HH: 'Poets Don't Kill'

Few things are as fascinating as a deranged person defending their derangeness.

Here's how HH defines people like himself.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the majority of sex offenders that hanker for some throbbing, sweet-moaning, physical but not necessarily, coital, relation with a girl-child are innocuous, inadequate, passive, timid strangers who merely ask the community to allow them to pursue their practically harmless, so-called aberrant behavior, their little hot wet private acts of sexual deviation without the police and society cracking down upon them. We are not sex fiends! We do not rape as good soldiers do. We are unhappy, mild dog-eyed gentleman, sufficiently well integrated to control our urge in the presence of adults, but ready to give years and years of life for one chance to touch a nymphet. Emphatically, no killers are we. Poets never kill [pg87].

It's the "control" and willingness to give "years and years" that make him such a dangerous predator. Not to mention that he thinks what he's doing is "private" and "practically harmless."

I stick to my notion that he's a loathsome person who writes better than most people. I'm guessing so does fellow blogger-reader Angelle.

What do you think?

The Genius of Nabokov

Tim O'Brien Angelle of Books Taste Good (devour books. poop words.) is reading Lolita, and had this to say:

Nabokov's writing is lyrical, intelligent, coherent - although obsessive, it is also collected, thus depicting Humbert Humbert as someone, although objectively lecherous, completely sympathetic. I find some of the passages simultaneously disturbing yet erotic. Does that make me a pervert, or does that make Nabokov a great writer?

Which I sorta tried saying here.