I looked and looked at her, and I knew, as clearly as I know that I will die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth. She was only the dead-leaf echo of the nymphet from long ago - but I loved her, this Lolita, pale and polluted and big with another man's child. She could fade and wither - I didn't care. I would still go mad with tenderness at the mere sight of her face.-Jeremy Irons as Humbert Humbert, from Lolita 1997

Adrian Lynn (director of Fatal Attraction, 9 ½ weeks, and Indecent Proposal) is no stranger to movies that have a plot with a perverse sexual content. His 1997 screen adaptation of Lolita does the book justice; although certain artistic interpretations throughout the film may not have been what Nabokov had in mind when he wrote his novel.

I personally believe this movie is a closer adaptation of Nabokov's novel than the Kubrick’s 1962 version (even though Nabokov helped write the screen play). Lynn gives us a presentation that is very sympathetic to Humbert Humbert. Nabokov's Humbert was extremely complex character and in this adaptation, Humbert Humbert is shown as part a victim of his fixation on young girls; part sexual predator; and part a hopeless romantic. Lynn's presentation transforms Humbert from the seducer into the seduced, whose weakness for young girls is manipulated by a sexually precocious siren tempting him to dash himself on the shoals of pedophilia.

Lynn also portrays Lolita as the sexual aggressor, an adolescent temptress who knows she is desired and simultaneously teases and entices Humbert to do her lustful bidding, knowing he is powerless to resist her. Lynn's Humbert is more of a hapless romantic than a fiend, ennobling him as a victim of love rather than the confounded sociopath he really is. In Lynn's version, Humbert becomes the fly to Lolita's spider. Lolita entered into the sexual relationship more as a result of her personal longings burgeoning from her blossoming sexuality than a desire to seduce Humbert in particular, who was not even her first lover.

However, after the initial seduction scene when they take to the road, the film is very true to the book in chronicling the decay of the relationship. Humbert plunges into feelings of romantic desperation with Lolita's shrewish exploitation of him as she increasingly uses sex and her sexuality as a weapon. The book was very effective at portraying the relationship as a symbiosis of two deficient beings, each selfishly taking from the other what was needed. Lynn does an excellent job of portraying that throughout his film. As the relationship degenerates, Lynn is effectual at portraying the ugly side of both characters. The bitterness and rancor that results is compelling. To his credit, he understands that Nabokov's story was more of a character study than a sex story and Lynn avoids the temptation of becoming too lurid, focusing instead on solid character development of two very flawed people.

This movie also does a great job of showing 1940's America. The costumes, hairstyles, cars, furniture, locations create a forties reality that is amazing. The music in particular is not just perfect for the period, but it is integrated with the storyline. As Humbert and Lolita travel, the music changes to reflect the region. Plus having Lolita dance and sing along with the music on the radio is a nice touch because that is exactly what teenage girls of any era do. The colors used in the movie are just amazing. They actually seem to follow the mood of the story, from excitingly colorful to tragically dark.

Dominique Swain delivers as Lolita, she is the perfect film nymphet: young and innocent, but vulgar and crude at the same time. Though Lynn's early interpretation of Lolita as the teenage temptress is very controversial, I can't imagine it being done any better. She is playful and provocative in a childlike manner, part pixie and part vamp. Once they get on the road, Swain's performance is almost a force of nature. She is powerful and intense, effortlessly moving back and forth between sweet innocence and the emotional torrent typified by the murder me scene. It is an outstanding performance with depth and breadth that is very unusual for an actor so young.

Jeremy Irons is wonderful as Humbert Humbert, giving him an amiable personality. Irons injects a good deal of wry humor into the part in addition to giving Humbert an almost quixotic romantic quality. Jeremy Irons is able to take a character who is naturally repellent as Humbert and show the viewer the depth of this character, which is seen both in his sincerity to real life and his truth in Nabokov's writing. Irons delivers probably one of his best performances as he portrays the tragic character of Humbert Humbert. Iron's voice-over also helps viewers get into the mind of Humbert and understand his thoughts and actions.

Melanie Griffith is cast as Charlotte Haze. She looks nothing like the portly and plain character described in Nabokov's book. Though her acting is fine and she is appropriately obsequious, she is far too attractive to be the repulsive troll Humbert despised. It takes away from Humbert's desperation because it hardly seems like a great sacrifice to have married Charlotte to be near Lolita.

Frank Langella plays the mysterious playwright Clare Quilty, making the audience want to sympathize with Humbert when he pulls the trigger as he confronts Quilty with the revolver. He treads the line between creepy and comedic perfectly.
 
A flashback sequence in the beginning of the movie portrays a fourteen-year-old Humbert's doomed summer romance to his first love Annabel, which sets up Humbert as a brokenhearted romantic trapped in the past. Thus, when he sees Lolita for the first time, lying out in the grass of the piazza, innocently letting the water from the sprinkler drench her, the reincarnation of that love is clear. That clarity, however, transcends the simple addition of the flashback. Irons' startling licentious stare at Lolita is blatant and raw for the viewer to see. In those eyes the viewer sees tenderness with wickedness, occupation without realization, a moment of pure lust. The amorous connection is developed in that one look, Irons not only sees beauty but he perversely sees a sexual creature, correctly identifying the perplexing issue for the reader and viewer of Lolita. While his love is based on pedophilia, is there something in his love for Lolita that is common to all love? His intoxication is precisely what makes the story of Lolita so fascinating. Humbert's love for Lolita is as real as anyone's love for another, and the perverse thing is that he truly madly deeply loves a child.

From the first meeting between Humbert and Lolita on, Irons is true to the version of Humbert Humbert that Lynn and Stephen Schiff prescribe. The viewer sees rare moments of ease between Humbert and Lolita; the two of them exchanging stories as they swing on the porch; the rapt, nearly bashful smile he gives her while she sits in his lap showing him how she can make her chin wiggle. Irons as Humbert is heartbreaking: he is tortured and helpless in his obsession with Lolita. Despite scenes when Humbert is buying sexual favors from Lolita with a jars full of coins; despite his heavy authority over her activities, Irons never let's the viewer lose sight of his complete and utter dependence on Lolita.

Although Lynn and Schiff's version seems void of the cunning that is so very much a part of the literary Humbert, the essential question is the same: Who was in control of the situation? Lolita or Humbert? Who is more to blame for the affair? Through possibility of empathizing with Humbert's love for Lolita, the viewer is left with an unnerving understanding of his pedophilia. Irons makes it almost impossible to completely detach our knowledge of what love is from the perverse love between Humbert and Lolita.

Being true to a character, as in being true to a book, means that an actor catches the essence from the book, not necessarily the exact phrasing or the exact chronology of events. Irons catches Humbert Humbert's tenderness and the true infatuation that is so evident in his confessions.

In the Kubrick version from 1962, Lolita is sixteen; in this version she is fourteen but in the novel, she is twelve. The difference between twelve and fourteen is enormous. The point is that this literary masterpiece simply needs to be read to be appreciated; if a faithful rendition of the novel is to be made it would be kiddie porn. It would also have to be ten or twelve hours long. And really, the sickness of Humbert, of his blighted lust and love for small girls, isn't even what the book is about.

In my favorite scene, where Quilty (Langella) uses word-play to terrorize Humbert, the zapping of the insect killer, the purple sparks, the tone of Quilty's voice, his expressions, Sleep is a rose, the Persians say are pure Nabokov, and this scene is superb. The other Lolita scene that is shown in the film is Humbert's murder of Quilty: Quilty eats cigarettes and spouts literary nonsense; then a piano covered with blood keeps playing on. Another highlight of the movie is definitely the last scene in which Humbert surrenders to the police: Humbert stands on the top of a hill and listens to the voice of children playing and expresses his remorse for ruining Lolita's childhood.

I can't say that this version of Lolita is better, they each contain what the other lacked. Kubrick's version contains the humor that Lynn's version is lacking while Lynn's version contains the sadness that Kubrick missed. Including reading Lolita, I would recommend that the viewer get both films. Lolita is both a satire and a sad story rolled into one. The two films in a way compliment each other.

Reviewed by Rainey

What drives me insane is the twofold nature of this nymphet, of every nymphet perhaps, this mixture in my Lolita of tender, dreamy childishness and a kind of eerie vulgarity. I know it is madness to keep this journal, but it gives me a strange thrill to do so. And only a loving wife could decipher my microscopic script.-James Mason as Humbert Humbert, Lolita 1962

Lolita was considered to be a very controversial film when it came out in 1962. During that time there wasn't a lot of lenience in the MPAA. When the film Lolita is mentioned, it is fairly common to assume it is a movie about pedophilia. In reality, nothing further from the truth, Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's novel is one of the most gripping depictions of love and its tragic consequences. While researching about this adaptation of the film, I found that the censors were threatening to give it an 'X' rating if the film showed any sexuality or expressions of sexuality between the middle-aged Humbert Humbert and young teenager Lolita. The movie was also deemed so inappropriate and obscene when it was finally filmed and screened, that actress Sue Lyon (Lolita) wasn't even allowed into the movie premiere of Lolita because she was under age.

Lolita is a great film, and is a window to Stanley Kubrick's talent and genius as a film maker. The acting is sensational in Lolita with extraordinary performances all around. James Mason is marvelous in the lead role as the conflicted Humbert Humbert. Mason perhaps provides one of the most powerful and hard to play roles in his career. Oscar winner and screen legend Shelly Winters is undeniably brilliant as Charlotte Haze. Winters really does a lot with her role, and she stands out in the scenes she's in. It's amazing that she didn't even get an Academy Award nomination for her role as the oblivious and pitiful Charlotte Haze. Sue Lyon is immortalized as the nymphet Lolita and just projects this image of innocence and sexuality that is amazing.

The story is tragic is evident from the prologue, where an Englishman, Humbert Humbert coldly executes the whimsical Clare Quilty after asking him if he remembers a certain Dolores "Lolita" Haze and what he did to her. Mason's character then starts narrating the events preceding the murder four years ago. Lolita, based on novel by Vladimir Nobokov (who also provided the film's screenplay), follows a middle-aged novelist, Humbert Humbert who is looking for a place to rent out for a couple months while he begins writing his new novel. He eventually finds a place, a house with a room up for rent. The house belongs to Charlotte Haze, a middle-aged widow who has an eye for Humbert, but that's the problem. Charlotte has a fourteen-year-old daughter (Lolita’s age in the novel is twelve but in the film she is fourteen) whom Humbert becomes immediately madly obsessed with. Humbert eventually marries Charlotte, only to get close to Lolita. Charlotte is oblivious to this, and Humbert and Lolita start up a relationship and Humbert becomes even more in love with Lolita. Humbert convinces himself that life can always continue this way, but he has some competition with Charlotte's ex-boyfriend, a famous television game show host, Clare Quilty, who is also obsessed with young Lolita.

The real stand-out of the film is, Peter Sellers. He was perfect for the role of the sex-hungry Clare Quilty. Instead of playing the tricky pedophile with sick and creepy air, he takes a risk and plays his role in a comedic way and with a sense of likableness, that only an actor like Sellers could do. Peter Sellers was one of his time's greatest actors, and he really steals every scene he is featured in.

Vladimir Nobokov's screenplay is wonderfully well-written and was faithful to his novel, and Stanley Kubrick's brilliant direction is nothing short of meticulous. The film is neat, beautiful, and bold.

The film has shortcomings though. It is very long, and there are some dry scenes here and there. Another weakness is that Kubrick refused to shoot outside of his new homeland, England, and only some skimpy second-unit shots are used to convey the sense of motion across the United States. The novel describes perfectly some quotidian images from American: a red neon sign in the shape of a coffee pot blinking on and off, the shadows of poplar leaves across a small town in the afternoon sunshine. All this local color is missing from the movie.  

Kubrick implies but never shows anything between Humbert and Lolita, leaving it to the viewer to decide if they have engagede in a sexual relationship or not. It could be something perverse, or it could just be a normal father-daughter connection, only with the father being a little more protective than usual. This is also why the bond between Humbert and Lolita is more affecting than expected. However bizarre the professor's behavior may seem, his feelings are sincere. He is not portrayed as a monster who is compulsively drawn to underage girls, he just happened to fall for one and Mason portrays this weird mentality with a tenderness that nearly makes one forget how "wrong" the whole premise is supposed to be. Lyon as Lolita transforms from promiscuous sex-kitten to loving stepdaughter with such conviction that is rarely seen in such a young actress, making the passage look natural and unforced.

In the end, as always with Kubrick, this film demands reviewing because there is something new that the viewer didn't notice the first time. In the case of Lolita, the main pleasure derives from how the story is told. Sometimes films about love and sex are much better without any explicit scenes, the multiple interpretations making them fresh and re-watchable decades after they were first released.

The complaints about the bit of slapstick when the hotel porter brings a folding cot to Humbert's room and the two men try to unfold it without waking the sleeping Lolita. It's been criticized by some as not fitting the template, but I think it fits perfectly with the tone of the film. The situation itself is absurd: Humbert is grimly determined to seduce Lolita while at the same time drifting in and out of sleep. In the novel the scene is hilarious and poetic at the same time. Humbert lies next to Lolita and listens to the night noises of the hotel, the clattering elevator, the guy in the next room puking up his liquor into the toilet, the loud ladies in the hallway; and if you can't have those prose jokes you can at least have a hotel porter bonked on the head by a cot that insists on folding itself back together. The novel is richly comic and Kubrick's movie comes close to capturing some of its humor as well as the poignency.

Reviewed by Rainey

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.

I’ve decided to totally approach a rather infamous and controversial novel for our first “serious” book and movie(s) review, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. This is the review of the novel and the first of a three part review, the second to reviews will be an overview of the two movies based on this novel.

Lolita, in my personal opinion is one of the most beautifully written novels of the twentieth century, but it is also one of the most misunderstood. When published in the 1950s, society criticized Lolita for its “frank sexuality”. Today, people look at it askance because of our increased sensitivity to child abuse and molestation. Unfortunately, conservative and liberal critics scrutinizing the surface story of Lolita, and panting maniacs real the novel while looking for titillating material, demonstrate and appalling ignorance of Vladimir Nabokov's "intentions".

If you've only heard of Lolita from its reputation as being "pornographic" material, you are in for a surprise when you read it. Yes, it does involve a lecherous, middle aged man chasing after a twelve year old "nymphet". Yes, the story plot is deeply disturbing but it is also a brilliant, funny, and witty. In short, Lolita is a literary rollercoaster which will delight you and dazzle you with the beauty of its language. Nabakov can make words jump through hoops you never even knew existed, while he explores the dark realms of obsession and longing through Humbert Humbert.

The narrator, Humbert Humbert, is a fascinating construction of a sympathetic villain. As readers, we find ourselves simultaneously repelled by his actions but still sympathetic to his yearning. We are utterly charmed by his wit, intelligence and verbal acrobatics, sometimes to the point where we lost sight of what he's doing to his object of desire, Lolita.

Humbert Humbert (a red-flag for readers is the Humbert’s name which signals that this story is going to take a lot of twists and turns) is a well-educated and sophisticated middle aged European gentleman of a cultured and privileged background. He has come to the United States, in New England as a professor of literature to teach in an elite private school. He is also a pedophile, who can only “love” adolescent girls. Humbert meets a woman who a daughter that he fancies. He marries her to get close to her twelve year old daughter, Dolores (his Lolita). He seduces the twelve-year old girl, and then goes on to have a year or so long "affair" with her.

I put the term "affair" in quotation marks, because it’s hard to describe a sexual relationship between a full grown male and a female child in such terms. Is it safe to say that most rational human-beings disapprove of such relationships? It is certainly safe to say that Nabakov knew when he wrote the novel that such a relationship is wrong. This is important. The tale is not only told in the context of a moral universe, but it is told by a character who knows that what he is doing is wrong but he is still compelled to commit his crime. Humbert may make a comment here and there about some medieval king marrying his twelve year old cousin, but in his heart he knows that he is a monster.

During the course of their year-long “relationship”, Humbert takes Lolita on a journey across, around, and through the United States, living in hotel rooms, and buying clothes and food on the move. Toward the end of this, we find one of the most moving paragraphs in literature:

And so we rolled East . . . We had been everywhere. We had really seen nothing. And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy, enormous country that by then, in retrospect, was no more to us than a collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour-books, old tires, and her sobs in the night--every night, every night--the moment I feigned sleep.

The Humbert’s revelation of such anguish on the part of his victim clearly works against the argument that this novel was merely intended to be pornographic material.

Humbert makes it clear that he loves his Lolita, in fact he almost worships her to a terrifying degree. He loves the way she moves. He loves the down on her arm. He loves her grace on the tennis court. He loves the way she flicks her head at him. He loves her toes and her shoes. He loves her name, especially the name he calls her-Lolita, not Dolores. He describes her in beautiful, poignant, poetic language, memorable and moving in every respect. Indeed the English language has rarely been used so wonderfully, but nowhere in this book does Humbert ever describe Lolita’s sexual characteristics, or comment in length or in glaring detail his physical relationship with Lolita.

Finally, there is no effort to shy away the effect of this sexual relationship has on Lolita. We learn through the novel that after she leaves Humbert, she enters into a series of tawdry sexual escapades at a very young an age with a debased playwright, Clare Quilty. We last see Lolita, in her late teens, married to a country-bumpkin and living in a clapboard shack surrounded by weeds.

Obviously, to anybody who has read the book, the presentation of the sexual subject matter is not objectionable. So what disturbs most people about Lolita? I think that with Lolita, Nabokov has perhaps unconsciously touched a social nerve. We want to believe that we, as humans are rational creatures. We want to believe that we know what is right, and we have set rules for ourselves to follow. Everybody agrees that murder is wrong. But sexual mores have changed and continue to change in our affluent Western societies. But Humbert Humbert who is the product of Western culture and life of privilege abandons all this in quest to satisfy his own desires. And through it all, he tries to use his training in Western logic and philosophy to justify what he is doing.

When you, as a reader, find yourself sympathizing with Humbert about Lolita's cruelties, try to remember that you are seeing everything through his eyes. Humbert has rationalized his behavior so deeply and reports it to the readers so beautifully, that we find ourselves accepting his interpretations of people and events at face value.

However, we must remember that Humbert is capable of the most monstrous of deceptions and of self deceptions. Read between the lines. Question his reading of events. Pay attention when his reporting is at odds with his interpretations of them. As one example, Humbert tells us that he was seduced by Lolita, giving us the impression that she was sexually mature and a willing partner. Contrast that with his throwaway mentioning of her performing for him in exchange for treats, and watching television as he took his pleasure in her. And don't ignore Lolita sobbing each night. (And also remember that Nabokov's original title for Lolita was Kingdom by the Sea after Edgar Allen Poe's poem, for any of you English/Literature college majors.) Nabokov has created a conundrum for his readers. He uses the most glorious tricks and delights of the English language to tell his tale of self-deception and rationalization masquerading as true love. The reader must look beyond the beautifully narrated prose to the grime beneath it, and appreciate the mastery that makes Lolita a beautiful and yet troubling masterpiece.

Some readers and critics view Lolita as a tragic love story while others consider it a celebration of the open road. Some even argue that Lolita is a metaphor for the clash between European and American culture. Lolita may well be all these things and more, but it is also a much darker chronicle of the Humbert’s mindset. Humbert's narrative is charming and full of old world conceit, but we must never forget that it is also a tool of disguise. Humbert self-consciously uses style to conceal the naked brutality of his craving and the harm it causes Lolita. He disguises himself as the doomed lover and portrays her as the tormenting muse.

We may read Lolita through the perspective of nymphet-obsessed Professor Humbert, but Nabokov himself described Humbert as a vain and cruel wretch who manages to appear 'touching’. Furthermore, anyone familiar with Nabokov's other works knows of his penchant for unreliable narrators, such as Charles Kinbote in Pale Fire. It's difficult to imagine Nabokov writing anything of poor quality. His prose has a natural flow and an effortless sophistication that I have never seen in any other writer of the English language. He writes with grace and maturity that lend his prose a certain amount of authority. Once can hardly question the master, and this may be why I was seduced by Lolita the first time I read it. 

Nabokov portrays the erotic scenes and sensual images with a modesty based on artistic sensibility. Lolita is full of mythical and literary allusions; puns and anagrams that transcend linguistic boundaries; catalogues of quotidian life; parodies of Freudian psychology, popular culture, etc.; arcane and esoteric trivia; the melting pot of "high" and "low" culture; the bizarre coincidences that supplant the standard symbolism of most literature at that time; and so on. Humbert's comments on certain subjects and his sardonic asides are absolutely hysterical. And the final showdown between Humbert and perverted playwright Clare Quilty is a great study in dark humor.

During the first time I read Lolita, I was enchanted by the character of Humbert Humbert: his old world manner, his self-justifying narrative, and contempt for Freudian Psychology and Existentialism. However, the second time I read Lolita I had a far more troubling experience. I still enjoyed the novel's writing and characterization, but this time it struck me on a realistic level. I found myself empathizing with Lolita and imagining what the world must be like as she traveled around the country in the company of a foster parent who habitually molested her.

I was especially moved by the scene in which Humbert informs her that she cannot leave him because her mother is dead. Lolita runs out of the room but eventually returns to Humbert's bed and tearfully wraps her arms around him. When she does this, Humbert informs the reader that she simply had nowhere else to go to but to him. In that moment, I was suddenly immune to the charm of Humbert's narrative and enormously sad for Lolita. Nabokov has given us one of the greatest literary works of the century.

Review by Raine

So I just finished Acheron today. I know I have vented out my issues about that crazy, crack-smoking woman S. Kenyon but I did love the early books and of course I loved Ash.

If people really want to read the book and don't want any spoilers or if they loved the book, you might not want to read more.

I CANNOT BELIEVE HOW SHE RUINED ASH!

There, I said it. This book was just..... Seriously, there are no words! I just read it and kept on reading, even when it was awful because I could not stop believing that at some point she would say: GOTCHA! And then the real story would begin.

And yes, I get it. Dark-Hunters are supposed to be tortured souls. And yes, since Ash is the leader of the Dark-Hunters, I guess it makes sense that he should be the most tortured but honestly, did it have to be that graphic? Or, is SK such a sick and twisted bitch that somehow she gets off on how much crap she puts Ash and her other characters through? It seems like a valid question, you know? Maybe she has a dungeon somewhere in her house where she keeps someone in a closet with a gag-ball (Now I am getting flashes of Pulp Fiction and the whole "Bring out the gimp" scene.).

So if that wasn't enough, then the part 2 of the book, where Ash meets his one and only love and she cures him with said magical love is so short. Seriously, all that over 200 pages of torture and pain and he gets short changed! And OK, so so Ash's mom, the Destroyer is able to perserve Tory (the one who as the magical love) as a virgin for Ash but she let her own son get serial rapped for decades?

Then comes my biggest gripe, what is it with everyone in the damn book talking like they are extras from Buffy? And Simi talking like she is freaking 3?

It was such a waste of time, thank God I only borrowed it from a friend. Although I wish it was mine so I could throw it across a room, stomp on it and then burn it.

Review by Rainey

I don't have a flat tummy nor do I have a perfect hourglass figure. But you know what? I have Spanx. With Spanx, I can look a size smaller and that I have a more fit body than I do, especially with my mid-thigh shaper (I wear a style called "Higher Power").

OK, for those out there (And believe me, ladies, we all need Spanx even if we're a size 2!) who don't know what Spanx is, here's a quick rundown: Sara Blakely created Spanx in 1998 from a pair of pantyhose and it later evolved into a bodyshaper. Before the wonderful Ms Blakely, most bodyshapers were made by men who didn't really understand that we need to be able to BREATHE when we wear a bodyshaper.

I love all the colors, styles and how pretty they look. OK, I know I am totally shallow but doesn't it make sense that as women we shouldn't wear something that looks like a chastity belt when we want to look nice in that little black dress?

Plus, it's not only body shapers or bras that are available. Spanx has pretty camis, tights and also socks.

And you won't believe who is wearing them! Scarlett Johansson, Drew Berrymore, and Byonce just to name a few.

I love my Spanx because I can wear them under jeans and a t-shirt or when I need to get all pretty for something important. I know the prices are pretty steep (We are all counting our pennies these days) but they are worth the price. But if you are looking for something a little easier on the budget, Assests which is a brand of Spanx is available at Target. It offers a lot of range in style and color.

So ladies, what are you waiting for?

http://www.spanx.com/home/index.jsp

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By Rainey