Matt Roth wrote: ..."...I am ever
exasperated by publishers and film companies that characterize _Lolita_ as a
"love story." I rather think sexual predator is a better description (though of
course still terribly reductive) of HH than, say, lover or sweetheart!
(...)Certainly Lolita is never shown to be "in love" with HH(...) Anyway, I'd be
interested to hear
where you see a "love-story" in the novel.
Jansy Mello: Matt, every tag is reductive, as you
mentioned in your commentary. Usually it reflects more about its user than about
the novel being worked over or enjoyed. "Lolita" comprises two texts: John Ray
Jr's "Foreword" and HH's "Confessions of..." . Lolita, "herself", wrote nothing
so I feel free to stick to this hypothesis, that in "Lolita" we find HH writing
his "love-story" ( love has not to be retributed, nor mature nor
sane to be seen as "love"?).
But perhaps I didn't make my point clear. I
departed from Nina L. Krushcheva's article linking "Western world",
"sexual freedom", "political freedom", "modernity" to "sexual predators" and
VN's "old" fiction. In my opinion N.L.K example was not only reductive but also
imprecise and distortive.