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Comment by mise_en_place | Hacker News Reader

I've only seen the Kubrick adaptation but it was very heavily implied that the narrator is impotent. He's shown to be a character to be laughed at, nervous in his behavior, and quite hapless in romantic overtures.

Contrast that with the movie Pretty Baby where the main character becomes obsessed with a 12 year old prostitute and then sleeps with her. I find that movie to be more bordering on the obscene than Lolita.

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> Contrast that with the movie Pretty Baby where the main character becomes obsessed with a 12 year old prostitute and then sleeps with her. I find that movie to be more bordering on the obscene than Lolita.

It surprised me to find that this movie is available on several streaming platforms. Given the content I always wonder how this works within the legal framework of the US. BTW, my take on that movie was that he actually didn't sleep with her (though likely planned to eventually).

Brooke Shields' childhood career was very strange. It's like she was the child that America decided that it was alright to be sexually attracted to, and alright to exploit that sexuality to make money on a pretty huge scale.

I’ve not read it either, but perhaps it’s similar to how a horror movie is less horrifying than reading a horror book. Artistic license occurs and you are compressing source materials. Based on other descriptions in the threads here, the character is terrible but trying to make himself sound good. How your brain interprets that can differ. Abject monster seems what everyone else thinks, but movies probably would change that and make him into an awkward idiot.

Kubrick is one of those men who looked at Lolita and saw a romance, when it is plainly and clearly a story of appalling abuse and rape. Watching a movie adaptation will not tell you anything at all about the book, because the movies are made by men who did not understand the book in any way.

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