Chasing Lolita: How Popular Culture Corrupted Nabokov's Little Girl All Over Again

by Graham Vickers

In the summer of 1958, a twelve-year-old girl took the world by storm— Lolita was published in the United States. This child, so fresh and alive, yet so pitiable in her abuse at the hands of the novel's narrator, engendered outrage and sympathy alike, and has continued to do so ever since.   Yet Lolita's image in the broader public consciousness has changed. No longer a little girl, Lolita has come to signify a precocious temptress, a cunning underage vixen who'll stop at nothing to get her man. How could this have happened?   Chasing Lolita , published on the fiftieth anniversary of Lolita's American publication, is an essential contemporary companion to Vladimir Nabokov's great novel. It establishes who Lolita really was back in 1958, explores her predecessors of all stripes, and examines the multitude of movies, theatrical shows, literary spin-offs, artifacts, fashion, art, photography, and tabloid excesses that have distorted her identity and stolen her name. It considers not just the "Lolita effect" but shifting attitudes toward the always volatile mix of sex, children, and popular entertainment—from Victorian times to the present. And it also looks at some real-life cases of young girls who became the innocent victims of someone else’s obsession—unhappy sisters to one of the most affecting heroines in American fiction, and one of the most widely misunderstood.

Genres: Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Books About Books, Feminism, Reference, Pop Culture, Adult

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a 230 page meditation on what Lolita was, where she came from and who got their hands on her after Vlad the Impaler had done with her. It's the perfect book to read after Lolita itself. Er, yes, it does have one of those really nasty sub-titles which every damned book appears to need these days. Being charitable, we will overlook that.

In Jane Smiley’s 13 Ways of Looking at The Novel she says

[Nabokov] does not explore how HH and Lolita became, respectively, a pedophile and a slut; he simply accepts that they are

Oh how Lolita has been used and abused! First by cruel Humbert, next by creepy Quilty, and then by the critics and commentators who should know better. Jane Smiley has, like many others, also accepted that Lolita is a slut. After her stunning entrance in 1958 she very quickly became the poster girl for jailbait, or, in Lo’s own words, “fast little articles”. I was therefore very happy to see that Graham Vickers sees it as Job Number One to squash that lie.

Fact : she was 12 and at a summer camp she did, indeed, have sex with a boy.

Fact : after that, Humbert abducted her for over a year.

Fact : Humbert the nympholeptic tells us in the novel that SHE seduced HIM. This is clearly self-serving bullshit of the worst blame-the-victim type. And look, he has taken everyone in! Victims take note – no one will believe you.

Fact : as soon as she could organise a rescuer, she escaped his clutches. Alas for her, the rescuer was a perv called Clare Quilty who made porn films. He dumped her when she wouldn’t participate.

Fact : after a couple of years about which we know nothing, she got married to a deaf guy. Conclusion : not a slut. Lolita was not, in fact, a Lolita.

Mr Vickers takes us through the twisty turny tale. Were there ur-Lolitas? Yes. Was the book a tough sell to publishers? – yes. It was first published by a classic French dirty books company, so that made everyone think it was high class porn. Graham Greene rscued it from oblivion, abetted by some frothing at the mouth tabloid editors. Finally it came out in Britain & the USA in 1958 and what happened – instant bestsellerdom and no prosecutions.

Mr Vickers runs through the books before Lolita which contravened obscenity laws in the US, a motley crew – in the 20th Century there was Ulysses, Forever Amber, Memoirs of Hecate County by Edmund Wilson, the Kinsey Report, and Peyton Place. Lolita's was the storm that never arrived. No policeman got to finger her cute collar.

Was it difficult to make into a movie? Oh yes – and Kubrick’s 1962 film sinks under its director’s self-imposed caution. There’s absolutely no sex in it. Anyone seeing it at the time having not read the book would think that Humbert merely liked pretty teenagers, and who doesn’t, so what’s the fuss all about? Lolita’s age is never mentioned in the entire film. GV hammers the movie, accusing it of (however understandable) spinelessness. Also – it was all filmed in England, which I didn’t know. Also – VN got an Oscar nomination for the script! I didn’t know that.

Bosley Crowther : they made a movie from a script in which the characters have the same names as the characters in the book, the plot bears a resemblance to the original and some of the incidents are vaguely similar.

VN : It was a vivacious variant

The 1962 poster shamefully promoted the Lolita-as-Temptress canard. There’s little Lo sunbathing with her heart-shaped sunglasses and sucking a lascivious lollipop. Not only are those accoutrements not in the book, they aren’t in the movie either. But of course, it’s a brilliant image, which then got itself stuck onto the front of the book.

Vickers runs through Hollywood’s flirtation with very young girls – Love in the Afternoon, Bonjour Tristesse, Baby Doll, Cape Fear, Gigi (“Maurice Chevalier, a musical Humbert if ever there was one, celebrated the unripe appeal of [the nymphet] with his lasciviously-delivered song thank Heaven for Little girls”), past Lolita to Candy (“supremely vulgar and jokily paedophilic”), Taxi Driver, Obsession (de Palma), and Pretty Baby (“it seems safe to say that such a movie might not be made today” – but available to all from LoveFilm/Netflix), taking in l’affaires de Polanski and Allen and hitting the buffers with a crash : Hard Candy, the anti-Lolita. (Not seen it? See it!) Then in the 50s came “one of the decade’s chief preoccupations, childish feminine innocence wrapped up in an adult body” – enter Monroe.

Monroe had the 1950s version of the damaged little Victorian girl syndrome and projected it with an impersonation of mental vacuity, physical vulnerability and a constant need for a father figure to look after her.

Then we contemplate Lolita as Road Film, musing that Kerouac was typing at the same time as Nabokov was writing, from a different part of the literary universe, although Dean Moriarty considers the age of consent to be strictly for squares.

In the 1990s Adrian Lyne, famous at that point for Fatal Attraction, Indecent Proposal and 9 ½ Weeks, began the hard slog of putting together a second Lolita movie. One’s heart may have sunk, considering his cv, but in 1998 it finally arrived, to general European acclaim and to American silence. It was good! It was faithful! GV notes that in the 35 years between the 2 movies, the attitude to paedophilia had sharpened to the point where the US movie industry itself censored the second Lolita – no distributor would touch it with a ten foot pole. Eventually it slunk out via cable & dvd.

We also may note that there was an Alan Lerner/John Barry musical Lolita My Love which closed after 9 performances (in Boston) and lost $900,000. And an Edward Albee play which was hated by all. And in 1994 an opera performed in Swedish, also unsuccessful. There is a Japanese fashion mag called Lolita, and a punky version called Lolita Goth, or Loligoth. GV scratches his head over these. There are also many crimes to hit the press featuring underage girls, all of whom get called Lolitas if there’s any hint of complicity. And there is the internet and how that uses little Lo’s mellifluous moniker, of which the less said the better.

All in all, excellent reading for fans.

note - I didn't know where to put this bit so I put it here

THE NATURE OF HUMBERT’S CRIME (leaving aside the slight case of murder).

This is probably Basic criminology but it struck me that there are different levels.

1) crimes where the criminal is not aware that his act is a crime (the ignorant and the deranged)
2) crimes where the criminal knows the act is a crime but doesn’t agree with it being so designated (public protests under a dictatorship, for instance, or poaching on the lord’s land to feed your family)
3) crimes where the criminal knows the act is a crime, and does agree that it should be a crime but thinks his particular act should be or will be exempted (assassination of the dictator)
4) crimes where the criminal knows the act is a crime, and does agree that it should be a crime, and further agrees that his particular act is in no way different from all similar acts, it’s a crime like all the others, but does it anyway because a) he has no conscience, or b) he does have a conscience but is in thrall to his earthly appetites, over which he has no control; and is therefore wracked with remorse.
HH fits into 4 b.

[Ian "Marvin" Graye · Rating 3 out of 5]

Polarised Lenses

No novel polarizes opinion like “Lolita”.

True or false?

I thought I’d be on a sure bet, but if you assess the polarization by GR ratings details, this statement is wrong.

Its average rating is about 3.8. 86% of readers like it (a rating of three, four or five). 34% rate it five, 29% four, while only 5% rate it one.

I was going to contrast it with “American Psycho”. How’s this:

Its average rating is about 3.77. 86% of readers like it. 30% rate it five, 34% four, while only 5% rate it one. (The main difference is that the four and five star ratings are more or less reversed.)

What about “Ulysses”?

Its average rating is about 3.77. 82% of readers like it. 36% rate it five, 24% four, while 8% rate it one.

So I’ll recast my proposition: those who love “Lolita” adore it, those who hate it, vehemently hate it.

Usually for moral, rather than aesthetic, reasons.

The question is: why?

American Factoid

I thought “Chasing Lolita” might have the answers.

It came recommended by Paul Bryant, a GR friend who is knowledgeable about these things.

Paul’s and my opinions about “Lolita” and “American Psycho” (but not “Ulysses”) diverge.

However, I assumed that, if Paul liked “Chasing Lolita”, it must at least argue the case for and against “Lolita” as well as Paul is able to.

Instead, I found it to be a second-rate, almost pseudo-intellectual enterprise.

Admittedly, I learned a few facts that I didn’t know (Vickers usually refers to them as “factoids”), although I probably would have known them, if I had already read the works in his very limited bibliography.

Aesthetic Reaction

My biggest gripe is that you can’t detect a subtle reading of the novel, whether pro or con.

It doesn’t reflect an aesthetic response to the work as literature.

It wants to capture the sense of scandal in the public response to it, whether or not people had read it (or seen any of the films based on it).

It is mediocre and tabloid in tone. It is the work of a hack, a hired gun. (I was going to say “workmanlike”, but that would insult the working class.)

Maybe Vickers can smell a controversy, but he reveals no passion of his own, and he doesn’t do justice to the passions of others.

He plays it safe. He doesn’t want to alienate anyone. The most important thing for him is that you buy the book, regardless of which side of the fence you sit on, regardless of whether you intend to read it, as long as you give him your money.

Ultimately, by trying to please everybody, Vickers pleases nobody.

He’s like the first person to write a biography of a writer. It’s good that somebody bothered, but usually it doesn’t take long for somebody or something more distinguished to arrive.

All Chase and No Catch

What annoys me most is the way the book has been presented to us.

The title “Chasing Lolita” is racy, as if he or we are “pursuing” the character herself, not “investigating” her innermost secrets (which it fails to do anyway).

The book plays on the reader’s prurience, without satisfying either erotic or intellectual curiosity.

The less said about it, the better.

Take Me to Your Lolita

I think there are three general responses to “Lolita” as a literary work.

One, which is mine, is that every aspect of human behavior is a legitimate subject matter of art.

To write about something, does not imply endorsement of the moral stance, nor does it imply that the author has some first-hand experience (i.e., the suggestion that Nabokov himself must have been a paedophile).

The other two responses reflect the way you feel about the character, Lolita.

You can see her as an innocent victim of a paedophile, and sympathise with her, so much so that you think her story should never have been told.

She is a symptom of the premature sexualisation of children, and the whole issue of children’s sexuality and awareness of sexual behavior must be swept under the carpet, even in a novel intended for mature adults.

Alternatively, while not approving Humbert Humbert in any way, you can treat her as a sexually precocious brat who deserves no sympathy.

For those who have never read the novel, the last interpretation seems to be the one that prevails.

The very word “Lolita” has become shorthand for adolescent girls who “prey” on men’s libidos, as if the men are somehow innocent and vulnerable and not in control of their sexuality.

“It wasn’t my fault, she made me do it.”

She’s jailbait of the most cynical and calculating kind.

As if all girls aren’t equally deserving of protection from men who would prey on them, for the very reason that they are children.

Humbert’s Story

Part of Nabokov’s genius is that “Lolita” is actually Humbert’s story, and he tells it his way.

The Lolita that we get to know is his creation, although in reality both Humbert and Lolita are obviously Nabokov’s creations.

However, we the audience see Lolita with Humbert’s eyes.

This puts us in an uncomfortable position.

Do we empathise with Humbert, because we see things from his point of view?

Are we compromised or criminally implicated as accessories, because we see and do what he does?

Do we take his honesty for granted, because he is the first person narrator who is effectively us?

Do we distance and protect ourselves from these moral dilemmas by treating him as an unreliable narrator?

These are the sorts of question I was hoping Vickers would at least ask.

Lolita’s Story

The converse of the way Nabokov tells Humbert’s story is that we can’t know Lolita’s story.

She doesn’t speak a lot. To the extent that she does, Humbert summarises or paraphrases her.

We don’t know what words are on her lips or in her mind. We don’t know what she thinks about her plight. We witness her solely as object, and not as subject.

We don’t know how much to sympathise with her, even though a natural temptation is to relate to her as the victim.

On the other hand, there is a temptation for both Lolita and reader to empathise with Humbert in a perverse version of Stockholm Syndrome.

Ultimately, the whole form and content of the story conspires against the person, the child that is Lolita.

She is the one person in the novel who is most deserving of sympathy, yet she is the one who has been most demonized in popular culture.

The Premature Sexualisation of Children

What I find most disgusting is the people for whom Lolita is a cause (the crusade against premature sexualisation of children), yet at heart there is no personal sympathy for this one example.

It’s as if Lolita had to fall, had to suffer, so that others might be saved. She is a lost cause, better focus on the plight of others. We can talk her down, as if she were a real tart, and we can use her name to demonize others. It’s OK, she’s only a fictional character anyway, as if real girls aren’t hurt, when they in turn get labeled “Lolita”.

While I don’t condone the sexual abuse of children, I feel quite strongly that other aspects of premature sexualisation are equally deserving of condemnation, e.g., placing three and four year old girls in beauty pageants and grooming them for a lifetime of the presentation of self as an object of beauty, rather than as a fully-rounded person of intelligence, social functionality, energy and charm.

As long as girls and women present themselves solely as objects of beauty and adornment, there will be men who cannot react to them in any other way.

Humbert’s Aesthetics

This social definition of beauty and sexual attraction is what really interests me about the novel.

It’s very easy to judge Humbert solely as a paedophile and to assume that his sex drive is solely dictated by the desire to possess and defile a girl’s childhood and innocence.

I think society has to make a genuine scientific attempt to understand the motivation of Humbert, if not paedophiles generally, as an objective sexual aesthetic that just happens to be taboo in our society in this age.

Humbert describes his love of Lolita in terms of aesthetics, as well as an attempt to relive his unconsummated early childhood relationship with Annabel Leigh.

It is too glib to treat Humbert as disingenuous and an unreliable narrator.

That just avoids the real issue.

So much of our culture is concerned with the polarity between youth and age, innocence and experience, naivety and wisdom, ugliness and beauty.

These dichotomies are the immediate context of sexuality, yet we understand so little about them.

As a result, we are condemned to perpetuate ignorance and guilt and lack of personal, social and sexual fulfillment.

Not only is it important that science investigate this subject matter, it’s vital that art be able to portray and explore motivations and options (whether transgressive or not) openly and honestly and creatively.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won't argue that I've been obsessed with the novel Lolita as of late, then again I did go to the trouble to write up four essays about the novel as well as the film, and this book is just a continuation of my intellectual exploration of the novel. Something's that's always bothered me about the discussions which surround the book the sexual treatment of Dolores Haze, Lolita's real name, is that there appears to be some kind of strange combination of victim blaming mixed with a fetishization of the figure of the little girl. Since it's publication Lolita has become synonymous, if not the defining image of pedophilia in our culture, and so rather than having a real discussion about the novel many are quick to dismiss the text as a purely dirty book and then not go any further.

Vicker's book is a response to this impulse, as well as the impulse to eroticize and fetishize Dolores Haze into some kind of sex symbol.

Vickers explores the original novel by Nabakov while also trying to understand how, despite the author's best efforts, the name and figure of Lolita has become a kind of gross sex-symbol. Whether it's looking at the various Lolita fashions, the two movies, and the proliferation of the use of the word of Lolita in our culture Vicker's book is an attempt to understand this phenomena. It's also his effort to try and divorce Delores Haze from this mass rhetoric which had steadily left her suffering either absent to ignored. There are some problems with Vickers book because his prose is not everything I would want it to be, and at times his analysis is not as in-depth I would have lied it. There are numerous passages where he seems to are throwing out cultural examples of the "Lolita-effect" simply to shock or titillate his reader. Yes despite these shortcomings this book is a solid example of cultural research because upon finishing the book I considered Delores Haze once agin. I considered whether I paid enough attention to her and her struggles in the novel.

Lolita is a complicated book, not just because of the emotions it inspires, but because of the complexity of the character of the young woman who's voice is robbed from the reader. Humbert Humbert has had chance after chance to seduce his reader onto his side, yet for all his poetics Delores Haze shines through and elicits our concern and pity. And yet, as Vickers's book demonstrates, there are also far too many readers who have been seduced by Humbert and thus have turned Lolita into a sex symbol she was never supposed to be.

This is required reading for anyone interested in Nabakov's beautiful novel.

[Kerri · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really looking forward to reading this book because of the subject matter that claims to be addressed in the subtitle: " How Popular Culture Corrupted" Lolita. It's been a topic I've been interested in.

Unfortunately, rather than providing any sort of thoughtful theories on the topic, the author just proceeds to provide us with a huge and tangential list of any movie, book, or famous person that is somehow associated with pedophilia. How most of these relate back to the topic at hand, I still have no idea. And why providing excruciatingly detailed the synopses of every movie in a director's repertoire— or the life stories of said famous people— or the authors critical analysis of all of their works— adds any insight to the topic: I don't know.

This book could have used some serious editing to keep it relevant. Unfortunately, if it were edited down to the relevant text, it would be about thirty pages. And it still wouldn't provide much insight at all.

Disappointing, to say the least. Because it could be a very interesting topic.

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! A fascinating read about the history of Lolita in popular culture. The writing is gorgeous, and the pace was fast enough that I stayed interested, even though I usually read fiction. There were a few parts of the book that I disagreed with, such as when the author seemed upset that the child pornography act of 1996 was a nuisance because it delayed the release of the 1997 film version of Lolita. My opinion is that any anti-child pornography act is a good thing, and I can't really say that Lolita ever should have been made into a movie.

But I digress...

Good book. Quick read. Well-written. Sort of abrupt end, but a great recommend for fans of Lolita.

[Naomi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another book I read for research on my project. I am actually shocked this got published.

First of all, the title is incredibly misleading, as the book doesn't ever address what it promises.

Vicker starts out summarizing the book, proving that he had no understanding of it whatsoever and took everything the unreliable narrator said at face value. I doubt he's read it more than once, since he's failed to notice any subtleties that are required to get the full picture. A lot of people have done this, despite Nabokov himself saying his work is meant to be reread, and that's fine... Those people aren't publishing their shallow recollections of it.

Then he goes on to list every pop culture reference vaguely related to Lolita, and interject his opinions, paying little attention to Nabokov's Lolita and how people perceive her. It's a book of tangents.

The writing was like a freshman term paper.

[shannon]

I read this after listening to Jamie loftus’s very good Lolita podcast, which I listened to after you must remember this’s episode on the 1997 Lolita remake. Lolita was kind of a pivotal book it my adolescence for language reasons, if that makes sense. Some of this book is good. Some of this book is “I am a man with opinions”. That is one of my least favorite kinds of man.

[Jon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Vickers appears to have done some sort of uber-Google search on the word Lolita. He turns up the Nabokov novel, of course, as well as its literary precursors and copycats, spin offs,and updates. The Kubrick and Lyne movies and their stars, screenwriters, cinematographers, and even extras. A Bollywood effort. Plays, musicals, and advertisements. Songs and singers from Frank Sinatra to Waylon Jennings. And myriad pop culture references from Amy Fisher (the Long Island Lolita) to tennis star Anna Kournikova (the Lobbing Lolita).

Vickers categorizes all this information and serves it up in a tone of laughable outrage that says See, look how they have perverted Nabokov's character. As if this sort of appropriation has not happened to many compelling public figures, real or fictional, from Jesus Christ to Huckleberry Finn.

What is the allure of the character we have come to know as Lolita, a provocative and sexually precocious teen who lures middle aged men to folly or worse, when that is, at best, a strained reading of the novel? That is another book, and those who will write it may be aided by this entertaining, if occasionally tedious, compendium of facts, back stories and side trips.

[Dennis Littrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lolita as a "candy woman"

It is often complained in the postmodern literary world that Lolita did not have a voice in Vladimir Nabokov's famous novel. But in fact it is one of the great accomplishments of that novel that indeed her voice came through loud and clear, even though filtered through an "unreliable" and self-serving narrator in the person of Humbert Humbert. Not only did her voice come through in an indelible way that still enchants readers (and occasioned this book), but so too did her intentions and her actions. Had it been otherwise we would not be discussing her today.

I like to compare what Nabokov did in Lolita to what Mark Twain did in Huck Finn. Both novels are jewels of American literature and both novels are first-person singular narratives. Both narrators can be considered unreliable in the literary sense, Huck because he is mostly unlettered and presumably lacks any literary skills, and Humbert because of his bias. The trick for the novelist when using such a conceit is to make the world (that the narrator sees and describes) authentic and vivid despite the narrator's shortcomings. This is not easy to do.

But what Graham Vickers is getting at here in this splendid cultural "biography" of Lolita is that the persona of Lolita has not only been corrupted by the popular culture but to insist that she never was the girl that she has become, that "Lolita" has become a catchword for something Nabokov's little girl never was. In America she is the Lolita seen in the famous photo of Sue Lyon (who starred in Stanley Kubrick's 1962 film) behind heart-shaped sunglasses licking a lollipop. In Japan she has become Lolicon or Loligoth, a pornographic sub genre of child-like sexual objects. Elsewhere she has become a symbol of oppression, "the confiscation of one individual's life by another" (p. 218, quoting Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran).

Vickers shows that Lolita had predecessors, real life ones as well as literary and cinematic, Edgar Allan Poe's Annabel Lee, Lewis Carroll's Alice Liddell, D. W. Griffith's Dollie, Carroll Baker as "Baby Doll," Gigi, etc. And of course Lolita has had successors, many of them. Vickers recalls the real life cases of Elizabeth Smart, Sally Horner, Jon Benet Ramsey, Amy Fisher, and others. He recalls Brook Shields in Louis Malle's Pretty Baby (1978), but missed Melissa Joan Hart in TV's "Clarissa Explains It All." Miss Hart was in the casting call for Adrian Lyne's Lolita from 1997, but by then was a bit too old for the part. There have also been some literary take-offs on Lolita. Vickers gives us a little of Pia Pera's "Lo's Diary," and Emily Prager's "Roger Fishbite." He takes note of the Barbie Doll phenomenon and pornography on the Internet. In short, Lolita or various approximations or misapprehensions of her have become a staple of the popular culture.

A portion of the book is devoted to what amounts to reviews of the two films mentioned above that were adapted from Nabokov's novel. Vickers didn't care much for Kubrick's version, faulting it for lack of authentic atmosphere and for being ten years out of chronological reality. Both of those criticisms I think are valid. However, his faulting of the work of Shelly Winters as Charlotte Haze mystifies me since I think Winters was absolutely brilliant. He also didn't care for all the latitude that he believes Kubrick gave Peter Sellers, and again I tend to agree. However Sellers was brilliant in parts, so much so that his character materially changed the movie. Which leads us to the main criticism of Kubrick's film: it wasn't as true to the book as it could have been. Once again I agree, but overall Kubrick's film was deeply true to Nabokov's black comedic intent in a way that Lyne's film was not.

To be fair, Kubrick's Lolita was an excellent movie, but not the Lolita that Nabokov wrote. It couldn't have been for many reasons, not the least of which is that the Eisenhower America to which it was to be shown, wouldn't tolerate a real Lolita. It was, as Nabokov put it, a "vivacious variant" of his book. (p. 120).

Vickers very much liked Lyne's version. He raves about Dominique Swain's performance as Lolita and extends kudos to Lyne for the more realistic atmosphere. Lyne's film was indeed much more atmospheric employing a myriad of details from the late 1940s road culture as well as authentic music. However, Dominique Swain, was not a nymphet. She was a fully grown teenager, a talented and interesting teenager, but hardly what Humbert had in mind. To try to hide this obvious fact, Swain was dressed in somewhat laughable little girl outfits and swaddling bras. Sue Lyon, also a teenager, was, because of her more delicate figure, closer to Humbert's ideal.

One of Vickers' most penetrating insights is to see the Lolita of 1947 as a precursor of today's teen and preteen consumer. He writes: "America's golden period of consumerism might still be two or three years in the future, but even during the relative austerity of the late 1940s, the constant allure of consumer goods and services is already a potent force in Lolita's young life." (p. 146) Two pages later, Vickers refers to Lolita as "that ideal consumer" who would "become an enduring object of interest to the commercial world."

To this we could add that while teenage and preteen girls have been oh so carefully taught by corporate America through the mass media to consume, they themselves have become articles of consumption. The very interesting thing is they know it. In reference to Prager's role reversal novel, "Roger Fishbite," Vickers notes that it seems that "some dolled-up little girls at a beauty pageant…know all about JonBenét Ramsey and are generally philosophic about the tiresome attentions of men: 'They can't help it,' said Mary Jane. 'We look so beautiful, like little candy women or something.'" (pp. 214-215)

--Dennis Littrell, author of the sensational mystery novel, “Teddy and Teri”

[Ashley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Chasing Lolita reads like a list of all the works that are vaguely similar to what popular culture sees Lolita as. There’s much speculation and listing of dubious connections, but there is little insightful commentary or research about the work itself--in other words, discussion about what Lolita actually is. Ultimately, this book is more about popular culture than Nabokov or Lolita...but that may be just what you are looking for.

[ivy]

Rilke defined fame as “the sum total of all the misunderstandings that can gather around one name.”

We cannot know to what extent sexual urges lay behind Charles’s preference for drawing and photographing children in the nude. He contended the preference was entirely aesthetic. But given his emotional attachment to children as well as his aesthetic appreciation of their forms, his assertion that his interest was strictly artistic is naïve. He probably felt more than he dared acknowledge, even to himself.

probably a case of finding significance where only coincidence exists

critically rehabilitated

Japan actually sanctions, or at least broadly tolerates, a national male obsession with school-girls
Spill

+roger fishbite was a crazy shout
+reminder to avoid male authors

[Andrea Schemehorn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I expected more of a chronological tracing of Lolita, both the work and the character, through pop culture, which is not what it was, but it was extremely interesting and useful nonetheless. More encyclopedic/thematic, Vickers includes information from other authors who were alluded to at some point within Nabokov's novel, and subsequent references from other works in the first Lolita film and its reboots.
I can't say if it would have been as interesting or helpful had I not been reading them with Lolita and contemporary novel My Dark Vanessa, but the reading experience of all three was heightened by reading them together, and I highly recommend it.

[Dakota · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an informative book about the impact of Nabokov's acclaimed novel Lolita. The most interesting part of the book is where Vickers discusses Lolita's impact on culture today, and how in waves the book has started many needed conversations. You could not even be interested in the novel Lolita and still gather a lot of interesting information, like how the girl who turned into a blueberry in Willy Wonka starred in a terrible play of Lolita before she settled down and became an accountant. It's also quite a quick read, finished in a little less than a week.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this as have just written an essay on Lolita's significance in the 21st century (specifically the nymphet culture of Tumblr and iconography). Reading description it seemed like an essential text for the subject so bought it but was quite disappointed with the content. Lots of it is just describing the novel's plot and the chapters on Lolita and pop culture have mostly been written about before by others. Doesn't bring anything new and I didn't get on well with the writing style.

[babadyke · Rating 4 out of 5]

WAY too charitable towards the movies and selective in how much it expands on certain arguably more deserving adaptations. The historical context is interesting if not always relevant and sometimes outdated and lacking information that should have been available at the time. But as far as Lolita academia goes it's accessible, written by someone who has actually read and comprehended the book and isn't trying to defend child rape and that puts it in the top 10 already

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have never read Lolita. I enjoyed reading this book looking at the original work, reactions to it, and how it was reinterpreted again and again. Informative and well written, I may finally give the book Lolita a try.

[Mateo Dk]

DNF

It was interesting enough but it didn't feel like it dealt with the book enough, just the culture of pedophilia in media and how it connects to Lolita which is super interesting but not what I was in the mood to read. Will probably pick this up again sometime though.

[Nico Nico · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would have personally liked to see more of the social impact of Lyne's adaptation, but other than that it was a great book

[kai ♡ · Rating 1 out of 5]

a mess of incoherent misogynistic drivel.

[Violet Bell · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 grudgingly rounded up to 3; promises more than it delivers. A great premise but somewhat muddy execution.

[reoccurrence · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book doesn’t talk about how pop culture corrupted Lolita, it does give an overview of how American pop culture has always had a weird pedophilic undertone. It’s a very interesting book but it’s a misleading title.

[Rebecca C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the book itself feels like it lacked a general focus, this was a throughly enjoyable retrospect on Lolita and all the controversy (albeit unfounded legacy as a sex symbol) that surrounds her legacy. Avid fans will probably appreciate it the most.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Here 'popular culture' is used in the sense used by the French media: meaning elitist mild disgust towards something the uninitiated might say or like. Graham Vickers is a fine nobody turning his nose away from what the vulgar might appreciate. And it's 250 pages, mostly trivia.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thorough look at Nabokov's Lolita and the ways it's influence is felt in our culture. It's almost a biography of Lolita.

[Katie J Schwartz · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this as research for a paper...it wasn't incredibly helpful. I used very little of the info I found.

[Ana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but at some points it gets a little slow. Interesting cultural insight.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very interesting.

[Lacie Carmody · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting deconstruction of a classic novel.

[Alexandra AP · Rating 5 out of 5]

A dream come true for Lolita fans. A must read.