wonder about that truth which is exclusively mine.
Your twilight and mine
Twilight is a beautiful word.we all knows it’s that incredibly short part of the day that happens before sun set and surise.The dictionary chooses to describe it as “partial darkness” or “partial light”. I guess I will go with “partial light”. It doesn’t kill to be on the brighter side of things. And that’s why it’s a beautiful word because it can go both ways. Your twilight is different from mine, in terms of how long it lasts. But then maybe our twilights are not as short and fleeting as they are supposed to be. Saki s twilight has lasted long, maybe longer than it should. Neither darkness nor light, neither knowledge nor ignorance, neither pain nor pleasure. Not the twilight of indifference, but of a passionate journey, a journey to know…to live. Twilights don’t last for ever, neither should they. It’s too dangerous to live in the twilight all your life. A place where vacuums don’t cease to multiply, but go on gnawing from the inside.
It’s a twilight that evolves into perpetual light. A twilight that intrigues, evoking a maddening urge to fill up, to feel complete. Where incredible pain drives you to seek bliss, where sickening confusion leads to clarity and cruel desperation is satisfied. That’s the journey of the twilight. Where darkness and light meet to contend for your soul. And in that meeting place, you stand alone to make the ultimate choice. This is your twilight, as well as mine.
Twilight is a beautiful word.we all knows it’s that incredibly short part of the day that happens before sun set and surise.The dictionary chooses to describe it as “partial darkness” or “partial light”. I guess I will go with “partial light”. It doesn’t kill to be on the brighter side of things. And that’s why it’s a beautiful word because it can go both ways. Your twilight is different from mine, in terms of how long it lasts. But then maybe our twilights are not as short and fleeting as they are supposed to be. Saki s twilight has lasted long, maybe longer than it should. Neither darkness nor light, neither knowledge nor ignorance, neither pain nor pleasure. Not the twilight of indifference, but of a passionate journey, a journey to know…to live. Twilights don’t last for ever, neither should they. It’s too dangerous to live in the twilight all your life. A place where vacuums don’t cease to multiply, but go on gnawing from the inside.
It’s a twilight that evolves into perpetual light. A twilight that intrigues, evoking a maddening urge to fill up, to feel complete. Where incredible pain drives you to seek bliss, where sickening confusion leads to clarity and cruel desperation is satisfied. That’s the journey of the twilight. Where darkness and light meet to contend for your soul. And in that meeting place, you stand alone to make the ultimate choice. This is your twilight, as well as mine.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
twilight
Between night and day
Between dark and light
In longing of rapid evolution
But trapped in twilight
Between dark and light
In longing of rapid evolution
But trapped in twilight
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