"A super-cute Lolita look"

[IWouldNotCouldNotWithAGoat]

here

Am I being prudish? Wear sandals with socks for a super-cute Lolita look? This is aimed at teenage girls!! Am I over-reacting or is this just wrong?

It's a New Zealand shop, BTW.

I have to say Sakura that this comment of yours is awful

CHild sexual abuse was and is, frighteningly common.
In fact , how many men don't do it simply because the opportunity never arises, or because they might get caught

It's not on and it infers that you know some secret about men in general....which you do not.

I rather object to the 'men know that most of them rape' too. Have you any evidence for this statement sakura? I do sometimes wonder how you interact with men at all if you really have such an incredibly low opinion of all of them.

i tend to believe that most men don't abuse children because they are decent human beings. i also tend to believe that 'most' men are not rapists.

and i still call myself a feminist.

i guess we are all entitled to our own opinions, eh?

Sakura, I am really disturbed by your view of 'most men'. It is not my experience at all, and I am very sorry if it has been yours. With a thoroughly decent father, brother, husband, and most importantly two beautiful, innocent, loving little sons, I cannot see the male sex the way you do.

And, also, I think it is a common and very misconceived error to confuse the narrator of a book with the author. Humbert Humbert is NOT Nabokov, and to imagine that Nabokov is using him as a mouthpiece is to misunderstand the book completely. The gap between what characters say and what the text implies is a mainstay of literary fiction.

Most men do not rape.

Most men do not abuse children.

Most men are not violent.

And do you know why?

Because they don't want to.

The exact same reason why most women don't do this kind of thing.

If you believe that most men would be like that given half a chance then I'm afraid we cannot have a conversation - we are starting from such wholly different positions that there can be no meaningful communication.

Been reading this thread and have to say that wolfhound is absolutely right.
I 'teach' this book at uni from time to time and I've had students get upset about it (thinking it is somehow pro-peodiphilia) because they have only read the beginning. The book is a really useful text for showing how unreliable narration and ironic self-revelation work (Nabokov clearly but subtly undermines the narrator's account and his world view) and showing how an author can create an narrator who is NOT the author. You can't read the book properly and not think Humbert Humbert is a horrible manipulative, abusive man. Nabokov has Humbert Humbert use his linguistic skills and literary knowledge to romanticise and misrepresent his actions but we see through that. Humbert Humbert denies 'Lolita' a voice except at one point near the end when she speaks and she refers to him raping her. It is a really powerful moment. Nabokov creates a narrator who uses his gender, class, education to demean and abuse women ('Lolita's' mother) and children.

The book is not titillating in any way. I agree that some people have confused the novel with the films (Adrian Lyne directed the more recent vile one with Jeremy Irons as Humbert Humbert) and the general cultural bullshit around the term 'Lolita'. We should be angry that this has been done to a book that is very damning about male abuse of power. As has been said already, Humbert Humbert renames Dolores 'Lolita' - this is part of his abuse of power, renaming her, denying her her true identity. It's even more ironic that the name has become part of our culture in a way that Humbert Humbert would have approved of but Nabokov wouldn't. That's society's fault, not Nabokov's.

The argument that it is not 'original' -well, the sexual abuse of children was not a common topic in published fiction in the 1950s. Art doesn't exist in a vacuum. And art should deal with awful subjects that people would prefer to shy away from. Just because a book exists about child abuse doesn't mean that the author is promoting child abuse.

WHy are you all pretending these are my views of men?

I'm just repeating what men themselves say.

Men boast about raping and murdering bitches all the time. Listen to any rap "artist", A billion dollar porn industry is built on the real life rapes of women.

I'm going to search for that Michale Moore quote where he basically says that the only people who stick up for men's sexuality are women.

I will concede that patriarchy fucks up men's sexuality though

BY Julie Bindel:

Men who cannot bear to look in the mirror often call radical feminists man-haters. It would make them feel profoundly uncomfortable if they had any male-privilege removed whatsoever, and many who use the insult hate themselves far more than I ever could.
A taxi driver told me yesterday that rape was ?Terrible, but I can understand men getting frustrated if their wives don?t let them get their rocks off.? Another told me, during an interview about why men pay for sex that, ?Prostitution stops rape. If men can?t get it when they really need it, some innocent little girl might have to suffer.? Both men clearly believed that all men are potential rapists. I never said it. They did.

Finn Mackay, a feminist activist and academic has organised the Reclaim the Night march in London for the past six years, believes that men do have a role to play within feminism, but ? it is not coming along to meetings and taking part in the decision-making process. ?They can stop rape by not raping, and bring the sex industry to its knees by not paying for
sex,? says MacKay, without a trace of irony.
?Oppression doesn?t just happen to women like bad weather. Men as a group systematically oppress and exploit women, and feminism is the political movement to challenge and change that.?

I would genuinely like to see all men become non-abusive human beings

link

Well said itma I read this book by choice as an adult (it was one of a number of books I picked up in a charity shop). It was a while ago but I still remember feeling how manipulative the narrator was and how he could not be trusted because he was not seeing the situation as it truly was. He had so many excuses. He blamed. I also remember how it felt to be about 12/13 when I was just starting to become aware of my sexuality and how naive I was. Thankfully I was always safe but if a predator like HH had been around I can see how susceptible I would have been to being groomed and abused because I could not see how slight the boundary between being seen to be attractive and being taken advantage of.

To those of you who have not read the book I suggest you read it before passing comment. It really isn't written to be about the Lolita image of the teenage temptress. It's a look inside the mind of a deeply disturbed, flawed human being.

To the answer the question of why write about it? Well with any book about something "other" there is the appeal of looking into a world similar yet different to our own. This particular book also really makes you think and is very clever in the way the veneer is gradually stripped back to reveal the horrifying reality. Sociopaths, psychopaths and personality disorders have always been subjects for books and other media because they are so similar to our lives that we can relate but so far removed we can be entertained (by entertained I mean made to experience something: horror, revulsion, love, fear etc etc).

Of course most men are not attracted to prepubesent girls and most men are not abusers and to suggest otherwise is ridiculous. It is also to deny why Lolita is so sensationalist; it is similar to reality but hugely removed at the same time.

Trillian I really feel sorry for you if you think that the violence against women we see today, the rapes, the porn the murders are inevitable

I am a radical feminist because I believe in the humanity of men. I believe it does not have to be this way . BUt pretending that a lot of men don't enjoy rape and watching porn (which is rape) ain't going to bring any changes about

sakura are you reading a different thread? Yours appears to have different words on it to the ones written by other posters.

Sakura you were not originallytalking about Rap so it's irrelevant to bringit up now as well you know.

There we go again with the failure in communication.

"In fact , how many men don't do it simply because the opportunity never arises, or because they might get caught?"
That, to me, does not sound as if you believe in the humanity of men. It sounds as if you believe that men pretend to humanity because they fear the consequences, rather than choosing not to rape because they find it just as abhorrent as you do.

(and I have no idea where you got the idea that I thought sexual violence was inevitable)

Trillian, I've read what the (male) critics had to say about Lolita. It was very much a nudge nudge wink wink approach. THe degradation of Lolita really was secondary in the eyes of the men who praised this book, which was all focused on the inner-world of the sex offender giving much credence given to his worldview and his conscience.

Who cares about that, really. Or should I say, more to the point, what kind of men gush over a book that dehumanizes a young girl and humanizes a sex offender

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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...

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

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.

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?