Ep 093 - Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov

Overdue

Headgum

Craig Getting, Arts, Books, Podcasts, Literature, Comedy, Andrew Cunningham

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 31 December 2014

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Usually books try to make you root for the protagonist. Even if he or she is flawed in some crucial way, most stories try to make you feel something for the person whose mind you're inhabiting. That is not the case in Vladmir Nabokov's Lolita.

This week we share with you an uncomfortable discussion about how it feels to read a book told from the perspective of an unrepentant pedophile—how do you feel about him? How do we feel about him? How does he feel about him? The difficult subject matter is just one of the things that has earned Lolita its place in the literary canon.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well-told tale,
0:05.1	they will not shy away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary.
0:10.4	Plus, these are books you should have read by now.
0:30.0	What do we want to open with? What do you want to talk about?
0:37.6	Do you want to talk about Christmas travel? You want to talk about Christmas presents?
0:41.0	You want to talk about New Year's resolutions?
0:43.4	Christmas is an easy thing. New Year's resolutions might be a good one for the first show of the year.
0:50.4	Okay. Even though I don't think I'm going to make any because I'm basically as good as I think I
0:56.2	can be at this point. It's not that I don't think I can improve myself.
1:02.6	It's just that I think that it's going to be too hard to improve myself.
1:08.0	And you want to save this exact conversation for next week is what you're saying?
1:11.8	No, we can go into this week. We can talk about New Year's resolutions now.
1:16.7	I mean, it's New Year's Eve Eve.
1:20.0	It is. Welcome to Overdoop.
1:23.4	This is a podcast about the books that you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig.
1:28.5	My name is Andrew.
1:30.0	And Andrew is perfect. He is a cybernetic man engineered for your pleasure and mine.
1:36.6	And there's nothing wrong with him.
1:38.7	I'm not. He's the listen, listen.
1:41.0	He doesn't need to improve himself at all.
1:42.9	Listen. He can't, in fact.
1:45.6	And 2015, he's just going to keep on keeping on while the rest of us try to slag off the rest
	...

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