"A super-cute Lolita look"

Game of Thrones is good entertainment (admittedly I read it ten years ago) but potentially problematic in the way it treats women. Most if not all are either raped, beaten, humiliated, killed or controlled by men, while arguably there are several men who get to participate in the above and otherwise go about their business as they want. It is set in 'medievalish' times but given that it's a fantasy world I don't think it would've been hard for the author to create one or two female characters in roles where they did not suffer so much.

Haven't read Lolita.

Ooh, I've just got a Kindle.

I like the idea of the reality being self-deception very much but I think it can only be a small part as it's not something I think most people consciously are aware of.

I can't accept the idea that anyone other than paedophiles find children attractive. There are different types admittedly (eg those attracted to pre-adolescents, adolescents) but I think the sexualization of children is a different problem with a different cause.

The whole sexy school girl image belies the truth that most school children are not sexy. Short skirts and low cut tops stretched around adult breasts and thighs looks markedly different to what most school children look like. I do concede that the element of the forbidden is also a little at play in that scenario though.

Remains of the Day is a fantastic film adaptation of the novel overall. I don't know that they quite manage to convey the extent of Stevens' unreliable narrative but it is very moving and poignantly done and certainly conveys how he gradually becomes aware of the opportunity he missed to have a life with Miss Kenton.

can anyone remember her name? i can't remember if any comparisons were made to lolita at the time - i think not...

Yes I agree there had to be a semblance of reality in order to allow us to suspend our disbelief. But that reality does not have to be men as rapists and/or purveyor of sexual violence. The reality can be love/sexual desire/desire for beauty/desire of the forbidden which are all common literary themes. The other things that happen in the narrative which are beyond most people's reality are what make it interesting and provoking but not an accepted reality of the masses.

saf - that sounds (the narration bit with the 'real' pics of her) like that documentary made by the woman out of her father's vids of her growing up (after years of abuse). it was her way of dealing with the abuse... can't remember her name - there was a thread a while back. creepy.

Oh, very interesting. I haven't seen the film of American Psycho either. When I read the book, a long time ago, I remember being rather disturbed, because I thought it was a very clever book, but a work colleague of mine really loved the book and for all the wrong reasons (he seemed to get off on the sexual violence) and I was quite troubled about that.

Haven't seen or read Game of Thrones - is it good?

Is anyone watching the adaptation of A Game of Thrones? The book is told from multiple characters' perspectives and without the knowledge of the way she sees the world Sansa comes off as just a bratty teenager. She's not quite an unreliable narrator because she doesn't lie in her chapters, but when we see it from her perspective we see why she behaves as she does.

This thread is such great example of what I enjoy most about MN and this board. It starts about a pop culture reference, evolves to a critique of a major literary novel and it's hijack and subversion as a pop culture reference, then moves to the subject of the unreliable narrator, then onto film adaptations of books with unreliable narrators.

I am enjoying the debate very much

wolfhound I'll need to think about that! (Mind gone blank.) I haven't seen the film of American Psycho. It's an interesting question - how to incorporate the unreliable narration in a film. I know there are films with ''false endings" (of course, can't think of one right now) so you have to keep reassessing the narrative as one supercedes another...

I'm not Itma but I did have a think about other film/book adaptations with an unreliable narrator and the only one I can think of is American Psycho.

However, I've never managed to read my copy because the print is too small and smudgey and I got a headache before the end of the first page so not sure if that's right. That film adaptation is considered quite successful no?

Slightly off-subject, but yes, KatieM - I struggle to see how the book could be successfully adapted to film too.

Itma - have you ever seen a successful film adaptation of a book with an unreliable narrator. Am rather interested in whether it's possible.

sakura why don't you read the book? As a feminist you will know there are many, many instances where women and imagery of women has been hijacked by those that would subvert the true reality or meaning. I find it strange that someone who calls themself a radical feminist would allow themself to be manipulated to believe the myth rather than find out the truth.

The Lolita image of popular consciousness is a product of the films, which is, as itma suggests quite disturbing (I agree the Jeremy Irons film is just quite nasty particularly when considered in the context of the time when it was made). The book is very, very different and quite brilliant.

I was thinking about how difficult it would be to adapt the book to film. It would almost have to be in two parts - HH's reality and then the actual reality.

Sakura The book doesn't "dehumanize(s) a young girl and humanize(s) a sex offender". The narrator tries to do this, the author shows us him
doing this and undermines it. The book is a critique of such thinking. Nabokov cannot be held responsible for the (possibly) deliberate mis-interpretation of his book by a reader.

You could argue that Nabokov shows us the deviousness and manipulative nature of Humbert Humbert - these are human characteristics seen in adults who abuse children. So, maybe it does 'humanize' him - but the word humanize doesn't necessarilly mean that you like the character. We are all human beings - doesn't means that we are all 'good', do 'good' things.The book does not condone his thinking, or his actions.

We are definitely having two completely different conversations now. Possibly more than two. It doesn't flow at all.It seems to me as if you are jumping from one thought to another with very little link between what I have said (or what you said in your last post) and what you say in your next post.

KatieMiddleton
Yep, it's all about what can lie beneath the surface of a person. Humbert Humbert is outwardly such a respectable product of the patriarchy. It's particularly frightening to see how he uses language to manipulate the other characters and the reader (to an extent).

I have to say though that the films are a real problem for me. As pointed out already, with Kubrick's film the studio forced 'Lolita's' age to be increased to 14 - cos that would be less disturbing! Also, the casting is a huge problem. In the book, Nabokov makes you sympathise with Lolita's mother but by casting Shelley Winters who plays her as an annoying, awful woman the film you are encouraged to side with Humbert Humbert who regards her as an stupid, vulgar idiot that he can deceive (is justified in deceiving) in order to get to Lolita. We see Shelley Winters not from Humbert's point of view but from the camera's. It's totally different, as if we are neutral observers who can see that she deserves what is coming to her. James Mason is in many ways ideal as Humbert (charming, cynical, intelligent) but by being cast opposite Winters (who is really playing it very unsubtly and large and is made up to look much less stereotypically attractive than Mason and her screen daughter) he becomes more sympathetic than in the book. It's just a disturbing film.

The Adrian Lyne version, filmed decades later, with less restrictions, in a time of greater awareness of the issue is even worse. Sexist male fantasy.

I was surpirsed to watch a 1965 Sam Fuller film, 'The Naked Kiss' in which the fiancee of the central female character is revealed to be a child abuser. It is clearly shown to be appalling (to the extent that she kills him when she discovers him with a child), and seems to try and push the censorship limitations as far as possible. It was made three years after Kubrick's Lolita but is quite different in its treatment of the issue.