
The Real Lolita - lermontov
http://hazlitt.net/longreads/real-lolita
======
dschiptsov
Lolita, the book, is not about kidnapping of a girl or any kind of perversity.
It is about futility and pains of worshipping a fleeting beauty, which is a
temporary state of approaching perfection (beauty is youth + health. Proximity
of a local optimum). If there is something to worship at all, it is beauty,
not idols.

The book is about ugliness and mediocrity of so called modern society with its
rigid set of dogmas and set in stone prejudices. It is about suffering. About
inability in principle to catch that fleeting beauty, a spark of perfection.
The moment you approach it you have already ruined it. Observer ruins the
observation, or rather realizes the painful dissonance between his assumptions
and actuality, but continued his futile attempts to catch it, because
everything else is not worth of even a second look.

Dear gentlewomen of the jury. Do not attempt to judge things you probably
never even understood.

~~~
kj01a
Lolita is a vehicle for Nabokov's prose. It's dense and poetic, filled with
allusion and ambiguity. It's "about" a lot of things.

~~~
dschiptsov
It's a book.

~~~
kj01a
That's a bold claim. Do you have evidence to back that up?

------
bryanlarsen
The most interesting aspect to me was that the story didn't make the New York
Times. Today the story would be international news and would probably take up
48-72 hours of continuous coverage on CNN.

~~~
ddeck
That's not all that's changed. Today he likely wouldn't even have had the
opportunity as he would have been in prison already:

 _On September 4, 1942, Frank La Salle was indicted in Camden County Criminal
Court for the statutory rape of five girls between the ages of 12 and 14. He
wasn’t arrested until February 2, 1943, though, and pleaded not guilty to the
charges in court the following week. A little over a month later, on March 22,
La Salle changed his plea to “non vult,” or no contest, and received a
sentence of two and a half to five years in Trenton State Prison. Fourteen
months later, on June 18, 1944, La Salle was paroled._

14 months in prison for the statutory rape of 5 12-14 year old girls by a
45-year old man. It's truly unbelievable how such an offence could be treated
so lightly at the time.

~~~
userbinator
I'm not surprised, morality changes. Go back in time far enough, and it might
not even be considered rape.

~~~
Radim
No need to travel back in time; still acceptable in many places and cultures
around the world TODAY.

~~~
glogla
Or in the US if he was rich swimmer.

~~~
unclenoriega
While that case is terrible, I think most people will find a difference
between one incident of rape between two people in their 20s and the statutory
rape of 5 adolescent girls by a 45-year-old man. To me at least, there seems
to be very little comparison.

~~~
M_Grey
I think you're overestimating the choosiness of the average rapist.

~~~
rhizome
What's an "average rapist," and what are you implying about their selection
preferences? Do tell!

~~~
M_Grey
In brief, raping someone who is unconscious fits neatly into the 'Power-
Reassurance' category of rapist. On the other hand the guy himself appears
(although we'll see as he gets older) to be more of a 'Power-Assertive' type.
In either case the major factor is the perception of the victim as vulnerable,
which can come in the form of "drunk and unconscious", but just as often comes
in the form of, "Elderly or disabled".

Rapists tend to be highly preferential in their modus, but across typologies
the victim profiles are insanely varied... except that the rapist feels they
can dominate/control them.

------
seashuttle
This was an incredible read. I would never have suspected that the book had
roots in reality.

------
tomrod
Wow! Truth stranger than, or inspiring, fiction is always a good read.

Where I live, the state is doing a lot to fight sexual trafficking (I'd put
this in the same category).
[http://humantrafficking.ohio.gov](http://humantrafficking.ohio.gov)

------
malloryerik
I've always chosen to think of Lolita in terms of allegory -- old Europe's
perverse fascination with pubescent America -- so I was surprised to read that
Nabokov had make a first stab at it as a story set in Europe.

I still think the allegory holds true and might be why Lolita finally worked
with a U.S. setting. In any case can you really imagine Humbert Humbert as an
erudite American? So much would be lost.

------
ucaetano
This reminds me of the rampant abuse of minors by the pot-modernist
philosophers in France, who openly practised and defended pedophily.

~~~
rhizome
Such as who?

~~~
danharaj
They are probably thinking of Beauvoir and Sartre in particular. Good luck
finding a scholarly source on the issue though, unless you're quite happy with
citing A Voice For Men or random angry blogs.

~~~
dmitrij
Neither Sartre nor de Beauvoir where postmodernists (or "pot-modernists").
Poster maybe means some radical left anarchists – also not postmodernists –
from the late 70s/early 80s, who had some outlandish (and completely self-
serving) ideas about child sexuality.

~~~
ucaetano
Foucault, who also signed the letters, is often considered a post-modernist,
even if he himself rejected the title.

