Roger Fishbite
Encyclopedia
Roger Fishbite is a novel by the American writer and journalist Emily Prager
, which was published in 1999.
of Vladimir Nabokov
’s Lolita
, partly as a “reply both to the book and to the icon that the character Lolita has become.”. It tells the story of thirteen year old Lucky Lady Linderhoff, and her mother, and their lodger, who Lucky calls Roger Fishbite.
Whilst taking its inspiration from Nabokov’s Lolita, Prager’s novel is narrated by Lucky, not Fishbite, and displays a number of twists and turns that differ from the original text. Prager also updates the story, setting it in the modern day period, rather than choosing to set it in the nineteen fifties.
Emily Prager
- Life and work :Prager grew up in Texas, Taiwan, and Greenwich Village, NY. She is a graduate of The Brearley School, Barnard College and has a Masters Degree in Education...
, which was published in 1999.
Themes and literary connections
The novel was written partly as a literary parodyParody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
of Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
’s Lolita
Lolita
Lolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, first written in English and published in 1955 in Paris and 1958 in New York, and later translated by the author into Russian...
, partly as a “reply both to the book and to the icon that the character Lolita has become.”. It tells the story of thirteen year old Lucky Lady Linderhoff, and her mother, and their lodger, who Lucky calls Roger Fishbite.
Whilst taking its inspiration from Nabokov’s Lolita, Prager’s novel is narrated by Lucky, not Fishbite, and displays a number of twists and turns that differ from the original text. Prager also updates the story, setting it in the modern day period, rather than choosing to set it in the nineteen fifties.
Reviews
At the heart of the novel is the issue that Lucky raises constantly throughout: The way in which children in America (and western society in general, I would add) are hated and feared by a society that seeks to eroticise them whilst at the same time destroying them.
What prevents the novel from devolving into an inside joke is the enthralling voice of Lucky Linderhof, who, at nearly 15, tells her tale with the world-weariness befitting an elder statesman of child abuse.