He wrote - after the book was published in Paris but before it came out in the United States - “It has taken me some 40 years to invent Russia and Western Europe, and now I was faced by the task of inventing America.” The Russian novels we’ve read remain at a distance that allows for safe intellectual contemplation. The world of Lolita, though related to Nabokov’s other novelistic worlds, marks a significant shift in Nabokov’s oeuvre. You agreed to this contract when you stayed in this course after reading my syllabus.
I would not be doing my professional duty as a professor and literary scholar if I sidestepped this novel. If I don’t teach Lolita, I am denying you the opportunity to read - in the hopefully productive environment of the classroom - the book that established Nabokov's reputation as an English-language author. To my mind, not teaching Lolita would amount to a breach of contract. But these other responses are ones we should learn to inhabit and process, including by discussing books like Lolita.Ĭould I do justice to Nabokov’s art without teaching Lolita? The answer is no. That said, I would urge you - in this class and in other classes - to opt out only when you are experiencing emotions or reliving events that are detrimental to your health and not because you are feeling queasy, disgusted or morally offended. I will also announce loudly and clearly that students may choose not to read the book. The next time I teach Lolita I will make sure to address the emotional and intellectual challenges of reading from the outset. However, I never addressed that the act of reading 300-plus pages is different than knowing the subject matter. Earlier in the semester, I nodded to the emotional and intellectual challenges of reading Lolita. I accept your point from yesterday that I might have started our discussion of this book differently. The numbers are staggeringly high some studies suggest that as many as one in five children experience sexual abuse.
When I teach this book, I always keep in mind that, in all likelihood, several people in this room have experienced sexual assault. I'd also like to suggest that what happened in class - if we are able now to process our discussion - is learning at its best.īefore I launch my defense, I wish to acknowledge where I went amiss. Let me try to explain myself now and make a case for why I will continue to teach the novel. This last suggestion runs so counter to my own beliefs about what literature does that I found it hard to parry your challenges. That by assigning Lolita I am perpetuating trauma and may even be perpetuating rape culture. I was not surprised by the vehemence of your response to the book, but by the suggestion that we should perhaps not read it at all. I was surprised by your suggestion that I not teach Lolita in a college seminar on the novels of Vladimir Nabokov, whose fame - at least as an American writer - rests largely on this novel. The next class I gave a lecture entitled “Why I Teach Lolita.” What follows is an abridged version of my lecture. How could I justify teaching a book that inflicted trauma and even perpetuated rape culture? Could I not convey the essence of Nabokov’s art without teaching Lolita? Was I not excluding some students simply by teaching the text? While I was more or less prepared to talk about rape, I wasn’t at all ready to talk about the possibility of not teaching a book I love.
After some uncomfortable discussion, my students issued a polite but concerted challenge.
This semester, about one week into discussing Lolita, I assigned feminist readings of the novel, including Elizabeth Patnoe’s 2002 essay on trauma. This year I added a few words asking students to inform themselves about the plot of Lolita and to consider what it means that Nabokov treats “a range of human experience in a highly artful, and even artificial, way.” In 2016, students debated whether I should have included a “trigger warning” on the syllabus. In each iteration I’ve addressed the challenges of reading Lolita - a novel whose plot (the fabula, to speak in Russian formalist terms) is about the abduction and ongoing sexual abuse of a child, but whose structures and devices (the siuzhet) point everywhere else. I’ve taught an undergraduate seminar on Vladimir Nabokov since 2008.