Books that Shake It Up

I just finished reading Lolita. Reading Nabakov's afterword really gives the books some perspective because, like, I really found it a total headfuck. It was so damn pretty to read, but... ZOMG DUNTALKABOUTLITTLEGIRLSTHATWAY. And there's the whole them of imposing adult sexuality on children that really comes through. However the thing that really got me (besides y'know, the raping a child thing) was the metatext. On the front and back covers the book is lauded as a 'dark comedy' : 'Comedy, subversive yet divine' - Martin Amis, 'laugh-aloud black humour' - Daily Telegraph, 'endlessly comic' - John Updike, 'There's no funnier monster in modern literature' - Independant...

I didn't get the funny. I got the amazing poetry, the wordplay, the sheer brilliance of semiotic artistry, and given t was written in English, rather than Russian, it is phenomenal. I could never hope to evoke such feelings, such beauty, in English let alone in some tongue I was less familiar with.

But it wasn't funny. Not side splitting.  Maybe some chortle.

Maybe I've seen too many Steve Martin movies.