Explaining Lolita & Lola & Hamlet to Others

[ish mailian]

I don't know why anyone would presume that men can explain Lolita to young
women anymore than they might presume that men can explain Lola (The Kinks
song) to young men or Hamlet to readers, male and female.

The text has parameters, but each set of readers will read it ...well...in
its own image, its own time and context, with its own emphasis on
particular conflicts and place emphasis on elements that others sets of
readers never consider.

But we know this.

If the text doesn't seem germane, the readers won't often choose to read
it, but prefer something else.

Why Lear was hot with Reagan is clear enough.

But why Lolita was hot with Clinton isn't.

Lolita goes better with Hastert. Right?

Macbeth, as Bill Clinton, who often spoke of the play, is Bill's play. Or
not?

Jeb is Richard III?
Ironically, it was Queen Elizabeth who is said to have spouted, after
viewing that play, "I am Richard!"
Do I have that right?
No, it was, "I am Richard II!"
Somehow, Richard Dreyfus;s portrayal of Richard III in The Goodbye Girl is
stuck in my head and confounds my sense of...well...Identity.

Identity. Yeah, most of these disputes are about the questions of identity.

I recall the nuns and the brothers asking us. "Who do you think you are?"

What they meant by that was that we had overstepped our boundaries and were
in danger of getting more than tongue lashing.

It stuck with me. Who do I think I am is no longer about the poer of the
Church or its teachers and the powerlessness of pupils, but a question that
is blowing in the wind.

As an Irish women, I'm very confused by my identity. It comes with the
troubles that have gone.

so it goes.
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