(I posted this as a comment on to a blog about Nabokov's 'Lolita' and thought I'd include it here.)
It's unfortunate that Nabokov's beautiful book and all the symbolism in it have been reduced to a word most recognizable as a porn genre. The book defies any reinterpretation or adaptation. The screenplay adaptation he wrote for Kubrick was simply a shorter version of the book, heavy with Humbert's narration.
None of the films come close to capturing what Humbert was feeling, and the way that he side-stepped the details of what exactly was happening, to himself as well as Delores. The book is helpfully vague, allowing the reader to fill in the blanks. As I've read it, years apart, the hidden meanings can take on different directions.
Lolita is that which you cannot have, but are compelled to possess. And in having it, you destroy it. Like a picking a flower too delicate to be held, it disintigrates in your hand. But its death is beautiful too.
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