BOOKS

LOLITA

by Vladimir Nabokov, Putnam's Sons, New York, 1958, $5.00, 319 pp.

Such elements of the bi-polarity of the universe, as the creative artist and the art critic, while fulfilling a specific dual function, contribute in equal measure to circumscribe and define the role of art in the life of man.

Never, as todav, has it been more necessary to emphasize the part that the critic must play in this role; today when the creative artist believes himself free of all outward fetters upon his activity. Especially, as in the case. of literary activity, when his own psychic make-up makes him mistake the voice of his deep-rooted urges for actual Truth, with a capital T.

All this preamble has been made necessary by the need of appraising a novel which is slowly but surely climbing toward the top spot in the best-sellers list: Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov.

The novel describes the sexual slavery of a girl by her stepfather between her tenth and fourteenth year. Now, make no mistake, this is no cheap, pornographic description. Never was the majesty of the English language bent so ingeniously to the task of portraying sexual depravity in a more anodic, elegant, subtle, way; a way of feeding just enough of an outline to the imagination, to allow it to fill in all the details that one's own experience may suggest. Were it not for the unpleasant task of getting adequate permission, we would gladly quote passages of the book to prove our point; as it is, we must ask the reader to consider pages 60 and 61 in the light of our criticism.

If, then, the book is well written, what is the indictment to which it is subject by our criticism? The indictment is plain: this book is a supremely immoral book. And it is supremely immoral not because it is an obscene book, because it is not an obscene or pornographic book, but on account of its inhumanity.

Animals copulate like the protago nist of the novel and his stepdaughter; men also, but when they do, they knowingly or unknowingly renounce their rights as human beings, reverting, to the ranks of animals.

It is the function of the artist to come to the rescue of whatever shred of humanity they have originally evinced, by portraying the struggle which must have gone on between their wounded consciences and their instincts during the fulfillment of these instincts.

This portrayal is what makes Dostojewski an artist. Nobody has depicted more terribly then he the very dregs of human behaviour; but nobody has shown better than he the inner war waged by voice of conscience.

It is, therefore, the lack of even the faintest shred of remorse assailing the protagonist at the superimposition of the sexual needs of middle aged man upon a child; it is the insinuation that anybody can "get away with it," that makes this book supremely immoral, nay, dangerous to the heterosexual contingent of our youth. Which, again, brings to the fore the cogent question: "What would the world have said if the protagonist had been a man, and the girl a boy?" B. R. Vitale

THE MAN ON THE ROCK

by Francis King, Pantheon, 1957, $3.50, 248 pp.

This is a well conceived, well written novel that, in this reviewer's opinion, can be highly recommended.

Thematically, it casts upon the stage