by Bitter Almonds » Sat May 17, 2008 2:37 pm
[quote][i]Originally posted by hexicon[/i]
<br>XXX, I haven't seen Malizia, but I have heard good things about it. But remember, I am talking strapping young men, not boys [;)]
True story: I read "Lolita" for the first time when I was about 13, precocious but also (predictably) naive, and had never heard of the concept of an unreliable narrator. I took the book entirely at face value and had no difficulty believing that a 12 year-old would willingly have an affair with an older man. Remember, in the book Humbert isn't crusty old James Mason, he's 36, quite handsome, and resembles a movie star on whom Lo has a crush. I always pictured him as looking like Sting, perhaps because of "Don't Stand So Close to Me." I take a different view of the book today, of course, but I still recall that perspective.
Have to sign off now--since the hubby is out of town I'm having the girls over for margaritas and mojitos and I need to go, um, squeeze some limes.
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<p align="justify">Did you see the Adrian Lyne version, starring Jeremy Irons? The casting is definitely better, including dark-haired Dominique Swain. The book took me two or three readings before I got most of the nuances that Nabokov included. Then I bought the annotated version 'cause there's some really esoteric stuff in there.
Part of the attraction of dating a younger person (for me) is that I vicariously live through their first experience of something. I mean, an experience as trite and contrived as walking on Santa Monica Pier and watching the sunset. I've seen it many times, but for someone who hasn't... it feels as if I were experiencing it for the first time as well. I don't feel jaded and I gain a genuine interest in things I had gotten bored with or given up altogether. That's all beside the build up to the sexual aspect, which is funny if the young person has more experience[}:)]