After all my years of Lolita fascination, what d'ya know, I finally finished the book! I was expecting greatness, as well as great perversion, of course... what I got was all of that and about a thousand awkward me maniacally laughing on the subway in public moments. Is it just me or is Nabakov not only a twisted fuck, but a great comedic genius as well? One of my fave parts of the Nabakov's book (below) and Kubrick's film (above) is the scene where Humbert Humbert makes Clare Quilty recite a poem about why he is about to murder him, right before he does indeed do him in. Interestingly, this little scene opens the movie and ends the book... here they are in both forms... so wonderfully warped!
Because you took advantage of a sinner
because you took advantage
because you took
because you took advantage of my disadvantage
when I stood Adam-naked
before a federal law and all its stinging stars
Because you took advantage of a sin
when I was helpless moultng moist and tender
hoping for the best
dreaming of marriage in a mountain state
aye of a litter of Lolitas
Because you took advantage of my inner
essential innocence
because you cheated me--
Because you cheated me of my redemption
because you took
her at the age when lads
play with erector sets
a little downy girl still wearing poppies
still eating popcorn in the colored gloam
where tawny Indians took paid croppers
because you stole her
from her wax-browed and dignified protector
spitting into his heavy-lidded eye
ripping his flavid toga and at dawn
leaving the hog to roll upon his new discomfort
the awfulness of love and violets
remorse despair while you
took a dull doll to pieces
and threw its head away
because of all you did
because of all I did not
you have to die
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