In this Readers' Guide, Christine Clegg examines the critical history of Lolita through a broad range of interpretations. Although early criticism of the text polarized around 'that' question - is it literature or pornography? - the influence of American critics such as Lionel Trilling quickly secured canonical status for the novel. A compelling aspect of Lolita criticism is the way in which that question continues to return in different forms. In the 1980s and 1990s, Lolita has been the subject of diverse critical attention, beyond 'Nabokov Studies': from Richard Rorty's philosophical inquiry into the ethics of cruelty, to Rachel Bowlby's feminist analysis of the rhetoric of consumer culture in the novel. All of the main critical approaches to the novel are covered by this indispensable sourcebook.
Maurice Couturier Book order (chronological)
Maurice Couturier was a distinguished literary scholar and translator whose work primarily focused on modern English and American literature. He was renowned for his in-depth exploration of Vladimir Nabokov's oeuvre, to which he dedicated his pioneering doctoral thesis and numerous publications. Couturier's approach was characterized by an interdisciplinary scope, blending literary theory with critical analysis and contributing to the rehabilitation of the author as a central figure in critical discourse. Beyond his academic career, which spanned universities in both France and the United States, he also engaged in translation and played an active role in publishing prestigious literary editions.
Out of the Shelter
- 288 pages
- 11 hours of reading
The restrictions of a wartime childhood in in London and subsequent post-war shortages have done little to enrich Timothy's early youth. Kath, who left home long ago to work for the American army, introduces her sixteen-year-old brother to a lifestyle that is deliriously fast, furious and extravagant.
Paradise News
- 384 pages
- 14 hours of reading
Agnostic theologian Bernard Walsh has a professional interest in heaven. But when he travels to Hawaii with his father, Jack, it is not in quest of a vacation paradise; it is to visit Jack’s dying, estranged sister. The hand of fate and family tensions frustrate the planned reunion, however. And surrounded by quarrelling honeymooners, girls looking for Mr Right, a freeloading anthropologist, and assorted tourists all determinedly pursuing their humdrum visions of paradise, Bernard finds Waikiki more like purgatory. Until, that is, he stumbles upon something he had given up hope of finding – the astonishing possibility of love…
When Phillip Swallow and Professor Morris Zapp participate in their universities' Anglo-American exchange scheme, the Fates play a hand, and each academic finds himself enmeshed in the life of his counterpart on the opposite side of the Atlantic. Nobody is immune to the exchange.