Though sexual humor can easily relegate literary works to the low-brow fringes, Russian author Vladimir Nabokov was a master at using sexual comedy to criticize conceptions of intimacy. His works have both challenged and entertained many for decades, and earned widespread popularity across the decades. Nabokov consistently brings taboo topics out into the open and pokes fun at them.
This past week, the University’s Slavic Languages and Literature Department hosted a lecture on Nabokov’s sexual humor by Paul Grant, an Associate English Professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland who studies Nabokov’s novels and other works that feature sexual comedy.
Nabokov’s most popular book, “Lolita,” tells the story of a pedophile, but Nabokov’s humour throughout the narrative causes readers to almost forget what kind of story they’re reading.
Grant took his audience on a journey through the writings of Nabokov, explaining how his early success influenced the rest of his work during his career. After the success of his most popular book “Lolita” — an eyebrow-raising, yet hilarious tale of a pedophile — Nabokov had more leeway to write on sexually taboos. This led to works such as “Look at the Harlequins!“in which the narrator loses count of the number of wives he’s had.
Grant suggested Nabokov’s increasingly sexual writings were also a product of increasingly tolerant society and Nabokov’s monetary incentive — since he knew people would buy literature laden with sexual humor. But Nabokov was not just a sex-crazed hedonist; Grant said the writer may also have been attempting to parody the pornography industry, and was ultimately successful because he drew his readers in with riveting plots and characters.
Nor is sexual comedy an invention of Nabokov or any 20th century author. Critics often forget scandalous sex jokes have been around since Ancient Greece — epitomized, perhaps, in Aristophanes’ 5th-century BCE play, “Lysistrata,” which tells the story of Greek women withholding sex from their husbands until they negotiate peace from war.
Just as modern audiences continue to find Aristophanes’ 2,500-year-old jokes funny, Nabokov’s humor still resonates, and likely will for as long as humans have sexual urges.
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