2020-05-21
21 分钟"Lolita," Vladimir Nabokov’s novel about a man’s sexual obsession with a young girl, is famously controversial. But when Bindu Bansinath started to read it, it unexpectedly became a kind of road map for her, showing her a way out of the situation she was in. Jameela Jamil ("I Weigh") reads her piece.
Produced by the Ilab at WBUR Boston, this episode contains references to abuse and may not be for all listeners.
From the New York Times and WBUR Boston, this is modern love stories of love, loss and redemption.
I'm your host, Meghna Chakrabarti.
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov's novel about a man's sexual obsession with a young girl is a controversial novel to say the least.
But when Bindu Bansinath started to read it, it unexpectedly became a kind of roadmap for her, showing her a way out of the situation she was in.
She tells the story in her piece how Lolita freed me from my own Humbert.
Its read by Jamila Jamil.
Jamila starred in the good Place on NBC and shes host of the new podcast I Weigh with Jamilah Jamil.
It was my uncle who gave me my first copy of Lolita.
My father had refused to buy it for me at the bookstore we often visited together.
Why that book?
My father said as he and I arrived home.
I just want it.
We removed our shoes at the door, where religious superstition required all things unclean to be left.
I wanted to read it.
I was 15, a sophomore in high school, and had learned of Lolita from an english teacher who had summarized the plot, citing it as an example of unreliable narration.
My uncle knew the basics, the trope of the precocious girl, the japanese fashion subculture, the heart shaped glasses.
But he'd not actually read the novel when he gave it to me as a gift a few weeks later, after I told him my father wouldn't buy it.
My uncle liked to buy me gifts, both little and lavish, what my parents could not afford, what they forbade me to have, the benefactor role made him feel as if he were filling in gaps that my parents conservatism had left in my life.
So in whichever hotel room we were staying that night, with me tucked into bed, conned out of clothes, he tossed me the forbidden paper back and said, you'd better hide this.