Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0011426, Fri, 29 Apr 2005 07:29:05 -0700

Subject
Re: FW: Respons to Steve Mintz "The Golden Age of Childhood?"
Date
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----- Forwarded message from STADLEN@aol.com -----
Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2005 08:51:55 EDT
From: STADLEN@aol.com
Reply-To: STADLEN@aol.com
Subject: Re: FW: Respons to Steve Mintz "The Golden Age of Childhood?"
To:

In a message dated 29/04/2005 13:05:59 GMT Standard Time,
chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu writes:

> Dear Colleagues,
>
>
>
> This is the letter I wrote today to the Christian Science Monitor, in
> response to S. Mintz?s editorial.
>
>
>
> Humble regards,
>
> David Powelstock
>
>
>
>
> From: David Powelstock [mailto:pstock@brandeis.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2005 10:28 PM
> To: 'letters@thenewstribune.com'
> Subject: Steve Mintz "The Golden Age of Childhood?"
>
>
>
>
> To the Editor,
>
>
>
> I applaud Steven Mintz?s demystification of our era?s romanticization of
> the 1950s, an era of appalling hypocrisy. But am stunned, utterly stunned
that
> a respected professor of history could have so profoundly misrepresented?or
> misread?Vladimir Nabokov?s novel, Lolita. To suggest that this novel, a
> masterpiece of such subtle and powerful moral impact was in any way complicit
in
> the reprehensible commercializing eroticization of children that it so
> persuasively indicts is obscene. It borders on the farcical that Professor
Mintz
> should adduce to his putatively moral ends this novel, the first and perhaps
> the most eloquent critique of the growing appropriation of defenseless
> childhood to the corrupt and selfish ends of adults. I wonder if Prof. Mintz
has
> even read Lolita. Nabokov?s masterpiece is not symptomatic, but if anything
> diagnostic of the 1950s.
>
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> David Powelstock
>
>
>

Excellent letter.

Anthony Stadlen

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