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<  The Third Eye Reading Room  ~  Lolita

judithannie
Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 11:35 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 224 Location: Albuquerque NM
Quote:
and her sobs in the night -- every night, every night -- the moment I feigned sleep.


When I read Lolita for the first time I was struck by the fact that much of Humbet's description of their relationship matches what we now know about the relationship between pedophiles and their victims. I thought perhaps at the time the book was written the subject wasn't much talked about and I was was impressed at how accurately the author got it.
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mitty
Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 11:38 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 02 Aug 2004 Posts: 1359 Location: Way Down Yonder.......
Its me again Embarassed

I have to quote Humbert from the second to last page.

"For reasons that may appear more obvious than they really are, I am opposed to capital punishment; this attitude will be, I trust, shared by the sentencing judge. Had I come before myself, I would have given Humbert at lest thirty-five years for rape, and dismissed the rest of the charges."

There is NO excuse for his behavior, but he acknowledged the wrong he did.

Now, I have not been thru the the events in the book myself. But in my estimation if someone is truely sorry for what he has done, it means a lot. It does not fix it, or make up for the wrong done in any way, but it helps. The simple acknowledgement of having done wrong helps.
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yambu
Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 11:44 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 23 May 2004 Posts: 6441 Location: SF Bay Area
Melody wrote:
...I don't see her taking advantage of HH's sickness because she didn't, um, grasp it until it was too late....
Before she "grasped it" in The Enchanted Hunter, she had flirted with him in his room at her house, had stretched her legs across his lap, had surreptitiously grabbed his hand in Charlotte's car, and had given him that big buss before leaving for camp. Then she felt betrayed when he married Mom.

When they finally became "technically lovers", it was a turnoff for him. "My Life (penis) was handled by little Lo in an energetic, matter-of-fact manner as if it were an insensate gadget unconnected with me....But I am not concerned with so-called "sex" at all....A greater endeavor lures me on: to fix once for all the perilous magic of nymphets." By that, it is revealed over and over, he means total control over what he perceives to be certain "demonic" girl children.

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mitty
Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 12:01 am Reply with quote
Joined: 02 Aug 2004 Posts: 1359 Location: Way Down Yonder.......
Nymphet: a pubescent girl. especially one who is sexually precocious.
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mitty
Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 12:05 am Reply with quote
Joined: 02 Aug 2004 Posts: 1359 Location: Way Down Yonder.......
Yambu; I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by the last sentence meaning Humbert wants to control Lolita.

I agree he wants to control her movements, mostly because of his obsession, and partially fear of exposure.
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yambu
Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 12:13 am Reply with quote
Joined: 23 May 2004 Posts: 6441 Location: SF Bay Area
Mitty, he's writing to the jury (yet unpicked). He knows he must express remorse. But he's a sociopath, and cannot feel the real thing.

As to Judith's point:

"...I thought perhaps at the time the book was written the subject [pedophilia] wasn't much talked about and I was was impressed at how accurately the author got it...."

According to the Annotad version, Nabokov researched the subject, reading case studies, etc. He also would ride on school buses, to listen to young girls talking. As for the two treks across the continent, he being a serious lepidopterist, or butterfly collector, he claims he stayed in over 200 motels within 46 states.

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yambu
Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 12:17 am Reply with quote
Joined: 23 May 2004 Posts: 6441 Location: SF Bay Area
mitty wrote:
Nymphet: a pubescent girl. especially one who is sexually precocious.
Not HH's definition. His nymphet can be anywhere between nine and fourteen.

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yambu
Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 12:28 am Reply with quote
Joined: 23 May 2004 Posts: 6441 Location: SF Bay Area
mitty wrote:
Yambu; I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by the last sentence meaning Humbert wants to control Lolita.

I agree he wants to control her movements, mostly because of his obsession, and partially fear of exposure.
That's part of it. But he's the stepfather of a young girl alone in the world. He takes her on the road where she can't establish relationships with anyone else, and must look to him for all her needs. He bribes her with clothing, trinkets and excursions, exploits her body on demand, while denying her her childhood. This is his "fullfillment".

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mitty
Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 12:33 am Reply with quote
Joined: 02 Aug 2004 Posts: 1359 Location: Way Down Yonder.......
yambu wrote:
mitty wrote:
Nymphet: a pubescent girl. especially one who is sexually precocious.
Not HH's definition. His nymphet can be anywhere between nine and fourteen.


Yes, but it is the dictionary's. Interestingly enough, it is not in the 1960 American College Dictionary, but is in Webster's New World of 1970.

I know he was addressing the to be chosen jury, but I don't get what Humbert meant by "to fix once for all the perilous magic of nymphets." Confused

Perhaps I am "thick", but don't get it.
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yambu
Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 12:38 am Reply with quote
Joined: 23 May 2004 Posts: 6441 Location: SF Bay Area
mitty wrote:
.....I don't get what Humbert meant by "to fix once for all the perilous magic of nymphets." :?

Perhaps I am "thick", but don't get it.
Neither do I, and that is the central mystery about HH. I don't know if we can answer that in the course of this discussion, but It's going to be fun trying.

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Joe Vitus
Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 12:53 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston
Mitty,

Quote:
Now that (the screenplay) would be something I'd like to read!


It was published. I'm pretty sure it's still in print. It isn't very good.
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yambu
Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 1:00 am Reply with quote
Joined: 23 May 2004 Posts: 6441 Location: SF Bay Area
Again, Joe, Nabokov's published screenplay, coming out years after the movie's release, is a heavily revised version of his original, which has been lost, apparently.

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tirebiter
Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 2:53 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 4011 Location: not far away
I just finished reading the screenplay-- it was written in '62 (I think) and heavily revised (as Yambu says) in 1970. It's available, at better libraries everywhere, in the Library of America edition of Nabokov's novels-- I think there are two or three volumes. Good stuff.

It's nothing Kubrick could have filmed, really-- much too "literary," with John Ray, Jr. horning in to turn it into a "case study," and evidently Kubrick pretty much tossed it after it was finished, though Kubrick had had lots of input in its development. But after looking to other writers and trying to "fix" it himself, he gradually returned to much that Nabokov had submitted. It's fun to see the Kubrickian touches in the film, and to see what he retained from Nabokov's version. The murder of Quilty in the film is very much in keeping with the novel's depiction of it-- in the screenplay, we see Humbert shoot Quilty fairly undramatically and then go back to find out why.

I loved rereading the novel. I don't see Lolita as much of an aggressor in the "relationship"-- she's a naif, really, despite her romp with Charley at camp. And Humbert's behavior is completely indefensible (as others have noted above, even according to himself). I think it was Mel and Judithannie who quoted Humbert's rather matter-of-fact reporting of Lolita's sobs, every night. He knows he's a monster, and he takes advantage of her naivete, claiming that if she tells anyone of their "love life," she'll be pitched into an institution as well as he. As time passes, her sophistication grows (or her fear lessens, possibly due to her contact with Quilty), and she begins to assert her advantage over Humbert, she extorts money and favors out of him and then begins to torment him with his slavish need for her. But when she leaves him, we discover she's no sexual revolutionary-- she's disgusted by the activities at Quilty's Duk-Duk Ranch and leaves there pretty quick.

But despite his truly awful conduct with Lo, I can't help pitying Humbert, especially after he tracks down "Mrs. Richard Schiller" and realizes that despite her "ropy veins" and swollen belly, he still loves her. (Never mind that two-hundred pages earlier he'd thought of having a baby by Lo to breed another generation of nymphet to take her place...) He's still enslaved.

And as for Lolita's echo of her Mother's behavior (mentioned above), there are several instances of this-- especially at the end while she smokes a cigarette in her pregnant state. Humbert remembers Charlotte holding the ciggie that same way.
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Joe Vitus
Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 3:46 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston
Yambu,

I'm sorry, I missed where you said that earlier. Thanks for saying it again. I didn't know that. Well, I guess I must have, because I read his preface to the screenplay, but don't remember his making the distinction between the screenplay offered Kubrick and the one published. Or did you learn that from another source?

Tennessee Williams' published screenplay for Baby Doll also departs from the movie-as-produced. I don't think it represents an earlier script, because Kazan in his autobiography says Williams took off without completing it. So that's probably an after-the-fact revision, too.
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Melody
Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 6:37 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 2242 Location: TX
yambu wrote:
When they finally became "technically lovers", it was a turnoff for him.


Gotta disagree with you, Yambu. This passage describing their first time doesn't sound like a man who's turned off sexually in the least:

Quote:
This was a lone child, an absolute waif, with whom a heavy-limbed, foul-smelling adult had had strenuous intercourse three times that very morning. Whether or not the realization of a lifelong dream had surpassed all expectations, it had, in a sense, overshot its mark -- and plunged into a nightmare. I had been careless, stupid, and ignoble. And let me be quite frank: somewhere at the bottom of that dark turmoil I felt the writhing of desire again, so monstrous was my appetite for that miserable nymphet.

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