You know how some people are adept in literature and science, and some people are adept at math and science, but rarely are people good at math AND literature (and I really do dislike those that are; go away, you ruin my favored odds for attention and influence). I think this is for a reason. I mean, have you met those people? Are they any fun at parties? I think it would more fun to have been completely drunk and uninhibited in front of a fantastic looking man and find out he's a psychologist at the end of the night than to have the Total Brain person at my cocktail get-together. They have such fantastic use of their hemispheres but seem to have no access to whatever portion holds the humor. I am lover of aesthetics. I prefer lamps to overhead lights (too clinical, makes me think of paper dresses and stirrups); pasta to potatoes; cream sauce to marinara; area rugs. You get it. So I can't understand how this kind of person would be fun to talk with. I mean, really, how many mathematicians do you find sexier than a requisite 20 minutes together or two by yourself?

That previous paragraph was a complete failure at leading into my real subject. Sigh. So, I have studied literature. (And science. I'm that type.) A B.A.'s worth, anyway, and am working on a Master's. I am intimidated by anything pre-Renaissance. It's to do with the language. I don't like the weird little feeling in my forehead when I am trying to read something that is supposedly English but not quite. It's like flour-less cake or Diet Caffeine Free Coke. I do, however, feel compelled to read it, to study it, to submit myself to the challenge. First of all, Chaucer really is quite funny...in translation. And second, how can I say I am a master of literature if I am unfamiliar with the origins of the English side of it? Anyway, I am finding my limits in literature and this...bothers me.

While a junior at my undergrad university, I heard the story of our department chair telling a class that she had never read Moby Dick, would never read it, and she was fine with it. The joke then became that we should have t-shirts printed that said, "I'm an English Major and I've Never Read _________." The bold claim--real or legendary--of that woman inspired me. I mean, she had a Ph.D and was the fucking department chair. If she could have one book she refused to read and still hold her chin up, then so could I. My one? Lolita. I asked a friend what he thought and if he liked it. He told me he read it. I'm not sure he did.
His response, "Yes."
Me:
Him:
Me: "So, you liked it?"
Him: "Oh, yes."
Me:
Him:
Me: "Why? What did you like?"
Him: "All of it. And I liked it because it made me think."
Me, parenthetically, of course: Made you think of what?
Me, aloud: "Oh. O.K."

I don't like that book. My boundaries are pretty broad, but a man being seduced by a 12 year-old girl is the story from one perspective: a sick man, one obsessed with young--very young--girls. I feel no need to identify with or understand pedophilia or to dress it up in becoming words. My disgust was solidified when Playboy became interested in Nabokov after the success of Lolita in the U.S. Now, if the book was only about one man's pathology, why would Playboy be so interested? The magazine is about sex, sexuality, and objectification of women. It is also about adult women having the freedom--and with full consent and understanding--to do with their bodies as they choose. What 12 year-old girl has full understanding of the emotional, physical, and psychological impact and consequences of her involvement in sex. I am amazed to read people justify the work as incredible for its ability to get inside the charming mind of the monster. I wonder which life these people have lived to not know that there are more charismatic monsters out there than there are bores. Had he brutally killed her, it might not have been described with such tender words. But no, he only molested and violated her, and after all, she wanted it and even used it to get what she wanted, and its all told with humor and such lovely prose.

What prompted my thoughts? This did. Obviously, I disagree with at least number 22.