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Originally Posted by fantasyfan
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I also thought about Silence of the Lambs during my reading. I think, though, that SOTL makes it easier for us to tolerate {barely} Hannibal Lector because the film presents another perhaps even more horrible serial killer whom Hannibal is helping to capture. Further we are never really invited to deeply explore his thought processes to the extent that we are with Humbert; Nabokov pulls us into the horror through incredibly beautiful prose in which Humbert massages self-justifications and rationalizations to excuse hideous evil. In a way, Lolita is far mor frightening than SOTL
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I think that is a powerful insight. Our pity is for Dolores--the innocent and helpless victim--but our fear is that Humbert is an evil mirror of our own weaknesses--whatever form they take. It is the pity and the fear that make reading Lolita so uncomfortable--even painful--despite the beauty of the language.
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I saw a small part of the film SOTL and that was enough for me. From what I saw I think the two stories are comparable; they both manipulate the minds of people, their prey, and seem to be obsessively drawn to them.
The elegant prose Humbert uses is no more than a smoke-screen, a way to justify his thoughts and actions, his disregard for other people. He uses all and everyone to get what he wants.
And in that sense this story is disturbing. Most people have morals and values that stop their fleeting thoughts (what if I.....) from being reality. That goes also for one's very private thoughts on sexuality.
And of course, Dolores is to be pitied. Futher on in the book she calls the first night she spend with Humbert 'rape'. He describes it as a consensual thing. He is unreliable narrator, so I keep thinking: "what has really happened?".
What bugs me is the role of the adults. Where is her mother, who should protect and look after her girl? She is more of an enemy to that child than a mother. Also the other adults don't seem to care.
It is a very bleak, cruel picture of society that Nabokov shows us.
And to answer my own question; yes, it is literature and not trash. It does what literature should do: examine one's own position on a subject, even though this subject touches on very private things; taboos.