Lolita

[jester]

dANA,

This runs along my point.  Just because there is an "attraction" of sorts,
doesn't make it ethically "right" for the guy to bring it to a sexual level.
In Lolita's case, Humbert was honestly attracted to her, and she manipulated
that attraction to some degree, but that's no excuse for what he did...
let's see the charges: risk of injury to a minor, kidnapping, molestation...
the list runs on into other areas, I'm sure.

I think Nabokov was right on in the attraction area, but he was also on in
the TRAGEDY area... an area of the book some critics like to gloss over...

Then of course, the metaphoric linguistic material comes into play, but
you're correct, it is rather disturbing on a literal level...

I had an experience this week with a group of five children ranging from 7
to 12.  Apparently, they had been playing in the neighborhood park, without
their parents' knowledge.  While playing, two Albanian tourists with cameras
approached them and started taking their pictures, asking, "would you like
me to take your picture," and "come here baby."  The kids were frightened
and attempted to run from the men, who followed them through the LARGE park
to the local 7-Eleven, where I ran into them and asked what the problem was.
I called the police.  The authorities came, apprehended the men (who were
now walking swiftly away form the scene) and questioned them.  At that point
the kids' parents arrived at the scene and took the kids home.  All thanked
me for my vigilance, but they let the guys go.  Apparently there wasn't
anything they could "hold them for," and the parents didn't want to get
involved (remember, these are parents who let their kids wander off a few
blocks through a suburban neighborhood on the outskirts of an urban
landscape to a park that is known to be inhabited by "trouble").  Anyway,
one of the cops told me they had another similar complaint at another city
park the same afternoon, so he sensed a trend developing.

The moral: regardless of our literary discussion, and the reality of some
biological influences that are entirely natural... there is a big
sociological/even psychological problem with sex and children and adults in
the mix... kids are attacked by sexual images at a very early age.
Unfortunately, many of these sexual images are not of loving, caring
relationships, but casual, unemotional physicality.  Furthermore, there is a
lack of good education in sexuality for kids -- whether from parents,
schools, religious organizations, whatever -- kids are unprepared to behave
sexually at an early age, and are easily manipulated by adult predators.
Lolita was not ready to engage sexually with Humbert.  Maybe in a few years
she would have been, but that wasn't the case in the novel.  Throughout the
book, Humbert professes HIS victimization, when we all know this was not the
case.  I wonder what will happen in the park tomorrow...

JJ "Jester" ("fucking idiot of 4 July 1997" MantaRay Award)



At 06:00 PM 07/04/1997 EDT, you wrote:
>O.K., I wasn't going to jump in until Jules repeated his assertion
>that Lolita seduced Humbert and was "sexually active" etc etc.
>First of all, fooling around at the age of 12 or 13, I don't think,
>constitutes "sexually active" in the way that adults are, and 2nd, didn't
>Humbert drag Lolita across the country and isolate her in a hotel room
>when he was "seduced" by her?(and this sounds like a court case
>here in Kingston when a perverted ole prof said a three-year old girl
>seduced him).  And third, isn't Lolita crying through most of the second
>half of the book because she's been torn away from her childhood? (yes)
>and fourth, isn't the text on many levels about the danger of metaphors?
>i.e. the body of a child used to work out Humbert's incest/insect
>linguistic convolutions.  The metaphoric aspect of the whole book is hilarious;
>the literality is horrifying.   I hate those fucken book blurbs that
>call -Lolita- a love story.  The only love going on is Humbert's love
>for language--and of course, the material is a pliable female body.
>Why assume Humbert's perspective is totally reliable (she seduced me, man),
>esp. since he's seduced by language so?
>I don't buy Humbert's horny little excuses (punctuated by Lolita's cries)
>and I don't buy Jules' excuses for him.
>Dana
>p.s. I bet Lolita hadn't even gotten her first period yet either.
>
>