My erstwhile MFA classmate Steve Almond posts about the 50th anniversary of Lolita:

AlterNet: MediaCulture: ‘Lolita’ Hits Fifty

Nabokov is nothing less than a poet of desire… Big ideas, witty observations and tricky plotlines are all fine and well. But the engine of any great book is desire. And by that standard, Lolita is a Mack truck.

Earlier in the article, he talks about a bar he and other grad students would gather in — I know the bar he’s talking about … coldest PBR’s in Greensboro. Makes me wish I’d been in more of those conversations.