2026-02-19
49 分钟Hey, y'all.
We're going to do something a little different today on Old School.
Instead of being the host, I'm going to be interviewed.
Raffaella Seaworth from the Free Press is going to talk to me about Vladimir Nabokov's novel,
Lolita.
Take it away, Raffaella.
This book has deep relevance in the current moment.
Recently,
the Department of Justice released three million pages related to the Jeffrey Epstein case and references to Lolita show up all over the files.
There are references in emails,
there are photographs with quotes from the book written in pen onto girls and women.
He reportedly had one single book on his bedside table, Lolita.
He also reportedly had a first edition copy, so clearly he had an obsession with this book.
At the same time, it has come up across pop culture from Lana Del Rey to Katy Perry to Lena Dunham.
And, you know,
the illicit relationship described is often glamorized in a way that I think would shock the author.
So today I wanted to do a deep dive on Lolita about this novel,
which is fundamentally about a homicidal pedophile rapist and how that has come to occupy such a prominent place in American culture.
So to do that, obviously, I wanted to go to you, our literary expert.
So let's start at the beginning.