In Its Purest Form
lareviewofbooks.org29 points by lermontov a month ago
29 points by lermontov a month ago
peoples' outrage at this book appears to be inversely proportional to how much they have read or understood it.
Similar thing, though due to different reasons, with Mein Kampf - I seriously doubt more than a minor fraction of all neonazis read the whole thing because:
1. It's a brick at ~780 pages in the full text version.
2. The Austrian painter was an even worse writer and the book reads like a huge rant the likes of which you could read on Voat back when it still existed.
Mein Kampf IS a rant.
I recommend people read it so you can understand how people like that think. This is also a valid reason for reading Lolita (although at least Lolita is well written).
Just skimming the Wikipedia article, it seems like conspiratorial thinking is a factor. That reminds me, I need to sit down and finish the new Contrapoints video on conspiracies
The Contrapoints video is a bit repetitive in places, but very good. She continues to impress.
It has been years since I read Lolita, but I don't think that one comes away from it with any insights into the mind of the pedophile. It was pretty clear in reading it that it was a grim story underneath, something intermittently mentioned by the narrator.