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Speaker 1: Trigger warning. This podcast discusses sexual assault and child abuse,

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Speaker 1: as well as strong language. Listener discretion is advised. M

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Speaker 1: I first learned about Lolita when I was twelve, and

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Speaker 1: that's the same age as Dolores Hayes or Lolita, whichever

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Speaker 1: of them you're familiar with. At the beginning of that book,

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Speaker 1: it was two thousand five. I was in the seventh

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Speaker 1: grade in Massachusetts. I wore a back brace to school,

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Speaker 1: which put off any hope of getting my first kiss

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Speaker 1: until two thousand and eight. But in two thousand five,

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Speaker 1: I had an obsession with lemony snicke ats a series

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Speaker 1: of unfortunate events, I had a school picture wearing a

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Speaker 1: T shirt that said too young for Ashton, and I

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Speaker 1: read Vladimir in a Bulkos Lolita for the first time.

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Speaker 1: But it was not a random selection off the shelf.

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Speaker 1: It had been recommended to me by children's author Lomani Snaket. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: let's take a quick journey if you're not familiar. Lolita

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Speaker 1: is a ninety novel by Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov. That

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Speaker 1: is Nabokov, But if you correct anyone for saying it Nabakoff,

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Speaker 1: you're a jerk, But it's a book about a middle

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Speaker 1: aged European pedophile named Humbert Humbert who falls in love

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Speaker 1: with heavy quotes there then abducts and sexually and psychologically

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Speaker 1: abuses twelve year old American girl Dolores Hayes or Lolita,

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Speaker 1: then abducts and rapes her across the US in the

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Speaker 1: late nineteen forties. And there's no shying away from the

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Speaker 1: reality here, in spite of how it's been romanticized over

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Speaker 1: the years. Lolita tells the story of a pedophile who

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Speaker 1: abuses a twelve year old that he's supposed to be

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Speaker 1: the caretaker of. It is horrifying and one of the

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Speaker 1: most controversial text of the last century. And it's what

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Speaker 1: this podcast is about, sort of. And if you are

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Speaker 1: also not familiar, Lemony Snicket, the pseudonym for author Daniel Handler,

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Speaker 1: wrote the series of Unfortunate Events books in the early

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Speaker 1: two thousands. There is an adapted movie starring Jim Carey

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Speaker 1: from two thousand four, and there's also a more recent

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Speaker 1: Netflix adaptation with Neil Patrick Harris. To this day, these

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Speaker 1: books are my favorites in the world, not just because

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Speaker 1: I love the stories, but because Lemony Snicket references a

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Speaker 1: number of famous books and movies and shows to his

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Speaker 1: young readers that they probably wouldn't know about, leaving twelve

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Speaker 1: year old with nothing but time and Google to dcode

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Speaker 1: his writing and find this whole new media list spanning

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Speaker 1: Moby Dick to Monty Python just by reading the books.

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Speaker 1: Handler has written a number of books targeted at adults

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Speaker 1: as well, with pretty sexual plots, but the majority of

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Speaker 1: his audience, especially in the mid two thousands, were from

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Speaker 1: Lemony Snicket and were children, And because he was my

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Speaker 1: favorite author, I would frequently boot it up the family

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Speaker 1: Gateway computer to look up interviews with him. The interview

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Speaker 1: I remember reading very clearly is no longer online, but

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Speaker 1: I have something close. This is from an interview he

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Speaker 1: did with I g. N in two thousand four, in

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Speaker 1: which he recommends the following to his fan base, The

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Speaker 1: wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, Mr Show, the

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Speaker 1: movie Saboteur, a song called Chlorine Bacon Skin by Prince,

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Speaker 1: and Lolita by Vladimir and a book. Mr Handler was

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Speaker 1: not available to be interviewed for this podcast, but he's

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Speaker 1: been talking about Lolita in interviews for nearly twenty years. Now,

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Speaker 1: and I want to be clear, I am not trying

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Speaker 1: to cancel Daniel Handler or a Lemony Snicket over saying

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Speaker 1: his favorite book is Lolita to a majority young audience.

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Speaker 1: If you want to scrutinize his politics for different reasons,

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Speaker 1: feel free to google his name and then the word

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Speaker 1: controversy and arrive at your own conclusion. There's valid discussions

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Speaker 1: to be had, but that's not what I'm here to

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Speaker 1: discuss on this podcast. The thing is that recommending a

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Speaker 1: book like Lolita was very in the wheelhouse of Lemony

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Speaker 1: Ticket at this time, and the fact that he answered

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Speaker 1: what his favorite book was without a filter was a

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Speaker 1: huge part of what I really liked about his work

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Speaker 1: As a kid, Unlike a lot of y A authors

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Speaker 1: of this era, reading a Lemony snicketbook made me feel

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Speaker 1: like I was an adult, and that by referencing all

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Speaker 1: these fancy vocabulary words and great works of literature, I

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Speaker 1: was given the tools to be seen as an equal

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Speaker 1: to him, be in on it. So Lemony Snickett saying

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Speaker 1: he liked Lolita stuck out to my twelve year old

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Speaker 1: brain for a lot of reasons once I found out

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Speaker 1: what it was about. Because Handler slash Snickett had already

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Speaker 1: made a number of references to Lolita in his own

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Speaker 1: book series. One of the references is a character in

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Speaker 1: the series that is a reference to Lolita's protagonist, Humbert Humbert.

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Speaker 1: Another references a plot point from the first book where

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Speaker 1: villain and acting guardian Count Olof tries to steal a

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Speaker 1: fourteen year old orphan named Violet Boudelaire's fortune by abusing

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Speaker 1: his parental powers to marry and abduct her. And in

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Speaker 1: my opinion, the biggest reference to Lolita is in the

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Speaker 1: framework and narration style of A series of Unfortunate Events.

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Speaker 1: Lemony Snakett is Daniel Handler's pseudonym, and Snakett, like Humbert,

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Speaker 1: is a middle aged man following and tracking down the

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Speaker 1: history of children who may or may not be alive

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Speaker 1: anymore without any of their input. The big important difference

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Speaker 1: here is that Snakett is not the villain of the story.

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Speaker 1: He is merely the documentarian, and that was how I

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Speaker 1: got to Lolita in two thousand five, I should introduce myself.

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Speaker 1: My name is Jamie Loftus. I am a writer, comedian

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Speaker 1: and podcaster. Those jobs are not listed in order of

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Speaker 1: how embarrassing they are. And this is Lolita Podcast, a

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Speaker 1: series exploring the confused cultural legacy of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna be talking about a thesis is worth of

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Speaker 1: stuff here. How did this story come to be in

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Speaker 1: the first place? How has it morphed into the pentapod

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Speaker 1: monster of a cultural artifact it stands as today? And

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Speaker 1: when Lolita comes up in conversation as a reference, how

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Speaker 1: far exactly from the source material is the reference? Because

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Speaker 1: the meaning of Lolita has evolved over time, whether we're

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Speaker 1: talking about the movies from Vladimir Nabakov's masterpieces a story,

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Speaker 1: or the music, which ranges from weird metal songs to

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Speaker 1: the police's teacher student relationship. In Don't Stand so Close

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Speaker 1: to Me. You know the lines, It's no use he

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Speaker 1: sees her, he starts to shake and cough. Jed Light

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Speaker 1: the oh Man in that book by a book off

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Speaker 1: you can tell. We can't we can't license to the song,

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Speaker 1: so I just have to sing it. There's a song

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Speaker 1: by Australian duo The Veronica's called Lolita that features a

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Speaker 1: love story between an older man and an apparently consenting teenager.

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Speaker 1: There's Katie Perry singing I studied Lolita religiously in her

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Speaker 1: single One of the Boys. And then there's, of course,

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Speaker 1: all of Lana del Rey's early catalog. She's got a

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Speaker 1: song called Lolita, She's got another called Off to the Races,

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Speaker 1: whose chorus calls light of my life, fire of my Alloince,

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Speaker 1: be a good baby, do what I Want, and other

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Speaker 1: songs we don't have the licensing rights to. There is

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Speaker 1: hours of Lolita themed music, or this line from a

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Speaker 1: failed nineteen seventies Broadway musical that ruined my entire summer.

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Speaker 1: Who is that piper who likes them post Sniper? I'm sorry,

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Speaker 1: let's hear that again. Who is that piper who likes them? Post?

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Speaker 1: Someone had to sing that? Let's and and there's more,

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Speaker 1: And for me, it's the third Pew Pessant where I

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Speaker 1: draw the line. Now, I have a lot of opinions

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Speaker 1: on the legacy of Lolita, but in listening to the series,

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Speaker 1: I want you to form your own. I'm going to

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Speaker 1: be speaking with fans, detractors, literary scholars, experts on and

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Speaker 1: survivors of abuse, directors, authors, and a lot of the

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Speaker 1: women who have played the titular character in these adaptations,

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Speaker 1: and I also recognize that discussing this book at all

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Speaker 1: is a mine field. I'm going to be too close

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Speaker 1: minded for some, too permissive for others. But I'm going

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Speaker 1: to try and show you every perspective on this story

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Speaker 1: that I can. But god damn, there is really a lot,

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Speaker 1: because this is an inherently politicized text, and I can't

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Speaker 1: even guarantee that how I feel about this book now

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Speaker 1: is how I will always feel about it. If the

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Speaker 1: many people I've spoken to for this show or any indication,

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Speaker 1: I probably won't. Lolita is a terrible and complicated story

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Speaker 1: with a complicated legacy, but I think it is one

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Speaker 1: that's still worth examining today. As a survivor of abuse

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Speaker 1: myself that has been haunted by this book since it

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Speaker 1: was recommended to me by my favorite children's author, I

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Speaker 1: want to understand that. And as a feminist, I struggled

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Speaker 1: to say that Lolita is a feminist text, or even

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Speaker 1: that Nabulkov is a feminist writer. So why am I

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Speaker 1: so stuck on it? I've been finding that there are

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Speaker 1: two huge conversations to be had when it comes to

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Speaker 1: the adaptations and the cultural influence of Lolita. There's one

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Speaker 1: conversation that's more connected to the sexualization of young girls

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Speaker 1: in media, which is more connected to the movies and

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Speaker 1: the aesthetic, and then there's a conversation more connected to

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Speaker 1: the book, which we're going to talk about today, and

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Speaker 1: that conversation is the ethics of pedophile as protagonist and narrator.

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Speaker 1: So for me, there's really no gut reaction to the

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Speaker 1: cultural topic of Lolita that you can discredit. It makes

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Speaker 1: sense that people have very strong reactions to this text

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Speaker 1: because the topic of pedophilia and assault of miners is

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Speaker 1: a hugely upsetting, large issue that has been with humanity

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Speaker 1: for at least all of recorded history, and it remains

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Speaker 1: a huge issue now. The year this podcast is released,

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Speaker 1: the Jeffrey Epstein story is still being reported on detail

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Speaker 1: by excruciating detail. The Q and on conspiracy Theory details

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Speaker 1: false allegations about current public figures being pedophiles, specifically targeting

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Speaker 1: that same fear that many people have of children being

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Speaker 1: preyed upon. Here's some recent statistics from rain the Rape

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Speaker 1: abew Sin Incest National Network on this topic. One in

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Speaker 1: nine girls under eighteen experienced sexual abuse at the hands

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Speaker 1: of an adult, and of these victims, two out of

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Speaker 1: three are between the ages of twelve and eighteen. Percent

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Speaker 1: of victims know their assaulter at the time of their assault,

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Speaker 1: and these are just statistics for cases that are reported.

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Speaker 1: And on top of that, according to the National Center

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Speaker 1: on Violence against Women in the Black Community, one in

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Speaker 1: four Black girls are sexually abused by age eighteen. Sexual

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Speaker 1: violence and abuse is disproportionately high against Indigenous women and girls,

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Speaker 1: with one in two experiencing sexual violence at some point

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Speaker 1: in their lives, according to a UN report from two

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Speaker 1: thousand fourteen. Another little discussed issue is how pedophilia affects

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Speaker 1: young boys, something according to Brian Boyd's biography of him,

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Speaker 1: Nabokov experienced as a child at the hands of an

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Speaker 1: uncle at a really young age. While still living in Russia.

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Speaker 1: One in five boys are sexually abused by the age

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Speaker 1: of eighteen, according to the Advocacy Center. So Lolita the

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Speaker 1: book has always warranted a huge response because it's one

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Speaker 1: of the few major literary works, especially up until it

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Speaker 1: was published in nineteen fifty five, that attempts to grapple

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Speaker 1: with this theme and reality exclusively at all, and like literature,

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Speaker 1: students don't come for me. I know it was not

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Speaker 1: the first book to deal with this. All this to

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Speaker 1: say that the sexual assault of girls is a gigantic

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Speaker 1: issue and an issue that sexualization of girls and media

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Speaker 1: is in direct conversation with, and the difference between how

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Speaker 1: publicly these issues are discussed between nineteen fifty five and

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Speaker 1: now is gigantic. So yeah, reactions to Lolita are big,

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Speaker 1: and it makes total sense that they are. But if

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Speaker 1: you're not familiar with the book itself and are mostly

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Speaker 1: acquainted with the sexualized cultural figure that is Lolita, you

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Speaker 1: may be surprised to hear that Nabokov's book is, at least,

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Speaker 1: for my money, as anti pedophile as a book can

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Speaker 1: possibly be while still being narrated by Humbert Humberts. So

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Speaker 1: I want this dialect to not just be with people

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Speaker 1: who are experts on the topic. I wanted to be

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Speaker 1: with you two, because I feel that so much of

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Speaker 1: how this book affects you has to do with what

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Speaker 1: your experience with the story is coming in and at

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Speaker 1: what point in your life you first encountered it. With

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Speaker 1: that in mind, I bravely set up a phone line.

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Speaker 1: It's six to six eight, seven, two, four, four or

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Speaker 1: five eight, if you want to weigh in, And I

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Speaker 1: asked people what their experience with Lolita was. Had they

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Speaker 1: read the book, had they seen movies, had they just

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Speaker 1: heard Here's what some of you said. And these voicemails

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Speaker 1: have been edited for clarity. My history with Lolita You're

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Speaker 1: fraud is complicated and also the best. UM. I first

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Speaker 1: encountered down the Cobs writing, UM, we read an Estate

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Speaker 1: is in my ap lit class in junior year of

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Speaker 1: high school. UM. And then I read Lolita, and I

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Speaker 1: think it's probably the most beautifully written book I've ever read. UM,

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Speaker 1: setting aside the you know, molestation of it all. Somebody

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Speaker 1: picked Lolita for our book club book. I've never seen

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Speaker 1: the movie, never read the book, had a vague idea

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Speaker 1: of what it was about. I tried to read that

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Speaker 1: damn book and I read five pages of it and

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Speaker 1: I gave up. I I think I threw the book away.

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Speaker 1: I didn't want anything to do with it. It was

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Speaker 1: the nastiest growthest thing I've ever even tried to read

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Speaker 1: is way better. I have always found the book Lolita

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Speaker 1: incredibly offensive. I was raped as a child, and it's

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Speaker 1: pretty hard for someone, especially an English professor, to look

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Speaker 1: at you and tell you that it's any about anything

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Speaker 1: other than the kidnapped and right but a child. Um,

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Speaker 1: I'm pretty closed up to anybody else's opinions. Um, it's

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Speaker 1: I think it's pretty funked up. It's a really important

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Speaker 1: book because it's rare. I feel like you only see

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Speaker 1: kind of leering man at girls and it's either just

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Speaker 1: like their monsters and they're not realized people, or it's

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Speaker 1: like okay, and they're good guys. And the reason why

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Speaker 1: this book is important is because you see this man

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Speaker 1: completely misunderstand like a girl navigating her like burgeoning sexuality,

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Speaker 1: and he prays on like I don't know, we've all

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Speaker 1: been there when PRET young. When I was the teens fourteen,

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Speaker 1: I was extremely on Tumbler, and although I had never

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Speaker 1: and I still have never read Lowly, though I knew

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Speaker 1: that it was sort of glorified in this way that

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Speaker 1: I really lusted. Still, my first experience, uh with it

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Speaker 1: actually was hearing about it in nerdy like anime forums.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much to everyone who called in. I

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Speaker 1: really really appreciate it. There were many more voice mails,

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Speaker 1: but I tried to pick ones that represented a few

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Speaker 1: perspectives that I saw cropping up again and again. There's

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Speaker 1: the I love the book, but I think it's very

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Speaker 1: misunderstood in culture. There's the book being framed to its

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Speaker 1: reader in an extremely bad feet way. There's I read

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Speaker 1: the book, but I was too young to understand what

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Speaker 1: it was really about at the time. There's readers whose

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Speaker 1: personal trauma is an understandably large factor. There's I haven't

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Speaker 1: read the book, but I was very influenced by the

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Speaker 1: stories cultural aesthetics. There's I haven't read the book and

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Speaker 1: have no desire to based on the themes. There's anime

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Speaker 1: guy and my favorite I am a member of the

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Speaker 1: Lolita fashion community, and we would like to be excluded

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Speaker 1: from this narrative. Thank you so much. I have been

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Speaker 1: involved with Japanese Lolita fashion for about ten years. I

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Speaker 1: have read the book and watched the film, and I

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Speaker 1: just really really want to reiterate that Lolita fashion has

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Speaker 1: nothing to do with either the book or the film,

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Speaker 1: and these are all completely valid ways to approach both

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Speaker 1: the text and the cultural Lolita. Personally. I definitely read

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Speaker 1: Lolita before I understood what the book was really about.

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Speaker 1: At twelve years old, I thought that being desired by

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Speaker 1: older men was really cool, and a lot of that

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Speaker 1: had to do with the kind of cultural messaging that

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Speaker 1: existed at this time. We were all there. The mid

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Speaker 1: two thousand's was a nightmare, but it also had to

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Speaker 1: do with what I saw going on around me. And

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Speaker 1: two thousand five, my older cousin was about to marry

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Speaker 1: a teacher she started dating. In high school, my female

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Speaker 1: gym teacher would confiscate my book of Lolita from me

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Speaker 1: and then be forced to give it back later the

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Speaker 1: next year, my junior high track coach would be fired

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Speaker 1: for not what he did to the girls on my

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Speaker 1: track team, but what he did to the high school

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Speaker 1: swim team that he coached as well. A few years

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Speaker 1: after that, when I was in high school, a teacher

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Speaker 1: in his late twenties sent my best friend a picture

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Speaker 1: of his penis on the day she graduated when we

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Speaker 1: were both seventeen, and we didn't say anything, and he

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Speaker 1: kept inviting high school girls to his house to get drunk,

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Speaker 1: and then he I think he got promoted based on

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Speaker 1: the messages all of you left. This is not an

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Speaker 1: unusual list of things to be happening around a girl

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Speaker 1: growing up, and in retrospect, I feel weirdly, depressingly lucky

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Speaker 1: to have spent most of this time in a full

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Speaker 1: body cast. My reading of Lolita has changed a lot

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Speaker 1: over time, and it's kind of been a fixation of

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Speaker 1: mine over the years, and to getting to the core

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Speaker 1: of what I found so appealing about it in the

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Speaker 1: first place. I'm going to use the rest of this

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Speaker 1: first episode to talk about exactly what happens in Vladimir

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Speaker 1: nabokov novel Lolita. We are going to spend the rest

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Speaker 1: of this series tracing and speaking to its history and

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Speaker 1: its influence. But I have been consistently surprised in conversations

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Speaker 1: at how much of the general opinion on this book

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Speaker 1: has very little to do with the book itself. So

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Speaker 1: this explainer is going to be a bit long, but

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Speaker 1: I can assure you that the details really matter here.

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Speaker 1: Something that's really helped me and getting to the heart

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Speaker 1: of the events in this book and to see around

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Speaker 1: all the flowery, beautiful language, is to think of it

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Speaker 1: as a true crime book and view Lolita as what

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Speaker 1: it's presented to us, as a document of a criminal.

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Speaker 1: And so that's the tack I'm going to take here,

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Speaker 1: And you know, I would also recommend reading the book,

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Speaker 1: but books are famously very long. I'm also going to

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Speaker 1: be differentiating between Dolores, the girl who is abducted and

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Speaker 1: raped by Humbert Humbert in the novel, and Lolita, the

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Speaker 1: sexualized construct Humbert has created to justify these crimes. I

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Speaker 1: don't really think that these are the same person, because

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Speaker 1: Dolores is a kid. So listen carefully because a lot

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Speaker 1: of what you're about to hear in this summary you

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Speaker 1: will never hear about in subsequent adaptations. Again, the first

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Speaker 1: ten or so of Lolita isn't remembered at all by

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Speaker 1: anyone who hasn't read the book, and to me, it

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Speaker 1: is a big reason why Humbert Humbert comes off as

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Speaker 1: a misunderstood romantic hero instead of a clear cut predatory

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Speaker 1: liar in most of the adaptations. So before that iconic

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Speaker 1: opening paragraph Lolita, Light of my Life, fire of my loins,

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Speaker 1: my sin, No I know, I get it. But before that,

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Speaker 1: there is a fictional forward from the fictional John Ray Junior, PhD,

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Speaker 1: an editor of psychology books, who is writing an introduction

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Speaker 1: to Humbert Humbert's manuscript. He tells you that what you're

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Speaker 1: about to read is the memoir of Humbert Humbert name changed,

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Speaker 1: who died in legal captivity and nine two of heart disease.

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Speaker 1: We also learned that someone named Mrs Richard F. Schiller

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Speaker 1: has died in childbirth with a stillborn girl on Christmas Day,

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Speaker 1: several weeks after that, John Ray Jr. Says this about Humbert,

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Speaker 1: no doubt he is horrible. He is abject. He is

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Speaker 1: a shiny example of moral leprosy, a mixture of ferocity

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Speaker 1: and jocularity that betrays supreme misery. Many of his casual

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Speaker 1: opinions on the people in scenery of this country are ludicrous.

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Speaker 1: He is abnormal. He is not a gentleman. But how

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Speaker 1: magically he's singing violin can conjure up a tenderus compassion

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Speaker 1: for Lolita that makes us entranced with the book while

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Speaker 1: a pouring its author. I mean, if you're looking for

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Speaker 1: a framing of an unreliable narrator before you even meet him,

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Speaker 1: there you go. We are told explicitly that this was

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Speaker 1: written half in a sanatorium, half in a jail cell

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Speaker 1: under observation, and the text is basically unedited. John Ray

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Speaker 1: continues in this poignant personal study their larks, a general

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Speaker 1: lesson the way we'd child, the egotistic mother, the panting maniac.

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Speaker 1: These are not only vivid characters and a unique story.

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Speaker 1: They warn us of dangerous trends. They point out potent evils.

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Speaker 1: Lolita should make all of us parents, social workers, educators,

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Speaker 1: apply ourselves with still greater vigilance and vision to the

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Speaker 1: task of bringing up a better generation in a safer world.

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Speaker 1: And after that fictional forward Humbert. Humbert's text of Lolita begins, Lolita,

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Speaker 1: light of my life, fire of my loins, my sin,

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Speaker 1: my soul, Lowlyta the tip of the tongue, taking a

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Speaker 1: trip of three steps down the palette to tap at

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Speaker 1: three on the teeth, law Lee. She was low, plain,

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Speaker 1: low in the morning, standing four ft ten in one sock,

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Speaker 1: she was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school,

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Speaker 1: she was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my

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Speaker 1: arms she was always Lolita. His audience for this work

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Speaker 1: is his jurors, and he asks leading questions while taking

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Speaker 1: us through a sweeping look at his early life. He

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Speaker 1: was born in nineteen to a well off European family,

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Speaker 1: and his mother died in a freak accident when he

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Speaker 1: was three years old. I love the description a book

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Speaker 1: of gifts for what happens, it's just in parentheses picnic

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Speaker 1: Comma Lightning. When he's twelve years old, he spends the

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Speaker 1: summer on the French Riviera and meets a girl named

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Speaker 1: Annabelle Lee who's the same age, and they fall madly

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Speaker 1: in love. This summer he has a number of formative

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Speaker 1: sexual experiences with Annabelle, but they are too heavily supervised

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Speaker 1: to ever consummate the relation and ship, and she dies

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Speaker 1: of typhus four months later before they can ever see

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Speaker 1: each other again. According to Humbert, the quote certain magic

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00:22:07,440 --> 00:22:11,280
Speaker 1: unquote of Lolita began with this tragedy with Annabelle. And

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Speaker 1: if your brain like mind has been absolutely torpedoed by

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Speaker 1: the Internet, and you're thinking annabel Lee, that sounds familiar,

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Speaker 1: but you can't quite place it. You are vaguely remembering

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Speaker 1: and Edgar Allan Poe poem by that same name, maybe

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Speaker 1: I'll recognize it. I was a child and she was

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Speaker 1: a child in this kingdom by the sea. But we

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Speaker 1: loved with a love that was more than love. I

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00:22:28,720 --> 00:22:30,880
Speaker 1: and my Annabelle Lee. I don't think I ever even

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00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:33,840
Speaker 1: studied it in school. It was just like hot topic canon.

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Speaker 1: And this reference to Annabelle Lee is a deliberate choice

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Speaker 1: on the part of the author whether the author we

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Speaker 1: were talking about is Humbert or in a bulk off himself.

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00:22:41,400 --> 00:22:44,359
Speaker 1: Because Edgar Allan Poe married his cousin when she was

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Speaker 1: thirteen years old and he was twenty six years old,

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00:22:47,320 --> 00:22:49,959
Speaker 1: there are a total of twenty references to Poe by

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Speaker 1: Humbert in the book. There's also a few references to

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00:22:52,720 --> 00:22:56,000
Speaker 1: Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, made intentionally for a very

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00:22:56,040 --> 00:22:59,600
Speaker 1: similar reason. Carol real name Charles Dodgson, was a child

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00:22:59,640 --> 00:23:02,479
Speaker 1: pornographer who took a number of erotic photos of a

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00:23:02,520 --> 00:23:05,119
Speaker 1: ten year old named Alice Liddell. Now this is not

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00:23:05,280 --> 00:23:08,080
Speaker 1: very often discussed, as his story is still a billion

407
00:23:08,160 --> 00:23:11,879
Speaker 1: dollar Disney property, but Dodgson had hundreds of nude and

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00:23:11,960 --> 00:23:15,440
Speaker 1: semi nude photos like this of children, and while sensibilities

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00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:18,359
Speaker 1: were different in the eighteen fifties, Ladell's parents had cut

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00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:21,800
Speaker 1: off Dodgson from seeing Alice before the book named after

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Speaker 1: her was ever published, and it said that Carol, well

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Speaker 1: into his thirties, had asked her parents to marry her,

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00:23:41,560 --> 00:23:44,040
Speaker 1: and a book off was well aware of Carol slash

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00:23:44,119 --> 00:23:48,520
Speaker 1: Dodgson's history, incidentally having translated Alice's Adventures in Wonderland into

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00:23:48,600 --> 00:23:50,960
Speaker 1: Russian in his mid twenties to pay the bills. And

416
00:23:51,040 --> 00:23:53,320
Speaker 1: here is what he had to say of this behavior.

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Speaker 1: He has a pathetic affinity with ageh But some odd

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Speaker 1: scruple prevented me from alluding and Lolita to his wretched

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Speaker 1: perversion into those ambiguous photographs he took in dim rooms.

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Speaker 1: He got away with it, as so many other Victorians

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00:24:07,119 --> 00:24:11,280
Speaker 1: got away with pederasty and numphilepsy. His were sad, scrawny

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00:24:11,280 --> 00:24:15,760
Speaker 1: little nymphets, bedraggled and half undressed, or rather semi undraped,

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Speaker 1: as if participating in some dusty and dreadful charade. But

424
00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:24,280
Speaker 1: sure Tim Burton movies. Back to the summary, Humbred explains

425
00:24:24,359 --> 00:24:27,919
Speaker 1: that losing Annabelle so young triggers a lifelong obsession with

426
00:24:28,359 --> 00:24:31,800
Speaker 1: nymphets a term of his own creation, I'll let him

427
00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:34,760
Speaker 1: describe it. Between the age limits of nine and fourteen,

428
00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:38,560
Speaker 1: there occur maidens who, to certain be which travelers twice

429
00:24:38,680 --> 00:24:42,000
Speaker 1: or many times older than they reveal their true nature,

430
00:24:42,119 --> 00:24:47,200
Speaker 1: which is not human but nymphic, that is demonic. And

431
00:24:47,280 --> 00:24:50,560
Speaker 1: why haven't we heard of these nymphets before? Humberd You

432
00:24:50,640 --> 00:24:53,400
Speaker 1: have to be an artist and a madman, a creature

433
00:24:53,440 --> 00:24:56,840
Speaker 1: of infinite melancholy, with a bubble of hot poison in

434
00:24:56,880 --> 00:25:00,439
Speaker 1: your loins and a super voluptuous flame permanently glow in

435
00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:03,960
Speaker 1: your subtle spine. Oh, how you have to cringe and

436
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:07,600
Speaker 1: hide in order to discern at once the deadly little

437
00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:12,680
Speaker 1: demon among the wholesome children. She stands unrecognized by them,

438
00:25:12,720 --> 00:25:17,359
Speaker 1: an unconscious herself of her fantastic power. You know a

439
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:20,720
Speaker 1: lot of words, and none of them are pedophile. But

440
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:24,679
Speaker 1: that's Humbert's intentional approach here. He's taking the artist angle

441
00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:28,640
Speaker 1: to objectifying children that we don't see infrequently in American

442
00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:32,600
Speaker 1: culture before Lolita's publication, and a lot since here's a

443
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:35,560
Speaker 1: clip from Woody Allen's Manhattan What do you Do? Tracy?

444
00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:39,879
Speaker 1: I got a really really to somewhere to back on

445
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:45,439
Speaker 1: this slow from Whatdy Allen to Roman Polanski to Rudy

446
00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:49,399
Speaker 1: Giuliani and Borat too amazing. Yes, we got a Bora

447
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:53,199
Speaker 1: to reference into episode one of Lolita podcasts. Thank you

448
00:25:53,280 --> 00:25:56,280
Speaker 1: so much, I'll be accepting my peabody now. But in

449
00:25:56,440 --> 00:26:00,399
Speaker 1: framing his life, Humbert even manages to distance him self

450
00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:04,439
Speaker 1: from his future crimes in his origin story by suggesting

451
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:08,720
Speaker 1: that pedophilia might be genetic and his family explaining that

452
00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:12,480
Speaker 1: his father was once off quote touring Italy with Madame

453
00:26:12,520 --> 00:26:16,479
Speaker 1: and her daughter unquote. So to justify this attitude, Humbert

454
00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:19,800
Speaker 1: invokes the name of other perceived to be great man, James,

455
00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:23,640
Speaker 1: the first Dante Petrarch, and he's already referenced Poe. Can't

456
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:26,359
Speaker 1: you see he's a very handsome artist, not a pedophile.

457
00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:28,640
Speaker 1: And if you're me at twelve, with the general opinion

458
00:26:28,680 --> 00:26:31,239
Speaker 1: that adults have no reason to lie to me, and

459
00:26:31,320 --> 00:26:35,120
Speaker 1: in a world where Vickie Christina Barcelona hasn't even been released,

460
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:38,199
Speaker 1: you might take these words at face value. After he

461
00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:41,920
Speaker 1: goes to university and becomes an academic himself, Humbert occupies

462
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:44,720
Speaker 1: his obsession by meeting with sex workers that look young,

463
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:48,640
Speaker 1: and eventually marries a woman named Valeria to keep up appearances.

464
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:53,520
Speaker 1: Humbert hates Valeria. He admires her ability to imitate young

465
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:56,040
Speaker 1: girls when they first start dating, but he describes her

466
00:26:56,200 --> 00:27:00,719
Speaker 1: as grotesque. He calls her an animated mercin, a large, puffy,

467
00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:04,760
Speaker 1: short legged, big breasted, and practically brainless baba, and he's

468
00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:07,720
Speaker 1: still angry when she leaves him for another man four

469
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:11,440
Speaker 1: years into their marriage in nine, he considers killing her

470
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:14,159
Speaker 1: and her lover, but says that they leave before he

471
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:17,320
Speaker 1: can fight them. According to him, Valeria dies in childbirth

472
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:22,320
Speaker 1: in America in after being subjected to eugenic Nazi adjacent

473
00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:25,040
Speaker 1: medical experiments, and seems to find the idea of this

474
00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:28,440
Speaker 1: pretty funny. So after his divorce with Valeria, Humbert moves

475
00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:31,159
Speaker 1: to New York right before World War Two, starts starts

476
00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:34,000
Speaker 1: working on a textbook, and is sent to a sanatorium

477
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:36,919
Speaker 1: for over a year after what he describes as a

478
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:40,480
Speaker 1: dreadful breakdown. He does not get specific about what this

479
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:43,800
Speaker 1: breakdown was related to or what his time they're entailed.

480
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:46,640
Speaker 1: He then joins a scientific mission in the Arctic as

481
00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 1: a recorder of psychic relations, and after twenty months there

482
00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:52,640
Speaker 1: and what sounds like a completely bullshit report on his part,

483
00:27:52,720 --> 00:27:55,480
Speaker 1: he returns to America, only to be hospitalized in the

484
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:58,280
Speaker 1: sanitarium again, and even with the second visit, we can

485
00:27:58,320 --> 00:28:00,720
Speaker 1: only sort of guess at the details here He describes

486
00:28:00,760 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 1: it as another bout with insanity and marks the psychiatrist

487
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:07,200
Speaker 1: that he works with, and once he's at the second time,

488
00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:09,879
Speaker 1: he decides to work on his textbook again and heads

489
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:12,000
Speaker 1: for small town, New England, where he will meet a

490
00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:16,600
Speaker 1: girl named Dolores. So that's a lot of very relevant information.

491
00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:19,840
Speaker 1: And this portion of Humbert's life is not especially cinematic,

492
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:22,439
Speaker 1: and on the surface might seem to have little to

493
00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:24,359
Speaker 1: do with the subject of the story, but there's a

494
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:27,199
Speaker 1: lot of very relevant stuff here. We learn how Humbert

495
00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:30,800
Speaker 1: views women, both as children and as adults. We learn

496
00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:33,760
Speaker 1: about a very glossed over repeated struggle with mental health

497
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:36,919
Speaker 1: that he deliberately never brings up again, and in fact,

498
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:40,280
Speaker 1: he has a completely dismissive view of his sanatorium stays,

499
00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:44,000
Speaker 1: describing the following, I discovered there was an endless source

500
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:49,320
Speaker 1: of robust enjoyment in trifling with psychiatrists, cunningly leading them on,

501
00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:52,080
Speaker 1: never letting them see that you know all the tricks

502
00:28:52,120 --> 00:28:56,840
Speaker 1: of the trade, inventing for them elaborate dreams, and never

503
00:28:56,880 --> 00:29:01,280
Speaker 1: allowing them the slightest glimpse of one's real sexual comment. Now,

504
00:29:01,320 --> 00:29:04,560
Speaker 1: I am a huge fan and very reliant on mental

505
00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:07,800
Speaker 1: health support, but Humbert does not seem interested in working

506
00:29:07,800 --> 00:29:10,240
Speaker 1: on himself, as he tells it. To say the least.

507
00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:13,560
Speaker 1: He presents as massively confident from his first words, claiming

508
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:17,120
Speaker 1: that he's seen his own psychiatric records and has everyone fooled,

509
00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:20,120
Speaker 1: and the reason his stays at sanatoriums get extended are

510
00:29:20,240 --> 00:29:22,320
Speaker 1: just for fun, and we don't have access to any

511
00:29:22,320 --> 00:29:24,640
Speaker 1: other information here, and he has the upper hand all

512
00:29:24,640 --> 00:29:27,160
Speaker 1: the while because we have no way of cross checking this.

513
00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:29,400
Speaker 1: One of my favorite broad claims he makes is when

514
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 1: he calls himself an exceptionally handsome male, slow moving, tall,

515
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:37,040
Speaker 1: with soft dark hair and a gloomy but all the

516
00:29:37,080 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 1: more seductive cost of demeva. Now, as a reader, you

517
00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:43,040
Speaker 1: can take his word for this or not, although if

518
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:45,440
Speaker 1: you have seen the movies, they seem to take your

519
00:29:45,480 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 1: word for it. And it's here that the story you

520
00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:51,720
Speaker 1: might remember begins. It's after the house he plans to

521
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:54,360
Speaker 1: move into burns down in the town of Ramsdale and

522
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:57,000
Speaker 1: the state of somewhere in New England. Humbert ends up

523
00:29:57,000 --> 00:30:00,479
Speaker 1: boarding with Charlotte Hayes, a thirtiesomething year old widow seeking

524
00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:03,240
Speaker 1: a tenant and keeping with his opinions of adult women.

525
00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:06,240
Speaker 1: He calls her a quote simple but not unattractive and

526
00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:10,160
Speaker 1: quote a weak solution of Marlena Dietrich unquote. He's ready

527
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:13,080
Speaker 1: to turn down the small lodging situation when he notices

528
00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:15,920
Speaker 1: her daughter in the garden. Twelve year old Dolores Hayes

529
00:30:16,040 --> 00:30:19,320
Speaker 1: is sunbathing outside, and then his obsession with nymphets is

530
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 1: stirred up all over again, and for the first time

531
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:24,520
Speaker 1: in twenty five years, he claims he feels the same

532
00:30:24,560 --> 00:30:27,520
Speaker 1: things he felt for Annabelle Lee. He describes it like this.

533
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:32,760
Speaker 1: A little later. Of course, she this nouvelle, this Lolita,

534
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:38,200
Speaker 1: My Lolita was to eclipse completely high prototype. All I

535
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:40,960
Speaker 1: want to stress is that my discovery of her was

536
00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:44,560
Speaker 1: a fatal consequence of that princeton by the sea in

537
00:30:44,640 --> 00:30:48,040
Speaker 1: my tortured past. So yeah, he stays at the house.

538
00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:51,160
Speaker 1: Howard begins keeping a journal that he claims this manuscript

539
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:54,480
Speaker 1: of photographic recollection of Again, we really only have his

540
00:30:54,600 --> 00:30:56,960
Speaker 1: word to go on here, but he spends days writing

541
00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:01,160
Speaker 1: down every small interaction he has with Dolores, documenting everything,

542
00:31:01,280 --> 00:31:04,200
Speaker 1: speculating whether she has her period or not, keeping track

543
00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 1: of her measurements, her coloring everything, and he finds any

544
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:10,360
Speaker 1: opportunity to make physical contact with her. It is seen,

545
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:13,680
Speaker 1: I will never forget reading. For the first time, Dolores

546
00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:17,000
Speaker 1: gets something caught in her eye and he licks it

547
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:19,880
Speaker 1: off her eyeball, and once it's out of her eye,

548
00:31:19,920 --> 00:31:21,840
Speaker 1: he tells her he's just going to lick the other

549
00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:26,440
Speaker 1: eyeball anyways, he describes her again, what drives me insane

550
00:31:26,920 --> 00:31:30,440
Speaker 1: is the twofold nature of this nymphete, of every nymphete,

551
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:35,920
Speaker 1: perhaps this mixture in my Lolita of tender, dreamy childishness

552
00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:40,160
Speaker 1: and a kind of eerie vulgarity stemming from the snubnosed

553
00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:44,240
Speaker 1: cuteness of ads and magazine pictures. Charlotte Hayes, as Humbert

554
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 1: tells it, struggles to connect with her daughter and doesn't

555
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:50,120
Speaker 1: really seem to like her, calling her rude and defiant,

556
00:31:50,240 --> 00:31:53,800
Speaker 1: sullen and evasive. Then out of nowhere, Humbert mentions that

557
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:57,280
Speaker 1: if he ever seriously considers committing a murder, it would

558
00:31:57,320 --> 00:32:01,000
Speaker 1: only be during a quote spell of insanta unquote, and

559
00:32:01,040 --> 00:32:04,040
Speaker 1: then he just returns to the diary more close calls,

560
00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:08,560
Speaker 1: he almost kisses Dolores. He fantasizes about a natural disaster,

561
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:11,960
Speaker 1: killing Charlotte and leaving him and Dolores alone. He worries

562
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:14,360
Speaker 1: that he'll be sent back to a sanatorium. He rubs

563
00:32:14,360 --> 00:32:16,880
Speaker 1: Dolores's legs so hard at one point that she has

564
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:19,320
Speaker 1: a bruise on her thigh the next day, and then

565
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:22,560
Speaker 1: I will place an extra trigger warning here. In one

566
00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:27,040
Speaker 1: of the most excruciating scenes in the book, Humbert pleasures

567
00:32:27,080 --> 00:32:31,160
Speaker 1: himself while bouncing Dolores on his lap, convinced that she's

568
00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:34,760
Speaker 1: none the wiser, but there are some narrative indications, her

569
00:32:34,840 --> 00:32:38,200
Speaker 1: legs twitching, the hairs on her legs, bristling comments she

570
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:41,120
Speaker 1: makes later in the book that indicate that this may

571
00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:44,480
Speaker 1: not be true. She's singing her favorite song as this happens,

572
00:32:44,520 --> 00:32:47,280
Speaker 1: but Humbert can't really remember what it is, only how

573
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:50,520
Speaker 1: he felt blessed be the Lord. She had noticed nothing,

574
00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:53,200
Speaker 1: he says at the end of this passage, noting to

575
00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:56,000
Speaker 1: the reader how kind and smart he was about it,

576
00:32:56,160 --> 00:33:00,160
Speaker 1: how careful, how chaste. The whole wine sweet event is

577
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:02,080
Speaker 1: if viewed with what my lawyer has called in a

578
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:05,880
Speaker 1: private talk, we have had impartial sympathy. He says this

579
00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:09,800
Speaker 1: to us before the anecdote and afterward. Quote the child

580
00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:14,040
Speaker 1: knew nothing. I had done nothing to her unquote. What

581
00:33:14,160 --> 00:33:16,760
Speaker 1: is certain is that Charlotte is none the wiser to this.

582
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:20,320
Speaker 1: Dolores goes to summer camp, and before she leaves, she

583
00:33:20,400 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 1: runs up the stairs to Humbert's room and kisses him

584
00:33:23,160 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 1: for the first time. She then leaves for Charlotte to

585
00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:28,280
Speaker 1: drive her upstate, and Charlotte has left behind a letter

586
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:31,160
Speaker 1: for Humbert. It says that Charlotte is deeply in love

587
00:33:31,160 --> 00:33:33,080
Speaker 1: with Humbert, and if he doesn't want to marry her,

588
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:37,680
Speaker 1: he should leave the house immediately. This letter is so

589
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:41,240
Speaker 1: over the top and again pulled only from humbert memory,

590
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:43,920
Speaker 1: but some parts of it still make me laugh. Quote

591
00:33:44,120 --> 00:33:46,560
Speaker 1: I am a passionate and lonely woman, and you are

592
00:33:46,640 --> 00:33:49,200
Speaker 1: the love of my life. Unquote. It's all very you know,

593
00:33:49,280 --> 00:33:52,080
Speaker 1: one life to live. Back to the horrifying part, Humbert

594
00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:55,280
Speaker 1: realizes that his only way to stay near Dolores permanently

595
00:33:55,520 --> 00:33:58,840
Speaker 1: without giving away his plan to continue to assault her

596
00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:01,960
Speaker 1: is to agree to mary Charlotte. And then he says

597
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:06,480
Speaker 1: again apropos of nothing. He's definitely not thinking about murdering Charlotte,

598
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:09,520
Speaker 1: You guys, He's not I did not plan to marry

599
00:34:09,560 --> 00:34:12,560
Speaker 1: poor Charlotte in order to eliminate her in some vulga

600
00:34:12,680 --> 00:34:15,800
Speaker 1: gruesome and dangerous manner, such as killing her by placing

601
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:18,760
Speaker 1: five by chloride of mercury tablets and upper prandial sherry,

602
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:21,760
Speaker 1: or anything like that. But he does admit to planning

603
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:25,279
Speaker 1: to experiment on slipping her and Dolores sleeping pills so

604
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:29,240
Speaker 1: that he can rape Dolores without her or her mother knowing.

605
00:34:29,520 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 1: He fantasizes about black marylyn Charlotte into accepting it if

606
00:34:33,040 --> 00:34:35,360
Speaker 1: she ever finds out. But of course Charlotte doesn't know

607
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:37,640
Speaker 1: any of this, and so when she gets home and

608
00:34:37,680 --> 00:34:41,040
Speaker 1: he accepts her proposal, she is thrilled and they're married

609
00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:44,400
Speaker 1: very soon after. So again Humbert. Humbert is married to

610
00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:47,839
Speaker 1: a woman he hates, and he spends the summer experimenting

611
00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:51,160
Speaker 1: with sleeping pills and imagining her daughter during sex with her.

612
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:54,280
Speaker 1: Charlotte continues to speak ill of Dolores, calling her everything

613
00:34:54,360 --> 00:34:58,640
Speaker 1: from distrustful, too aggressive to negativistic. On a worksheet about

614
00:34:58,640 --> 00:35:01,319
Speaker 1: her daughter's personality, says that she plans to send her

615
00:35:01,360 --> 00:35:03,879
Speaker 1: to boarding school after camp to free up the home

616
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:06,640
Speaker 1: for her and Humbert. This, of course, is the opposite

617
00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:09,320
Speaker 1: of what Humbert wants, and he's furious, but he doesn't

618
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:12,080
Speaker 1: show it because he's afraid that arguing with Charlotte will

619
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:15,719
Speaker 1: hurt his position and access to Dolores. And again he

620
00:35:15,760 --> 00:35:20,000
Speaker 1: discusses considering killing Charlotte at length, this time calculating whether

621
00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:22,440
Speaker 1: he could drown her in the local lake without anyone

622
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:25,719
Speaker 1: witnessing it. He ultimately decided against doing it and convinces

623
00:35:25,760 --> 00:35:28,640
Speaker 1: her to let Dolores come home. So he's definitely not

624
00:35:28,719 --> 00:35:31,520
Speaker 1: going to kill our guys. But shortly after that, Charlotte

625
00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:34,680
Speaker 1: figures out Humbert's game while snooping around his space and

626
00:35:34,719 --> 00:35:38,000
Speaker 1: reading one of his journals, journals that describe his fantasies

627
00:35:38,040 --> 00:35:41,600
Speaker 1: about Dolores and calling her things like quote the big bitch,

628
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:45,000
Speaker 1: the obnoxious mama unquote, and his intention to prey on

629
00:35:45,080 --> 00:35:48,800
Speaker 1: Dolores indefinitely. And I think that Melanie Griffith, playing Charlotte

630
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:53,400
Speaker 1: Hayes plays this really well in the movie You're a monster.

631
00:35:55,920 --> 00:36:00,719
Speaker 1: You're a despicable criminal monster. If you near me, I'll

632
00:36:00,719 --> 00:36:04,640
Speaker 1: scream out the window. Get away from me. Humbert goes

633
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 1: into full gaslight mode. She's hallucinating. Let's have a drink,

634
00:36:08,120 --> 00:36:10,600
Speaker 1: and he leaves the room to go prepare some drinks.

635
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:12,800
Speaker 1: But a few minutes later, once the drinks are prepared,

636
00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 1: he gets a phone call. Charlotte has been hit by

637
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:17,399
Speaker 1: a car trying to get to a mailbox to mail

638
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:21,600
Speaker 1: someone a letter revealing Humbert's treachery. And that's it. She's dead.

639
00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:25,400
Speaker 1: As Humbert tells it in the story, he got lucky,

640
00:36:25,880 --> 00:36:29,440
Speaker 1: he definitely didn't kill her, you guys. After a swift

641
00:36:29,480 --> 00:36:32,680
Speaker 1: funeral and convincing the neighbors that he had secretly been

642
00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:36,880
Speaker 1: Dolores's biological father all along and was reuniting with Charlotte

643
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:39,239
Speaker 1: as opposed to meeting her less than ten weeks ago,

644
00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:42,600
Speaker 1: Humbert leaves Ramsdale to pick up Dolores from camp. He

645
00:36:42,719 --> 00:36:45,800
Speaker 1: manages to get her from the camp without Dolores learning

646
00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:48,359
Speaker 1: that her mother has been killed, and immediately brings her

647
00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:50,919
Speaker 1: to a lodge that he and Charlotte had discussed going

648
00:36:50,960 --> 00:36:54,640
Speaker 1: to for their honeymoon, the Enchanted Hunter's Hotel. Dolores teases

649
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:57,359
Speaker 1: Humbert once she's in his car, saying that she's been

650
00:36:57,440 --> 00:37:01,200
Speaker 1: quote revoltingly unfaithful to him on quote and mentioning that

651
00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:03,560
Speaker 1: he hasn't kissed her yet, and they kiss again, him

652
00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:07,560
Speaker 1: noting her lack of experience. She asks him if they're lovers,

653
00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:10,680
Speaker 1: because her mother, she says with a sense of satisfaction,

654
00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:13,080
Speaker 1: would be so angry if they were. He says no,

655
00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:15,440
Speaker 1: and when they get to the hotel where they're sharing

656
00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:20,719
Speaker 1: a room, the following exchange takes place. You're crazy, why

657
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:26,440
Speaker 1: my darn because my darling and my darling mother finds

658
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:30,719
Speaker 1: out to divorce you and destroying me. Now we're not rich,

659
00:37:31,520 --> 00:37:34,319
Speaker 1: and so when we travel, we're we're we're we're we're

660
00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:39,320
Speaker 1: sure to be. I mean, we'll be thrown together. Sometimes

661
00:37:40,400 --> 00:37:43,960
Speaker 1: two people sharing the same hotel room abound to enter

662
00:37:44,040 --> 00:37:47,359
Speaker 1: into all How can I put it into it? Into

663
00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:52,400
Speaker 1: a kind of incest. Unbeknownst to Dolorus, Humbert drugs her

664
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:55,280
Speaker 1: that night, assuring the reader that he only ever intended

665
00:37:55,320 --> 00:37:58,439
Speaker 1: to rape Dolores while she was drugged. While he's waiting

666
00:37:58,480 --> 00:38:00,520
Speaker 1: for the drugs to take he goes of the lobby

667
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:02,920
Speaker 1: and runs into a very drunk man who seems to

668
00:38:02,960 --> 00:38:06,320
Speaker 1: be onto his scheme, and this reads as innocuous, but

669
00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:10,840
Speaker 1: this guy is important later Humbert returns upstairs, but Dolores

670
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:13,920
Speaker 1: isn't sleeping that heavily, so instead he decides to just

671
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:17,920
Speaker 1: sleep beside her, and again pretty heavy trigger warning here.

672
00:38:18,320 --> 00:38:21,560
Speaker 1: The next morning, Humbert tells us they have sex with

673
00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:27,000
Speaker 1: Dolores fully conscious, and to be clear, this is absolutely rape,

674
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:31,319
Speaker 1: but Humbert of course begins deflecting to his jury immediately.

675
00:38:31,840 --> 00:38:35,120
Speaker 1: He says, quote, I'm going to tell you something very strange.

676
00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:38,800
Speaker 1: It was she who seduced me, he says. He describes

677
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:43,080
Speaker 1: the crime in typical flowery Humbert detail and calls Dolores

678
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:47,480
Speaker 1: quote the wincing child unquote. Before moving on, he assures

679
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:50,320
Speaker 1: us again that he loves her and reminds us that

680
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:53,480
Speaker 1: marrying twelve year olds was still legal in some states

681
00:38:54,920 --> 00:38:58,839
Speaker 1: and sensitive gentlewomen of the jury, I was not even

682
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:02,719
Speaker 1: her first lover. Afterward, Dolorus tells Humbert that she had

683
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:05,120
Speaker 1: had sex with a boy at camp over the summer,

684
00:39:05,239 --> 00:39:08,839
Speaker 1: and for Humbert not taking her virginity when raping her

685
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:12,080
Speaker 1: makes the crime easier to cope with. After they leave

686
00:39:12,120 --> 00:39:15,520
Speaker 1: the hotel, Dolores is in physical pain all day, and

687
00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:17,800
Speaker 1: Humbert tells the reader that in the space of just

688
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:21,920
Speaker 1: a morning, he had had strenuous sex with her three times.

689
00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:26,600
Speaker 1: Later in the day, Dolores says, you chump, you revolting creature.

690
00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:28,799
Speaker 1: I was a daisy fresh girl, and look what you've

691
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:30,520
Speaker 1: done to me. I ought to call the police and

692
00:39:30,560 --> 00:39:33,359
Speaker 1: tell them you raped me. Oh, you dirty, dirty old

693
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:37,520
Speaker 1: man unquote. Her pain continues as they continue to drive,

694
00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:40,880
Speaker 1: and it is only then that Humbert tells Dolores that

695
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:43,919
Speaker 1: her mother is dead. The first section of the book

696
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:47,840
Speaker 1: ends with just a devastating passage. At the hotel, we

697
00:39:47,920 --> 00:39:50,399
Speaker 1: had separate rooms, but in the middle of the night

698
00:39:50,480 --> 00:39:53,200
Speaker 1: she came sobbing into mine and we made it up

699
00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:57,160
Speaker 1: very gently. You see. She had absolutely nowhere else to go.

700
00:39:58,400 --> 00:40:16,160
Speaker 1: And this ends the first section of the book. Dolores,

701
00:40:16,520 --> 00:40:20,600
Speaker 1: for the little dialogue we get from, calls Humbert a

702
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:25,160
Speaker 1: rapist twice in this book, and there are many moments where,

703
00:40:25,239 --> 00:40:28,719
Speaker 1: in a larger context it's basically impossible to say that

704
00:40:28,880 --> 00:40:31,160
Speaker 1: she does not have a semblance of what's going on.

705
00:40:31,719 --> 00:40:34,640
Speaker 1: She's telling us that she does, even through all these

706
00:40:34,719 --> 00:40:37,480
Speaker 1: walls of prose that Humberts putting up in front of her.

707
00:40:38,520 --> 00:40:41,000
Speaker 1: In part two of the novel, Humbert takes to Lauris

708
00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:43,759
Speaker 1: around the United States and continues to rape her on

709
00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:46,920
Speaker 1: a nightly basis and motels. Floras finds a semblance of

710
00:40:47,040 --> 00:40:50,920
Speaker 1: routine and things she likes, jazz square dancing Sundays, going

711
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:53,800
Speaker 1: to movies, and reading magazines. When she got restless or

712
00:40:53,880 --> 00:40:56,640
Speaker 1: misbehaved on the road, Humbert with threaten to prolong her

713
00:40:56,760 --> 00:41:01,240
Speaker 1: quote exile for months and years unquote, employing every tactic

714
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:04,000
Speaker 1: he has at his disposal, from the ancient precedent of

715
00:41:04,040 --> 00:41:07,920
Speaker 1: adults marrying children to long winded speeches like this, I

716
00:41:07,960 --> 00:41:11,280
Speaker 1: would not advise you to consider yourself my cross country slave,

717
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:14,920
Speaker 1: and I deplore the Man Act as lending itself to

718
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:18,360
Speaker 1: a dreadful pun. What humbreds referring to here is the

719
00:41:18,440 --> 00:41:21,560
Speaker 1: Man Act which made transporting girls and women across state

720
00:41:21,640 --> 00:41:25,319
Speaker 1: lines for the purpose of debauchery against the law, which

721
00:41:25,400 --> 00:41:28,200
Speaker 1: is good. It was also webinized against black men in

722
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:31,480
Speaker 1: interracial relationships and against Jewish people, which we will talk

723
00:41:31,520 --> 00:41:35,399
Speaker 1: about in later episodes. Later on, he plays Devil's advocates, saying,

724
00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:39,120
Speaker 1: let us see what happens if you, a minor, are

725
00:41:39,200 --> 00:41:41,759
Speaker 1: accused of having impaired the morals of an adult as

726
00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:44,440
Speaker 1: a respectable in what happens if you complain to the

727
00:41:44,480 --> 00:41:47,080
Speaker 1: police of my having kidnapped and raped you. Let us

728
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:49,800
Speaker 1: suppose they believe you, you become a ward of the

729
00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:54,880
Speaker 1: Department of Public Welfare. This is the situation, This is

730
00:41:54,920 --> 00:41:58,800
Speaker 1: the choice. Don't you think under the circumstance, Dolores Hayes

731
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:01,760
Speaker 1: had better stick to year old man. She is trapped

732
00:42:01,960 --> 00:42:07,600
Speaker 1: for a full year August ninety seven to August. At

733
00:42:07,640 --> 00:42:10,280
Speaker 1: one point, she asks him how long they'll be traveling

734
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:13,560
Speaker 1: like this quote, doing filthy things together and never behaving

735
00:42:13,640 --> 00:42:17,200
Speaker 1: like ordinary people. Unquote. He describes their months primarily as

736
00:42:17,239 --> 00:42:20,920
Speaker 1: a vacation, harping longer on roadside attraction descriptions than on

737
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:23,920
Speaker 1: their arguments, and we catch a few of Dolores stray

738
00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:27,680
Speaker 1: words quote, I'd be a sap if I took your opinion. Seriously,

739
00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:30,320
Speaker 1: you can't boss me. I despise you, and so on.

740
00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:34,920
Speaker 1: Humbert is lightly paranoid, but mainly elated. He goes so

741
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:38,080
Speaker 1: far as to fantasize about getting Dolores pregnant with a

742
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:42,120
Speaker 1: baby girl and doing the same thing to her years later. Finally,

743
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:44,480
Speaker 1: Humbert chooses a place for them to settle down a

744
00:42:44,600 --> 00:42:48,400
Speaker 1: different New England town a safe distance from Ramsdale called Beardsley,

745
00:42:48,520 --> 00:42:51,000
Speaker 1: where Dolores is enrolled in a private school and he

746
00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:53,440
Speaker 1: gets a job at a local university, and for the

747
00:42:53,520 --> 00:42:56,040
Speaker 1: first time since her mother's death, Dolores is allowed to

748
00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:59,800
Speaker 1: make friends and go to school to an extent because

749
00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:02,719
Speaker 1: a round this time, Humbert tightens his control on her

750
00:43:02,840 --> 00:43:06,799
Speaker 1: considerably by creating a monetary system for having sex with him.

751
00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:09,360
Speaker 1: He describes it like this, This was more than a

752
00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:14,160
Speaker 1: generous arrangement, considering she constantly received all kinds of small presents,

753
00:43:14,520 --> 00:43:17,160
Speaker 1: and had for the asking any sweetmeat or movie under

754
00:43:17,239 --> 00:43:20,839
Speaker 1: the moon, although of course I might fondly demand an

755
00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:24,440
Speaker 1: additional kiss, or even a whole collection of assorted caresses

756
00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:28,000
Speaker 1: when I knew she coveted very badly. She was, however,

757
00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:32,200
Speaker 1: not easy to deal with. Only very listlessly did she

758
00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:36,759
Speaker 1: earn her three pennies or three nickels per day, and

759
00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:39,520
Speaker 1: she proved to be a cruel negotiator whenever it was

760
00:43:39,600 --> 00:43:42,359
Speaker 1: in her power, which I could not live with more

761
00:43:42,400 --> 00:43:44,720
Speaker 1: than a few days in a row, and which because

762
00:43:44,760 --> 00:43:47,239
Speaker 1: of the very nature of love's languor, I could not

763
00:43:47,440 --> 00:43:51,560
Speaker 1: obtain by force when she's not paying attention. Humbert steals

764
00:43:51,560 --> 00:43:53,960
Speaker 1: her money back and blames it on the neighbor. He

765
00:43:54,120 --> 00:43:57,640
Speaker 1: monitors her communication forbids her from being with boys without

766
00:43:57,719 --> 00:44:01,400
Speaker 1: his supervision, but insists on her girlfriends around so he

767
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:03,480
Speaker 1: can ugle them, and he only allows her to join

768
00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:06,440
Speaker 1: the school drama club when the headmistress of Dolores's school,

769
00:44:06,560 --> 00:44:10,000
Speaker 1: who interprets his bad attitude as being a strict European parent,

770
00:44:10,120 --> 00:44:13,400
Speaker 1: asks him to. In that same meeting, the headmistress mentions

771
00:44:13,480 --> 00:44:16,280
Speaker 1: that Dolores is doing worse in school and his quote

772
00:44:16,600 --> 00:44:20,440
Speaker 1: morbidly uninterested in sexual matters, or to be exact, represses

773
00:44:20,480 --> 00:44:23,080
Speaker 1: her curiosity in order to save her ignorance and self

774
00:44:23,160 --> 00:44:26,080
Speaker 1: denity unquote. And while the head mistress fails to ever

775
00:44:26,200 --> 00:44:29,480
Speaker 1: ask Dolores why this is, it scares Humbert nonetheless, and

776
00:44:29,560 --> 00:44:32,920
Speaker 1: he allows Dolores to play a part in the Hunted Enchanters.

777
00:44:33,200 --> 00:44:35,839
Speaker 1: Promptly after this meeting with her head mistress, he finds

778
00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:38,640
Speaker 1: Doloris in a classroom and gives her sixty five cents

779
00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:41,440
Speaker 1: to give him a hand job. Dolores is excited to

780
00:44:41,520 --> 00:44:44,400
Speaker 1: be in the drama club and the Hunted Enchanters is

781
00:44:44,560 --> 00:44:47,480
Speaker 1: a recent play about a nym fete of sorts played

782
00:44:47,520 --> 00:44:49,440
Speaker 1: by her who falls in love with the poet. She

783
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:52,880
Speaker 1: forbids Humbert from spying on her rehearsals, but starts bringing

784
00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:55,960
Speaker 1: up that the hotel quote where you first raped me

785
00:44:56,160 --> 00:44:59,799
Speaker 1: unquote was called the Enchanted Hunters, where Humbert had met

786
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:02,239
Speaker 1: at strange drunk man. I told you to remember the

787
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:05,560
Speaker 1: night before the first performance. Humbert realizes Dolores has been

788
00:45:05,640 --> 00:45:08,040
Speaker 1: keeping the money for her piano lessons instead of going

789
00:45:08,120 --> 00:45:10,440
Speaker 1: to them, and he confronts her about it. Per Humbert,

790
00:45:10,960 --> 00:45:13,480
Speaker 1: she said I had attempted to violate her several times

791
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:16,080
Speaker 1: when I was her mother's rumor. She said, I was

792
00:45:16,200 --> 00:45:19,000
Speaker 1: sure I had murdered her mother. She said she would

793
00:45:19,040 --> 00:45:21,360
Speaker 1: sleep with the very first fellow who asked her, and

794
00:45:21,440 --> 00:45:24,239
Speaker 1: I could do nothing about it. On this night, he

795
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:27,120
Speaker 1: yells at her, grabs her arms so hard she's injured,

796
00:45:27,200 --> 00:45:29,600
Speaker 1: and she flees from the house. Humbert's afraid that she's

797
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:32,400
Speaker 1: gone for good, but not quite yet. He finds Dolorous

798
00:45:32,520 --> 00:45:34,680
Speaker 1: later in a better mood and tells him that she

799
00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:37,120
Speaker 1: wants to leave the school and the town at once,

800
00:45:37,320 --> 00:45:40,960
Speaker 1: and returned to the road. Humbert is thrilled back on

801
00:45:41,040 --> 00:45:43,880
Speaker 1: the road. It doesn't take long for humbert suspicion to escalate.

802
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:47,720
Speaker 1: He's convinced Dolores is communicating with another man. Whenever possible,

803
00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:49,319
Speaker 1: He sees her talk to a man in the car,

804
00:45:49,520 --> 00:45:52,279
Speaker 1: but Dolores insists it was a stranger. This happens a

805
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:56,000
Speaker 1: couple different times, until somewhere in Colorado, Dolores gets sick

806
00:45:56,280 --> 00:45:58,759
Speaker 1: and needs to go to the hospital. She recovers, but

807
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:02,120
Speaker 1: this brief separation from Humburg gives her the opportunity to

808
00:46:02,280 --> 00:46:04,839
Speaker 1: make her escape. When Humbert returns to bring her back

809
00:46:04,880 --> 00:46:07,160
Speaker 1: from the hospital, he's told that she has been taken

810
00:46:07,239 --> 00:46:12,680
Speaker 1: already by her quote uncle. Finally, at age fourteen, Dolores

811
00:46:12,920 --> 00:46:17,160
Speaker 1: has escaped. Humbert searches for her. For years. He traces

812
00:46:17,239 --> 00:46:19,680
Speaker 1: their steps back across the country, trying to figure out

813
00:46:19,719 --> 00:46:22,840
Speaker 1: who Dolores was communicating and left with, and fails to

814
00:46:22,920 --> 00:46:25,320
Speaker 1: do so. He dreams of her, but she takes the

815
00:46:25,400 --> 00:46:28,920
Speaker 1: form of his dead wives, Valeria, Charlotte, or both. He

816
00:46:29,080 --> 00:46:31,360
Speaker 1: mentions in the space of a sentence that he spends

817
00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:34,960
Speaker 1: another winter in spring in a Quebec sanatorium not focusing

818
00:46:35,000 --> 00:46:37,880
Speaker 1: on his mental health but writing long poems about Lolita.

819
00:46:38,200 --> 00:46:40,839
Speaker 1: He meets and starts a doomed relationship with a young

820
00:46:40,880 --> 00:46:44,560
Speaker 1: alcoholic named Rita for two years nineteen fifty nineteen fifty two,

821
00:46:44,760 --> 00:46:48,360
Speaker 1: who he promptly abandons. The moment he hears from Lolita

822
00:46:48,719 --> 00:46:52,239
Speaker 1: for the first time in three years, and her letter

823
00:46:52,480 --> 00:46:56,720
Speaker 1: breaks my heart every single time. Dear Dad, how's everything.

824
00:46:57,120 --> 00:46:59,680
Speaker 1: I'm married, I'm going to have a baby. I guess

825
00:46:59,719 --> 00:47:01,640
Speaker 1: he's to be a big one. I guess we'll come

826
00:47:01,719 --> 00:47:04,319
Speaker 1: right for Christmas. This is a hard letter to write.

827
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:06,279
Speaker 1: I'm going nuts because we don't have enough to pay

828
00:47:06,320 --> 00:47:08,120
Speaker 1: our dats and get out of here. Dick has promised

829
00:47:08,120 --> 00:47:10,560
Speaker 1: a big job in Alaska. Pardon me for withholding our

830
00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:12,560
Speaker 1: home address, but you may still be mad at me,

831
00:47:12,640 --> 00:47:15,359
Speaker 1: and Dick must not know. Please do send us a check, Dad.

832
00:47:15,560 --> 00:47:18,080
Speaker 1: We can manage with three or four hundred or even less.

833
00:47:18,160 --> 00:47:20,840
Speaker 1: Anything is welcome. You might sell my old things, because

834
00:47:21,040 --> 00:47:24,240
Speaker 1: once we get there the dolls start rolling in. Right. Please,

835
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:28,680
Speaker 1: I've gone through so much sadness and hardship yours expecting Dolly.

836
00:47:29,239 --> 00:47:32,400
Speaker 1: Mrs Richard F. Schiller Humbert finds out where she is

837
00:47:32,560 --> 00:47:36,200
Speaker 1: by tracking her down against her explicit wishes, thinking that

838
00:47:36,280 --> 00:47:38,520
Speaker 1: the man she's married to was the same one she

839
00:47:38,640 --> 00:47:41,680
Speaker 1: took off with back in nine and arrives with a

840
00:47:41,760 --> 00:47:45,280
Speaker 1: pistol at a rundown house on Hunter Road Enchanted Hunters,

841
00:47:45,360 --> 00:47:47,799
Speaker 1: Hunted Enchanters, Nice Touch and a book off to find

842
00:47:47,880 --> 00:47:52,040
Speaker 1: a seventeen year old Dolores, pregnant, poor with a husband

843
00:47:52,120 --> 00:47:55,000
Speaker 1: close to her own age, the sweet mechanic Dick Schiller.

844
00:47:55,400 --> 00:47:58,640
Speaker 1: Humbert realizes that Dick is not the guy he's looking

845
00:47:58,760 --> 00:48:01,600
Speaker 1: for and pushes Doloris on the identity of the man

846
00:48:01,719 --> 00:48:05,680
Speaker 1: from It's Clear Quilty, the drunk man from the Enchanted

847
00:48:05,760 --> 00:48:09,520
Speaker 1: Hunter's Hotel, the playwright of the Hunted Enchanters who directed

848
00:48:09,560 --> 00:48:13,320
Speaker 1: Dolores and Beardsley, and the nephew of the dentist from Ramsdale.

849
00:48:13,680 --> 00:48:16,360
Speaker 1: It's here where Dolores says that she'd known clear Quilty

850
00:48:16,480 --> 00:48:19,680
Speaker 1: and had been pursued by him before she ever met Humbert,

851
00:48:19,800 --> 00:48:22,279
Speaker 1: since she was ten years old, and that she'd heard

852
00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:24,719
Speaker 1: that he'd almost been thrown in jail for molesting young

853
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:26,840
Speaker 1: girls when she first met him, and it was this

854
00:48:27,040 --> 00:48:30,880
Speaker 1: clear quilty that had followed them from Beardsley to Colorado

855
00:48:31,040 --> 00:48:34,120
Speaker 1: and planned her escape. Where was he now? Dolores didn't

856
00:48:34,160 --> 00:48:37,080
Speaker 1: know she, at fourteen, was in love with him and

857
00:48:37,320 --> 00:48:39,640
Speaker 1: thought that he wanted to be with her, but quickly

858
00:48:39,719 --> 00:48:42,239
Speaker 1: realized he was much more interested in putting her in

859
00:48:42,480 --> 00:48:45,600
Speaker 1: hardcore pornography. When she refused, he kicked her out of

860
00:48:45,600 --> 00:48:48,759
Speaker 1: the house, and a dejected Dolores began making her own

861
00:48:48,840 --> 00:48:51,640
Speaker 1: living as a waitress before meeting Dick and getting married.

862
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:55,160
Speaker 1: After extracting the information he wants from her, Humbert realizes

863
00:48:55,480 --> 00:48:57,879
Speaker 1: as he tells it that he's still in love with her.

864
00:48:58,440 --> 00:49:01,640
Speaker 1: There she was, with how ruined looks, and her adult

865
00:49:02,360 --> 00:49:06,400
Speaker 1: rope veined narrow hands, and her goose flesh white arms,

866
00:49:06,840 --> 00:49:09,800
Speaker 1: and her shallow is and her unkempt armpits. There she

867
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:15,719
Speaker 1: was my Lolita, hopelessly worn at seventeen. And I looked

868
00:49:15,880 --> 00:49:18,680
Speaker 1: and looked at her and knew, as clearly as I

869
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:22,000
Speaker 1: am to die, that I loved her more than anything

870
00:49:22,239 --> 00:49:25,680
Speaker 1: I had ever seen or imagined on earth. He begs

871
00:49:25,760 --> 00:49:28,000
Speaker 1: to her is to leave with him. She asks him

872
00:49:28,040 --> 00:49:29,759
Speaker 1: if he'll give her the money if she doesn't go.

873
00:49:30,080 --> 00:49:32,120
Speaker 1: He says no, he'll give her the money either way,

874
00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:34,919
Speaker 1: and hands her four thousand dollars of his own money

875
00:49:35,080 --> 00:49:37,520
Speaker 1: and what's left from selling the old house in Ramstock,

876
00:49:37,760 --> 00:49:40,560
Speaker 1: the one thing Charlotte was really able to give her daughter.

877
00:49:40,640 --> 00:49:44,440
Speaker 1: In the end, Dolores is so excited and Humbert asks

878
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:48,800
Speaker 1: her to come with him one last time. She says no, no, honey, no.

879
00:49:49,120 --> 00:49:52,560
Speaker 1: And she does not say this, but Humbert projects this

880
00:49:52,800 --> 00:49:56,160
Speaker 1: final thought on her, referring to clear Quilty. He broke

881
00:49:56,239 --> 00:50:01,120
Speaker 1: my heart, you merely broke my life. Laura's is excited

882
00:50:01,160 --> 00:50:03,960
Speaker 1: to have the money, and she sees him off. Humbert

883
00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:07,680
Speaker 1: leaves tracks down Clerk Quilty, murders him, and is arrested

884
00:50:07,760 --> 00:50:10,400
Speaker 1: for nothing he ever did to do Laura's hayes, but

885
00:50:10,560 --> 00:50:14,040
Speaker 1: for murdering Quilty. Just one last humberd quote as he

886
00:50:14,160 --> 00:50:17,640
Speaker 1: overhears a group of girls playing towards the end quote,

887
00:50:18,200 --> 00:50:20,960
Speaker 1: I stood listening to that musical vibration from my lofty

888
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:23,839
Speaker 1: slope to those flashes of separate cries, with a kind

889
00:50:23,880 --> 00:50:27,040
Speaker 1: of demurror murmur for background, And then I knew that

890
00:50:27,160 --> 00:50:30,840
Speaker 1: the hopelessly poignant thing was not Lolita's absence from my side,

891
00:50:31,239 --> 00:50:34,680
Speaker 1: but the absence of her voice from that concorde. Unquote.

892
00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:37,440
Speaker 1: The book ends here. But remember we were told in

893
00:50:37,520 --> 00:50:41,400
Speaker 1: the foreword that Mrs Richard Schiller dies in childbirth in nWo.

894
00:50:41,640 --> 00:50:45,920
Speaker 1: That's Dolores dying at only seventeen years old. And that's Lolita,

895
00:50:46,080 --> 00:50:48,719
Speaker 1: the account from an admitted predator of his rape and

896
00:50:48,840 --> 00:50:51,480
Speaker 1: kidnapping of a twelve year old girl, with a smattering

897
00:50:51,560 --> 00:50:53,759
Speaker 1: of murders depending on how much you believe him. I

898
00:50:53,880 --> 00:50:56,239
Speaker 1: know this was a very long description, but I really

899
00:50:56,280 --> 00:50:58,640
Speaker 1: feel that knowing what happens in the book exactly makes

900
00:50:58,680 --> 00:51:00,759
Speaker 1: it a lot easier for you to see how far

901
00:51:00,840 --> 00:51:04,160
Speaker 1: away many adaptations get away from the very difficult source

902
00:51:04,239 --> 00:51:07,320
Speaker 1: material the book of who we really haven't gotten to

903
00:51:07,400 --> 00:51:10,080
Speaker 1: talk about yet, was pretty clear on his feelings about

904
00:51:10,160 --> 00:51:14,280
Speaker 1: Humbert Humbert from the moment of publication, saying the following quote,

905
00:51:14,640 --> 00:51:18,080
Speaker 1: Humbert Humbert is a vain and cruel wretch who manages

906
00:51:18,160 --> 00:51:22,480
Speaker 1: to appear quote touching unquote. Now, why he chose to

907
00:51:22,520 --> 00:51:24,720
Speaker 1: write this story is something we're going to talk about.

908
00:51:24,880 --> 00:51:27,640
Speaker 1: Who he's pulling inspiration from for these doomed characters is

909
00:51:27,719 --> 00:51:29,879
Speaker 1: something else altogether. But as far as the book goes,

910
00:51:30,200 --> 00:51:33,279
Speaker 1: Lolita is designed to lead its readers astray. You were

911
00:51:33,320 --> 00:51:36,000
Speaker 1: told before the narrative even starts that you were reading

912
00:51:36,080 --> 00:51:40,320
Speaker 1: the heavily biased, often ridiculously inaccurate account of a child

913
00:51:40,440 --> 00:51:44,360
Speaker 1: molester and murderer who is appealing directly to his jurors.

914
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:47,640
Speaker 1: From the first words, Humbert says, you learned that Lolita

915
00:51:47,800 --> 00:51:49,839
Speaker 1: is not even a name anyone else in her life

916
00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:52,839
Speaker 1: uses except for him. But then, well, god damn, he's

917
00:51:52,840 --> 00:51:56,320
Speaker 1: a pretty good writer. Imagine me. I shall not exist

918
00:51:56,440 --> 00:51:59,239
Speaker 1: if you do not imagine me. Humbert says. He is

919
00:51:59,480 --> 00:52:02,680
Speaker 1: extremely manipulative. And by the time we learn who Mrs

920
00:52:02,800 --> 00:52:05,839
Speaker 1: Richard Schiller is, and there's Dolores still being named based

921
00:52:05,880 --> 00:52:07,600
Speaker 1: on the dominant man on her life to the very

922
00:52:07,719 --> 00:52:10,239
Speaker 1: end that there is no one else alive to give

923
00:52:10,280 --> 00:52:14,160
Speaker 1: their account of these events. Charlotte Hayes is dead, Dolores

924
00:52:14,280 --> 00:52:17,120
Speaker 1: Hayes is dead. Humbert is the only person to tell

925
00:52:17,200 --> 00:52:19,440
Speaker 1: us his version of the events, and even so, with

926
00:52:19,520 --> 00:52:22,600
Speaker 1: this deeply biased account of what he claims to be loved,

927
00:52:22,719 --> 00:52:25,719
Speaker 1: even though Dolores assures him just months before her death

928
00:52:25,880 --> 00:52:29,600
Speaker 1: that it was not. There are glimmers of Dolores inside

929
00:52:29,680 --> 00:52:33,240
Speaker 1: of this story. She has raped hundreds of times by Humbert,

930
00:52:33,440 --> 00:52:36,440
Speaker 1: She's abducted by him, she's lied to, hit, spied to,

931
00:52:36,560 --> 00:52:39,759
Speaker 1: stolen from, and those facts are referenced inside of all

932
00:52:39,840 --> 00:52:43,120
Speaker 1: this fancy murderer prose, and still with no adult on

933
00:52:43,200 --> 00:52:46,239
Speaker 1: earth that she can trust, she gets away, and still

934
00:52:46,600 --> 00:52:51,120
Speaker 1: she only changes hands to her next abuser. A problem

935
00:52:51,160 --> 00:52:53,600
Speaker 1: a lot of readers bump up against in reading Lolita

936
00:52:53,800 --> 00:52:56,160
Speaker 1: is that, in spite of how much is talked about

937
00:52:56,360 --> 00:53:01,320
Speaker 1: Lolita from Humbert, her exact measurements horrified in details of assault,

938
00:53:01,440 --> 00:53:04,800
Speaker 1: we don't get to know Dolores all that well, aside

939
00:53:04,840 --> 00:53:08,520
Speaker 1: from what Humbred shares of mostly their arguments. But even

940
00:53:08,640 --> 00:53:12,719
Speaker 1: through the severe limitations that come with a heavily unreliable

941
00:53:12,840 --> 00:53:15,600
Speaker 1: narrator trying to talk you out of thinking what you

942
00:53:15,719 --> 00:53:18,160
Speaker 1: think about him, this is not the story of a

943
00:53:18,440 --> 00:53:21,840
Speaker 1: precocious girl seducing an older man, as he describes it,

944
00:53:22,040 --> 00:53:24,799
Speaker 1: and the reality is right there in the pages. It's

945
00:53:24,880 --> 00:53:27,600
Speaker 1: the story of a girl having her life taken from

946
00:53:27,640 --> 00:53:31,439
Speaker 1: her by a horrific, if well spoken pedophile and all

947
00:53:31,560 --> 00:53:33,920
Speaker 1: of the other adults in her life who failed to

948
00:53:34,000 --> 00:53:36,879
Speaker 1: help her along the way. At the time of publication,

949
00:53:37,320 --> 00:53:40,719
Speaker 1: this was a topic that was completely forbidden to discuss

950
00:53:40,800 --> 00:53:43,160
Speaker 1: in the United States and in most of the Western

951
00:53:43,320 --> 00:53:47,239
Speaker 1: world in spite of its reality becoming increasingly common. And

952
00:53:47,400 --> 00:53:50,480
Speaker 1: we'll be discussing the real life case that inspired Lolita

953
00:53:50,600 --> 00:53:53,839
Speaker 1: in a future episode. But then, as now, I think

954
00:53:53,920 --> 00:53:56,200
Speaker 1: that your interpretation of this book is a bit of

955
00:53:56,280 --> 00:53:59,400
Speaker 1: a mirror. My first read of it was very impacted

956
00:53:59,440 --> 00:54:02,359
Speaker 1: by my age, my experience is up until that time,

957
00:54:02,560 --> 00:54:05,920
Speaker 1: and the aesthetics surrounding not just the movie adaptations, but

958
00:54:06,120 --> 00:54:09,640
Speaker 1: around sexualizing young girls in general. And after reading this

959
00:54:09,800 --> 00:54:12,600
Speaker 1: book back four times to prepare for this show, I'm

960
00:54:12,640 --> 00:54:15,360
Speaker 1: now far more aggravated with how it was presented to

961
00:54:15,480 --> 00:54:18,200
Speaker 1: me than by the work itself. For me, a close

962
00:54:18,239 --> 00:54:21,960
Speaker 1: read of this work reveals that Nabokov is not glorifying

963
00:54:22,080 --> 00:54:25,120
Speaker 1: the predator. I believe it's our culture that has There's

964
00:54:25,120 --> 00:54:27,880
Speaker 1: a quote from Vera Nabokov, Vladimir's wife who will be

965
00:54:28,000 --> 00:54:31,280
Speaker 1: talking about in future episodes, on her feelings about Doloris,

966
00:54:31,440 --> 00:54:34,240
Speaker 1: the character. They all missed the fact that the horrid

967
00:54:34,320 --> 00:54:38,520
Speaker 1: little brat Lolita is essentially very good. Indeed, or she

968
00:54:38,600 --> 00:54:41,800
Speaker 1: would not have straightened out after being crushed so terribly

969
00:54:41,960 --> 00:54:44,400
Speaker 1: and found a decent life with poor Dick more to

970
00:54:44,480 --> 00:54:47,400
Speaker 1: her liking than the other kind. Another take on to

971
00:54:47,480 --> 00:54:50,760
Speaker 1: Luras I found really impactful in my research was reading

972
00:54:50,840 --> 00:54:55,120
Speaker 1: Lolita in Tehran, a memoir by Iranian author and professor

973
00:54:55,280 --> 00:54:58,600
Speaker 1: Azar Nafisi. It's the account of an undercovered book club

974
00:54:58,680 --> 00:55:01,520
Speaker 1: that she made for her the students after leaving as

975
00:55:01,520 --> 00:55:06,480
Speaker 1: a teacher at an Iranian university. From n Nafisi and

976
00:55:06,560 --> 00:55:10,000
Speaker 1: her group analyze Western literature through the lens of students

977
00:55:10,080 --> 00:55:13,000
Speaker 1: who haven't known anything but the oppressive gender roles of

978
00:55:13,080 --> 00:55:17,160
Speaker 1: revolutionary Iran. Per the title, they read, Lolita and Dolores's

979
00:55:17,239 --> 00:55:20,240
Speaker 1: plight really affected the whole group and got them discussing

980
00:55:20,400 --> 00:55:24,000
Speaker 1: their own girlhoods. Forty years after the book's publication, one

981
00:55:24,080 --> 00:55:27,919
Speaker 1: member of the group, Mascheid, said this, it is hard

982
00:55:28,040 --> 00:55:32,120
Speaker 1: for me to read the parts about Lolita's feelings. All

983
00:55:32,200 --> 00:55:35,239
Speaker 1: she wants to be as a normal girl. Now goes

984
00:55:35,280 --> 00:55:38,480
Speaker 1: on to say, Lolita belongs to a category of victims

985
00:55:38,520 --> 00:55:40,799
Speaker 1: who have no defense and are never given a chance

986
00:55:40,840 --> 00:55:44,520
Speaker 1: to articulate their own story. As such, she becomes a

987
00:55:44,600 --> 00:55:48,879
Speaker 1: double victim. Not only her life but also her life

988
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:52,279
Speaker 1: story is taken from her. We told ourselves that we

989
00:55:52,320 --> 00:55:54,760
Speaker 1: were in that class to prevent ourselves from falling victim

990
00:55:54,840 --> 00:55:57,880
Speaker 1: to this second crime. And as will continue to discuss,

991
00:55:58,000 --> 00:56:00,640
Speaker 1: there's a lot of very valid criticism are around Lolita

992
00:56:00,760 --> 00:56:04,120
Speaker 1: the book, like in Rebecca salm It's wonderful essay men

993
00:56:04,320 --> 00:56:07,320
Speaker 1: explain Lolita to Me, which she wrote after getting some

994
00:56:07,880 --> 00:56:12,040
Speaker 1: extremely condescending feedback while making the argument that the literary

995
00:56:12,200 --> 00:56:14,360
Speaker 1: canon that in a book golf is very much a

996
00:56:14,480 --> 00:56:18,000
Speaker 1: part of is perhaps dominated by straight white guys with

997
00:56:18,080 --> 00:56:22,719
Speaker 1: a tendency to harp on the suffering of their female characters. Huh.

998
00:56:23,040 --> 00:56:26,359
Speaker 1: Here's what Salnick says. So much of feminism has been

999
00:56:26,400 --> 00:56:31,239
Speaker 1: women speaking up about hitherto unacknowledged experiences, and so much

1000
00:56:31,280 --> 00:56:34,359
Speaker 1: of anti feminism has been men telling them these things

1001
00:56:34,440 --> 00:56:38,759
Speaker 1: don't happen. You were not just raped, your rapists may say,

1002
00:56:39,640 --> 00:56:42,080
Speaker 1: and then if you persist, there may be death threats,

1003
00:56:43,120 --> 00:56:45,120
Speaker 1: because killing people is the easy way to be the

1004
00:56:45,200 --> 00:56:48,680
Speaker 1: only voice in the room. Non white people get much

1005
00:56:48,719 --> 00:56:51,680
Speaker 1: the same rubbish about how there isn't racism and they

1006
00:56:51,719 --> 00:56:54,719
Speaker 1: don't get treated differently, and race doesn't affect any of us,

1007
00:56:55,960 --> 00:56:57,759
Speaker 1: and this is all very much in the wheelhouse of

1008
00:56:57,840 --> 00:57:01,600
Speaker 1: how Humbert Humbert represents Doloras, and the tendency to take

1009
00:57:01,680 --> 00:57:05,160
Speaker 1: this information at face value from Humbert is a huge

1010
00:57:05,239 --> 00:57:08,600
Speaker 1: contributor to why Lolita has come to popularly mean the

1011
00:57:08,680 --> 00:57:11,560
Speaker 1: sexualization of young girls instead of the story of a

1012
00:57:11,640 --> 00:57:15,560
Speaker 1: young girl's life being destroyed when she is sexualized and abused.

1013
00:57:15,800 --> 00:57:18,600
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that every appreciator of the book

1014
00:57:18,680 --> 00:57:20,880
Speaker 1: feels this way. I'm not saying that at all, but

1015
00:57:21,000 --> 00:57:24,640
Speaker 1: I do think you'll recognize this condescending, missing the fucking

1016
00:57:24,720 --> 00:57:28,560
Speaker 1: point tone that Solnett is describing here. A nice liberal

1017
00:57:28,600 --> 00:57:31,000
Speaker 1: man came along and explained to me this book was

1018
00:57:31,160 --> 00:57:34,520
Speaker 1: actually an allegory, as though I hadn't thought of that yet.

1019
00:57:34,760 --> 00:57:37,440
Speaker 1: It is, and it's also a novel about a big

1020
00:57:37,480 --> 00:57:41,880
Speaker 1: old guy violating a spindley child over and over and over.

1021
00:57:43,120 --> 00:57:45,880
Speaker 1: Then she weeps. And then another nice little man came

1022
00:57:45,920 --> 00:57:48,960
Speaker 1: along and said, you don't seem to understand the basic

1023
00:57:49,120 --> 00:57:51,520
Speaker 1: truth of art. I wouldn't care if a novel was

1024
00:57:51,520 --> 00:57:54,920
Speaker 1: about a bunch of women running around castrating men. If

1025
00:57:54,960 --> 00:57:58,120
Speaker 1: it was great writing, I'd want to read it, probably

1026
00:57:58,200 --> 00:58:00,880
Speaker 1: more than once. Of course, there is no such body

1027
00:58:00,920 --> 00:58:03,040
Speaker 1: of literature. And if the nice little man who made

1028
00:58:03,080 --> 00:58:06,000
Speaker 1: that statement had been assigned book after book full of

1029
00:58:06,120 --> 00:58:11,480
Speaker 1: castration scenes, maybe even celebrations of castration, it might have

1030
00:58:11,560 --> 00:58:14,200
Speaker 1: made an impact on him. One of the main problems

1031
00:58:14,320 --> 00:58:18,120
Speaker 1: people have with Lolita as a cultural figure is how

1032
00:58:18,200 --> 00:58:21,880
Speaker 1: she's shown in advertising. The heart shaped glasses, gazing at

1033
00:58:21,920 --> 00:58:24,760
Speaker 1: the viewer, the school girl close about to pop off

1034
00:58:24,840 --> 00:58:27,240
Speaker 1: that we've seen a million times, But that's not the

1035
00:58:27,320 --> 00:58:31,200
Speaker 1: Lolita that Nabokov writes about. The subject of all of

1036
00:58:31,280 --> 00:58:34,880
Speaker 1: the abuse of this story is Dolores, a twelve year old.

1037
00:58:35,160 --> 00:58:37,480
Speaker 1: So before we continue into the rest of the series,

1038
00:58:37,920 --> 00:58:40,960
Speaker 1: I want to remind you the age Dolores is when

1039
00:58:41,040 --> 00:58:46,720
Speaker 1: Humbert first violates her. Here's Amanda Buydes at twelve. I'm twelve,

1040
00:58:47,600 --> 00:59:00,600
Speaker 1: al yes, I can. Here's Marseille Martin at thirteen. It

1041
00:59:00,880 --> 00:59:04,760
Speaker 1: was amazing, Like, if you know, Beyonce is like my

1042
00:59:04,960 --> 00:59:09,560
Speaker 1: favorite person. Like we are talking about a twelve year

1043
00:59:09,600 --> 00:59:13,080
Speaker 1: old girl. And throughout the show, I'm going to continue

1044
00:59:13,160 --> 00:59:16,200
Speaker 1: to call the character as we know her, Dolores, and

1045
00:59:16,600 --> 00:59:20,280
Speaker 1: the book and the idea surrounding it as Lolita, because

1046
00:59:20,320 --> 00:59:23,600
Speaker 1: they are two different people. Dolores is present in slips

1047
00:59:23,640 --> 00:59:25,840
Speaker 1: of Humbrid's pen, but he doesn't let us get too

1048
00:59:25,880 --> 00:59:28,840
Speaker 1: close to her by design, the Lolita we meet at

1049
00:59:28,920 --> 00:59:32,920
Speaker 1: subsequent points and pop culture require taking Humbred's word at

1050
00:59:33,000 --> 00:59:35,680
Speaker 1: face value. When in the book, before you hear a

1051
00:59:35,800 --> 00:59:38,760
Speaker 1: word that he says, you know that that's the first

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00:59:38,840 --> 00:59:43,200
Speaker 1: thing you absolutely should not do. The cultural legacy of

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00:59:43,320 --> 00:59:46,720
Speaker 1: Lolita has just as much to do with Dolores's absence

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00:59:46,880 --> 00:59:50,000
Speaker 1: as it does with the presence of Humbrid's distorted fantasy.

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00:59:50,400 --> 00:59:53,400
Speaker 1: So if you've gotten this far into the episode and

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00:59:53,680 --> 00:59:57,600
Speaker 1: had some hesitation at that reading or rereading Lolita the

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00:59:57,720 --> 01:00:01,160
Speaker 1: book beforehand, and your will to give it another shot,

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01:00:01,600 --> 01:00:03,280
Speaker 1: I'd be interested to talk to you on the show.

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01:00:03,840 --> 01:00:06,640
Speaker 1: So if you like, I'm going to be cobbling together

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01:00:06,840 --> 01:00:09,440
Speaker 1: a book club of listeners to discuss the book on

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01:00:09,600 --> 01:00:12,040
Speaker 1: discord over the next eight weeks or so as this

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01:00:12,160 --> 01:00:14,880
Speaker 1: series continues to come out. And for the link on that,

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01:00:15,040 --> 01:00:16,880
Speaker 1: I will leave it in the show notes, as well

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01:00:17,040 --> 01:00:19,960
Speaker 1: as a pint to my Twitter account over at Jamie

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01:00:20,080 --> 01:00:25,680
Speaker 1: Loftus Help. So that's episode one, and it does require

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01:00:25,840 --> 01:00:28,920
Speaker 1: some addressing that this book was written by someone whose

1067
01:00:29,000 --> 01:00:33,680
Speaker 1: life experiences are way more aligned with Humbert's than Dolores's.

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01:00:34,120 --> 01:00:38,160
Speaker 1: So nibulkof Why the funk Did You write This? Next

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01:00:38,200 --> 01:00:47,000
Speaker 1: week on Lolita Podcast. This has been a production of

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01:00:47,080 --> 01:00:49,880
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. My name's Jamie Loftus. I right and

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01:00:49,960 --> 01:00:53,320
Speaker 1: host the show. My producers are the wonderful Sophie Lichterman,

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01:00:53,440 --> 01:00:57,520
Speaker 1: Miles Gray, Beth and Macaluso and Jack O'Brien. My editor

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01:00:57,720 --> 01:01:01,600
Speaker 1: is the amazing Isaac Taylor. Additional research and transcription work

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01:01:01,680 --> 01:01:04,920
Speaker 1: from Ben Loftus. Music is by Zoey Blade, and our

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01:01:05,080 --> 01:01:08,040
Speaker 1: theme is from Brad Dickert. Thank you so much to

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01:01:08,120 --> 01:01:11,320
Speaker 1: my guest voices on this episode as well, Aziz Vora

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01:01:11,800 --> 01:01:16,640
Speaker 1: as Humbert Humbert, Robert Evans as Vladimir nabuk Off, Julia Claire, Anna,

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01:01:16,720 --> 01:01:21,200
Speaker 1: Josnie Sharene, Lanni Units, Grace Thomas, and Miles Gray. We'll

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01:01:21,240 --> 01:01:21,960
Speaker 1: see you next week.