In other news, I've been struggling through Lolita. It's all told from the point of view of Humbert Humbert (an in-universe pseudonym). I'm currently on page 50 or so, and that's after two days of trying. H.H. is vile. It's reminding me a lot of The Collector, only about a paedophile, not a serial killer. Like Frederick, H.H knows that what he's doing isn't socially acceptable, but he doesn't think it's actually wrong.
Just to interject here; I don't think anyone having specific desires is wrong. Acting on desires which hurt other people is wrong, but having the desire - which you have little to no control over - is not at all the same as acting upon it. A paedophile is not automatically a child-molester. They could live their entire lives fighting their feelings, training themselves to fetishise something else, and never lay a hand on a child. So, when I describe H.H as vile, it is not because he simply has thoughts that he cannot control. It's that he makes Dolores, the young girl he focuses on, complicit in his desire (Lolita is his nickname for her).
H.H mentally labels young girls he is attracted to as "nymphets", rather than "children". As far as I can tell, he does this so that he can take them out of the category of children, and mentally consider them to be magical creatures who are complicit in his desire for them, who tease him, in fact.
As I said, the book is in the first person; we have no reference point other than H.H's viewpoint. Here's a quote;
Oh, would you look at that. He magically knows that a child wants him to kiss her, and is willing to let him. He just magically knows that. And he also knows that we'll doubt him, but he knows he's right. Magically.
Ugh.
Personal story time! I have a livejournal account, which I don't update now, but which, at one point, I was very active on. I attracted a follower; a man in his late thirties/early forties, who had an open marriage. He was mostly good to talk to - we shared an interest in cycling, I think it was - but he began posting weird comments. For example, when I posted a quote from a song I love, "I need Brazil/ the throb, the thrill/I've never been there/but someday I will", he made a comment about me getting him overheated. Literally, all I posted was that quote. That time, I ignored it. My reaction was mostly one of confusion; was he hitting on me? Was he making a lame joke I didn't get? I figured it was a one off, and I'd just ignore it, and it would go away.
It was not a one off. He did not go away.
When I finally asked him to stop, he insisted that I'd liked it, that I'd been complicit in his comments. He cited the fact that I invited him to like a page on facebook - "Tab A, Slot Me" as evidence. I'd invited everyone to like that page; it was a funny line. It wasn't a personal invitation to my slot me. I'd recently started a relationship, and he claimed that I only wanted him to stop because of that, and it didn't mean anything, so why was I letting my boyfriend control me? Not true, in fact. Part of what gave me the courage to ask him to stop was the knowledge that someone else would be bothered by his comments, but that wasn't why I wanted him to stop. I wanted him to stop because he was creepy.
This attitude, this assumption that someone else is an into you as you're into them, and the refusal to acknowledge any other scenario...that's what makes H.H utterly vile. Another quote;
...ah, the call of Nice Guys (tm) everywhere; "At least I didn't rape her!". No. No dude, the fact that you didn't rape or molest her does not make you an especially good person. Not raping or molesting people is the bare minimum requirement for humanity, and you don't get special points for it.
He also gets in a bit of snobbery about men who use prostitutes, before going on about his romantic soul. I'm not getting into the rights or wrongs of the prostitution industry. After all, it's possible that any prostitute he did hire would have been just as abused and coerced as Dolores would have been had he chosen to molest her. And, true, so far all he's done is think horribly, manipulative, entitled things, and not actually laid a hand on anyone (though, earlier, he does describe visiting prostitutes, so I don't know why he's being all holier than thou here). Anyway. I had a point. I think I was going to say that paying a prostitute was preferable to raping a child, before remembering just how much they can have in common.
So yes. Humbert Humbert. Vile human being. But, I'll reserve judgement on the book as a whole until I'm slightly further than 1/6 of the way through it. At the moment, I'm assuming that Vladimir Nabokov knows how fucked up H.H is, and that's his intention, like it was for John Fowles. But we'll see.
Just to interject here; I don't think anyone having specific desires is wrong. Acting on desires which hurt other people is wrong, but having the desire - which you have little to no control over - is not at all the same as acting upon it. A paedophile is not automatically a child-molester. They could live their entire lives fighting their feelings, training themselves to fetishise something else, and never lay a hand on a child. So, when I describe H.H as vile, it is not because he simply has thoughts that he cannot control. It's that he makes Dolores, the young girl he focuses on, complicit in his desire (Lolita is his nickname for her).
H.H mentally labels young girls he is attracted to as "nymphets", rather than "children". As far as I can tell, he does this so that he can take them out of the category of children, and mentally consider them to be magical creatures who are complicit in his desire for them, who tease him, in fact.
As I said, the book is in the first person; we have no reference point other than H.H's viewpoint. Here's a quote;
All at once I knew I could kiss her throat or the wick of her mouth with perfect impunity. I knew she would let me do so, and even close her eyes as Hollywood teaches. A double vanilla with hot fudge - hardly more unusual than that. I cannot tell my learned reader (whose eyebrows, I suspect, have by now travelled all the way to the back of his bald head), I cannot tell him how the knowledge came to me; perhaps my ape-ear had unconciously caught some slight change in the rhythm of her respiration - for now she was not really looking at my scribble but waiting with curiosity and composure - oh, my limpid nymphet! - for the glamourous lodger to do what he was dying to do.
Oh, would you look at that. He magically knows that a child wants him to kiss her, and is willing to let him. He just magically knows that. And he also knows that we'll doubt him, but he knows he's right. Magically.
Ugh.
Personal story time! I have a livejournal account, which I don't update now, but which, at one point, I was very active on. I attracted a follower; a man in his late thirties/early forties, who had an open marriage. He was mostly good to talk to - we shared an interest in cycling, I think it was - but he began posting weird comments. For example, when I posted a quote from a song I love, "I need Brazil/ the throb, the thrill/I've never been there/but someday I will", he made a comment about me getting him overheated. Literally, all I posted was that quote. That time, I ignored it. My reaction was mostly one of confusion; was he hitting on me? Was he making a lame joke I didn't get? I figured it was a one off, and I'd just ignore it, and it would go away.
It was not a one off. He did not go away.
When I finally asked him to stop, he insisted that I'd liked it, that I'd been complicit in his comments. He cited the fact that I invited him to like a page on facebook - "Tab A, Slot Me" as evidence. I'd invited everyone to like that page; it was a funny line. It wasn't a personal invitation to my slot me. I'd recently started a relationship, and he claimed that I only wanted him to stop because of that, and it didn't mean anything, so why was I letting my boyfriend control me? Not true, in fact. Part of what gave me the courage to ask him to stop was the knowledge that someone else would be bothered by his comments, but that wasn't why I wanted him to stop. I wanted him to stop because he was creepy.
This attitude, this assumption that someone else is an into you as you're into them, and the refusal to acknowledge any other scenario...that's what makes H.H utterly vile. Another quote;
A brave Humbert would have played with her most disgustingly (yesterday, for instance, when she was again in my room to show me her drawings, school-artware); he might have bribed her - and got away with it. A simpler and more practical fellow would have soberly stuck to more commercial substitutes - if you know where to go, I don't.
...ah, the call of Nice Guys (tm) everywhere; "At least I didn't rape her!". No. No dude, the fact that you didn't rape or molest her does not make you an especially good person. Not raping or molesting people is the bare minimum requirement for humanity, and you don't get special points for it.
He also gets in a bit of snobbery about men who use prostitutes, before going on about his romantic soul. I'm not getting into the rights or wrongs of the prostitution industry. After all, it's possible that any prostitute he did hire would have been just as abused and coerced as Dolores would have been had he chosen to molest her. And, true, so far all he's done is think horribly, manipulative, entitled things, and not actually laid a hand on anyone (though, earlier, he does describe visiting prostitutes, so I don't know why he's being all holier than thou here). Anyway. I had a point. I think I was going to say that paying a prostitute was preferable to raping a child, before remembering just how much they can have in common.
So yes. Humbert Humbert. Vile human being. But, I'll reserve judgement on the book as a whole until I'm slightly further than 1/6 of the way through it. At the moment, I'm assuming that Vladimir Nabokov knows how fucked up H.H is, and that's his intention, like it was for John Fowles. But we'll see.
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