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In my reading life, I have fallen into a mood. Instead of reading new stories or standard non-fiction, I want to burrow deeper into my favorite stories, as if to attain a greater intimacy with some of the more beloved characters that I have befriended in the course of a life that has been rather thin on friends. Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita” is an obvious choice. In addition to being one of my most cherished literary illusions, she has a legion of devoted admirers endlessly writing of her, trying to get to know her better, and their courtship is not relegated solely to the secluded enclaves of obscure academic journals, but may be enjoyed at a book store near you, or at Amazon.
Hence, I have been enjoying Graham Vickers’s “Chasing Lolita: How Popular Culture Corrupted Nabokov’s Little Girl All Over Again”. His main theme is that people have taken the original Lolita character and debased her, turning her into a conniving temptress. We have turned her into a siren luring middle-aged men to their doom, from what she really is, a normal growing girl who becomes an object of lust for dirty old men who ache to deflower and despoil immature innocence. Though, it is interesting to note in an aside that the two middle-aged men who viciously intrude upon her adolescence do meet their doom, just saying.
Vickers is probably largely correct, and it is certainly a politically correct thesis. Personally, I think he possibly goes too far in his righteous zeal, as I believe that Nabokov created a somewhat more complicated character. Remember the first time that Humbert Humbert and Lolita crossed the Rubicon and had sex. Sure, our depraved Hum meant to drug and rape her, but Nabokov zigs and zags and has her making the first sexual move, showing off to him by demonstrating on him how well versed she already is in fellatio (at sucking dick!). Remember, too, that the twelve or thirteen year old escapes from Hum because she wants to be Clare Quilty’s lover, another middle-aged man.
I am not saying that Hum is a good guy who is misunderstood, nor am I saying that Dolores Haze wanted to jump off the normal childhood track to become a sex kitten and a vixen. He is, in plain fact, a pedophile and a criminal, and she was exploited in her youth and innocence (or quasi-innocence). I just think that Vickers could be criticized for going too far in his desire to err on the side of the angels.
But I am nitpicking, wanting to have something of my own to say. The book is a fun and fast read at little more than 200 pages. He writes of popular culture’s fascination with sexualized young girls going back to the silent movie era and up through the present, including a movie from 2005 called “Hard Candy”, which has the young girl turn the tables on a pedophile, drugging him, castrating him, and finishing him off on the end of a rope, which goes to show that we no longer think of girls as just these sweet little things made of sugar and spice and everything nice. Though, they are that, too.
Hence, I have been enjoying Graham Vickers’s “Chasing Lolita: How Popular Culture Corrupted Nabokov’s Little Girl All Over Again”. His main theme is that people have taken the original Lolita character and debased her, turning her into a conniving temptress. We have turned her into a siren luring middle-aged men to their doom, from what she really is, a normal growing girl who becomes an object of lust for dirty old men who ache to deflower and despoil immature innocence. Though, it is interesting to note in an aside that the two middle-aged men who viciously intrude upon her adolescence do meet their doom, just saying.
Vickers is probably largely correct, and it is certainly a politically correct thesis. Personally, I think he possibly goes too far in his righteous zeal, as I believe that Nabokov created a somewhat more complicated character. Remember the first time that Humbert Humbert and Lolita crossed the Rubicon and had sex. Sure, our depraved Hum meant to drug and rape her, but Nabokov zigs and zags and has her making the first sexual move, showing off to him by demonstrating on him how well versed she already is in fellatio (at sucking dick!). Remember, too, that the twelve or thirteen year old escapes from Hum because she wants to be Clare Quilty’s lover, another middle-aged man.
I am not saying that Hum is a good guy who is misunderstood, nor am I saying that Dolores Haze wanted to jump off the normal childhood track to become a sex kitten and a vixen. He is, in plain fact, a pedophile and a criminal, and she was exploited in her youth and innocence (or quasi-innocence). I just think that Vickers could be criticized for going too far in his desire to err on the side of the angels.
But I am nitpicking, wanting to have something of my own to say. The book is a fun and fast read at little more than 200 pages. He writes of popular culture’s fascination with sexualized young girls going back to the silent movie era and up through the present, including a movie from 2005 called “Hard Candy”, which has the young girl turn the tables on a pedophile, drugging him, castrating him, and finishing him off on the end of a rope, which goes to show that we no longer think of girls as just these sweet little things made of sugar and spice and everything nice. Though, they are that, too.
