An explanation of why I’m bouncing off the walls Until May 2nd (Hurry up and preorder NOW)
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This is taken verbatim from https://mmgoodbookreviews.wordpress.com/2017/04/25/quickening-vol-1-by-amy-lane-blog-tour-guest-post-excerpt/
How It All Began
by Amy Lane
So I know for a lot of people, the “big deal” of Quickening’s release is sort of lost.
Amy writes lots of books. Lots of big books. So?
And let’s face it—this one’s got a girl on the cover, and, yes, well, girls on the cover of an author known for her gay male romance work does not inspire a lot of “HUZZAH!”
But, like with everything, there is a story…
So, once upon a time there was an English teacher who felt compelled to go back to school to get her master’s degree. Why? Well, it was unclear even then. All of her peers were doing it, and it appeared to be the only way to get any income mobility and…
Whatever.
Everybody else was getting their MA in education, the better to become administration, but this particular English teacher wouldn’t touch administration with a barge pole. Ugh. Gross. No.
But learn more about her subject matter? Holy Goddess YES!
So she took a bunch of different classes—an entire semester on Hamlet, anyone? And finally decided that creative writing was where she wanted to be.
And she was in this class, loving it, when some asshole dropped a couple of planes on some buildings in New York, and she had a big epiphany: She’d left her two young children at home during her school time, and they were only six and eight at the time, and she didn’t want to spend her precious moments taking classes to make a quota, she wanted to spend her time with them.
So she dropped out of the master’s program—but she kept writing.
Three and a half years later she self-published the book she’d started during that time in the master’s class. It felt like self-aggrandizement mostly—the master’s project was a finished novel, and hey, she’d done that, so even if she didn’t have the piece of paper to prove it, she had Vulnerable.
This was back when self-publishing was in its infancy, and our English teacher made a LOT of mistakes—a lot of them surprisingly enough, in English.
This was back during a DARK period in language instruction. A time called “whole language” learning—when it was considered unprofessional for an English teacher to so much as request a grammar textbook to teach her students how to write English with any sort of proficiency. They were supposed to just “absorb” that knowledge from the books they read.
For the record—it didn’t work.
Also?
It destroyed this particular English teacher’s basic knowledge of grammar and punctuation—all she was reading at the time was student papers.
Which meant when her masterpiece came out, there were some really fucking embarrassing errors all over the goddamned manuscript.
But she didn’t care. Because seriously. How many people were going to read something she wrote? She worked in an extremely misogynistic environment—none of the people in her staff room would so much as let her finish a sentence. She grew up with people who thought she was too stupid to finish college in the first place—and were really confused as to why she’d take master’s classes in something that wouldn’t get her more money just because she hated the job. Her students thought she was okay—but it was an inner-city school, and the ones who didn’t think she was okay told her she was a dumbfuck twat on a daily basis, and her administration didn’t really think that was too bad on the whole.
Her children—whom she adored—both had their own difficulties in school. Obviously her fault, because what did she do wrong to produce a kid with a communication handicap and one with a skewed, Eyeore view of life, even at six?
Nobody would read this book. (Except her outstanding and wonderful Mate.) Nobody would care. It was her accomplishment, and hers alone, and she was really proud of it.
And she was proud of the next one, and the next one, and the one after that. For six years, her Christmas gift from her husband was a chance to self-publish the book she’d written that year between kids and school and soccer and dance and karate and, oh, hey, giving birth to two more children for a total of four.
And then, one day, someone on Twitter asked for a short fic—just a short fic—based on a video of some really hot guys and a dirty guitar riff, and she wrote it, just for fun…
And these people—this publishing company—loved it.
In fact, they had read her books. They loved her stories. They thought she was worthwhile—they wanted to see what else she could write.
And her love affair with writing purely gay romance began.
Now, the last thing she’d written on her own had been the fourth book in her first series—Rampant.
And she’d dropped a helluva bomb at the end of that book. A sort of, uh, BIG cliffhanger. Or two.
And just when her writing career in gay romance took off, her teaching career took a HUGE, devastating, killing hit—and yes, the two things were very closely connected. So suddenly, writing gay romance became the thing she absolutely had to do.
It became her livelihood.
And finishing that series—ending that cliffhanger—that became the last thing on her list.
So… what does this have to do with Quickening?
Seven years ago I wrote a book that ended with a teeny-tiny-itty-bitty sorceress being told some VERY BIG GINORMOUS LIFE CHANGING NEWS.
And people have been waiting to see how that comes out. For seven years.
So I’m going to be writing some blog posts about this book in the next week—and I’m going to be WAY more excited about its release than I think my community is going to be.
But that’s okay—because the first book was something I wanted to do for myself. And this book was a promise I kept to all the people who thought that first book was something special, something that resonated with them, and took the time to tell me that my voice—the one that seemed to be raised desperately unheard for so long—was really important to them.
So it’s possible Quickening isn’t going to take the gay romance world by storm.
But I’m so happy that it’s out, I’m could actually cry.
If you’re interested in the books that started it all, start with Vulnerable—it’s been re-edited and recovered, as have all of the original books in the series.
If you’re a fan of the series already, and you’ve been waiting for the last seven years—you’re the best. Period. I couldn’t have done the last twelve years without you.
Amy
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Quickening, volume 1
Little Goddess (Book 5)
DSP Publications
(May 2, 2017)
316 pages
Little Goddess: Book Five
Volume One
Cory thought she’d found balance on Green's Hill—sorceress, student, queen of the vampires, wife to three men—she had it down! But establishing her right to risk herself with Green and Bracken had more than one consequence, and now she’s facing the world's scariest job title: mother.
But getting the news that she’s knocked up takes a back seat when a half-elf hunts them down for help. Her arrival brings news that the werewolf threat, which has been haunting them for over a year, has finally arrived on their doorstep—and it’s bigger and more frightening than they’d ever imagined.
Cory throws herself into this new battle with everything she’s got—and her men let her do it. Because they all know that whether they defeat this enemy now or later, the thing she's most afraid of is arriving on a set schedule, and not even Cory can avoid it. The trick is getting her to acknowledge she's pregnant before she gives birth—or kills herself in denial.
AnnaLane’s Review for Ride the Storm by Karen Chance
I made the mistake of thinking I could savor this book – that I could treat myself to one or two chapters a night. I was so wrong. I had to DEVOUR it.
It went by so fast and it pulled me in every direction. I feel like that’s hard to do with a book series that’s basically a sci-fi/ fantasy Lord of the Rings, but the style of writing makes it impossible for me to stop wanting more. Plus, hey I don’t know if it was intentional, but “Get off the road!”
It felt like a massive shake-up for the series re: the war, the characters, the alliances, etc. I had to take a break at one point and refuel on ch.1-2 of Reap the Wind. Side note/spoiler kinda: Caedmon makes another appearance and I am just such a fan of this guy. In the future, I want more and more of his cat-and-mouse play/badassery (for that is his true element)!
The book seemed the darkest one yet. For instance, one part has me I’m-seriously-listening-to-Susan-Boyle’s-cover-of-“Wild-Horses”-on-repeat sad. On the other hand I’m also super happy because I get to read about Pritkin again!
The darker tone could be for any number of reasons, but it’s most likely just because the war is higher stakes, it’s grander, and things just couldn’t stay the way they were. Not like there isn’t humor because there’s definitely still that (Glob!Rosier’s da real MVP), but like I said, gut punching in other respects. And unexpected (at least, I wasn’t expecting things to happen the way they happened). Where do we go from here? As a reader I’m being kept on my toes. I love it.
And I am already desperate for more.
—4.88 stars (that .12 is the broken part of my heart, which the other parts of my heart are mocking. Poor .12). Will be posting to Goodreads as soon as I make an account and figure it out.Great review! I think you’re right, the tone is definitely darker – I think there were just less of those sidesplitting comic sequences usually peppered throughout the series (think Dory on the run with a headless mostly naked Ray). And that ‘fucking Merlin’ tag = ACCURATE lol.
another arc review!!!
Cassandra Palmer
Signet
August 1, 2017
432
The New York Times bestselling author of Reap the Wind returns to the “fascinating world”* of Cassie Palmer. Ever since being stuck with the job of pythia, the chief seer of the supernatural world, Cassie Palmer has been playing catch up. Catch up to the lifetime's worth of training she missed being raised by a psychotic vampire instead of at the fabled pythian court. Catch up to the powerful, and sometimes seductive, forces trying to mold her to their will. It's been a trial by fire that has left her more than a little burned. But now she realizes that all that was the just the warm up for the real race. Ancient forces that once terrorized the world are trying to return, and Cassie is the only one who can stop them...
Curse the Dawn ch24-25
Time to cry over CtD some more! It’s funny this is one of those books I don’t reread all that much (unlike htm which I can nearly recite by heart) so I’ve forgotten how really really good it is. I’m just enjoying it so much:
-chapter 24 – where do I start with this one? Rosier siccing the rakshasas on his kid and then wondering why he’s a great father, ummmm, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?? Pritkin, once again trying to sacrifice himself for Cassie, that boy has a complex (side note: I love how KC follows through on things – she makes it very clear that Pritkin has something of a saviour complex, where Cassie is concerned anyway and it ultimately gets him killed. His sacrifice in HtM was actually super predictable and we really ought to have seen something like it coming. I mean, “It was the only reasonable course of action,” FOR REAL, who says that after almost getting themselves killed??). Plus, we have sudden, out of nowhere Casskin making out, which is essentially what I live for. Like most of the body swap stuff it’s simultaneously weird and sexy. Cassie is essentially getting to see the effect she normally has on Pritkin, and well, it’s hot. The ley line car chase is KC’s usual brand of breakneck pace, humour and adrenaline. I love how even Pritkin is freaked out by the whole thing.
– chapter 25 – I’m gonna have a stroke, there’s so much going on here. Marsden’s dog trying to attack Mircea. Mircea hugging Pritkin-in-Cassie’s-body. Cassie-in-Pritkin’s-body accidentally swearing at Mircea and pissing him off. Mircea pulling Pritkin-in-Cassie’s-body out of the room, presumably for some relieved reunion cuddles and from the sounds of things, gets slapped or kneed in the nuts or sth. Marlowe, dressed up and ready to party, wandering around offering everyone booze. Cassie talking shit in front of everyone: “What? You like wearing a bra?” Serious note – hasn’t Saunders turned up early? Cassie’s been saying all day that her meeting with Saunders is ‘tomorrow’ but this is still today right?? I’m confused. Less serious note – Marlowe trying to provoke Pritkin is one of the many many joys in these books, they should wrestle it out again. There could be some kind of oil involved … Uh, moving on. “Renegotiate this!” Epically silly line, 10/10, would put in trailer for movie adaptation which is sadly never gonna happen. Mircea kissing Cassie-in-Pritkin’s-body – either he’s very relieved that Cassie’s okay or he’s always secretly wanted to make out with Pritkin a little bit. I mean, who hasn’t?
So, Fist I have to say thank you to @windsurfingthroughhell for posting these awesome summaries on the reread. I suck at writing summaries. I discovered this when I tried to do a timeline for the Anita Blake series cause I kept getting confused. The software i used https://www.tiki-toki.com/ is amazingly awesome, But the free account only allows a certain number of entries. And by the time I got to the 4 or 5 Anita Blake books, I had hit the max. Which was totally insane. And those of you who saw my attempts for the Cassandra Palmer series, know I get lost in all the stuff.
I am hoping someone will make a Cassandra Palmer timeline for us all to share at https://www.tiki-toki.com/ since I already used my freebie, and that thing took weeks of work, so I don’t care if its incomplete, I ain’t deleting it.
SO, my original point is that I keep responding to these posts, cause it keeps me from dancing merrily along to my tangential brains music…So, I am not arguing points or tearing anyone down, OK? Just adding my two cents, and if I get a little vehement, it’s only because all of these characters mean something to me, even FRED for god’s sake…
From the beginning, Rossier confuses the shit out of me. So, the fact that Rossier, who hates Artemis and Cassie with a vehemence, is the vehicle through which Apollo is taken down is just Fucking Priceless. I think the fact that Rossier has antipathy towards Cassie and always jumps to “let’s kill her” is odd. I mean, theoretically he has been waiting all these years for SOMEONE to break through Pritkin’s self hatred and walls. But from the moment Cassie shows up, well its weird. It keeps getting weirder.
These chapters are my favorite part. We see so much stuff. It hard to even begin listing it or really digest it. I love Cassie, and its hysterical to see the vampires out of their element, the mages out of theirs and god so much more. I mean, theoretically they are all supposed to be working together but no one knows anyone else’s plan, they don’t even know who is who!
And seeing Kit Marlowe, spy extraordinaire still fucking lost-it just makes me giggle. I mean they are fighting gods, with Cleopatra and Jack the Ripper and all Marlowe can do is hand out drinks. He’s the stewardess on this flight to Ragnorak…And he keeps hitting his goddamned head, which is so fucking unfair. And he knows something is up with Pritkin, cause he isn’t responding right, but in his defense who’s first thought would be “That must be the pythia’s soul in the war mages body because of a chaos loving buddhist type god”? (Since we are on a reread, I will also say that I love it when Cassie and Mircea end up arguing in Marlowe’s office later, and he’s all “there is a god and he loves me”) As a second aside, does anyone else want to know how Marlowe’s ties to the witches just up and disappeared?
And then you add in the triple D’s and Apollo and running up how many goddamned floors with Prtikin in a dress?
And yeah I REALLY want Karen to write the Pritkin Pov of what happens in that bedroom between Cassie’s body, Pritkin’s Soul, and Mircea! Damnit, maybe there will be another event or opportunity to bring that up at some point when Karen has contracts for more books, and is looking for an idea…Sigh, who am I kidding? I don’t have the money to buy a swag bag, let alone…oh well, I digress
And when Mircea kisses Cassie in Pritkin, just WOW. I mean I know sexuality is probably mutable but still, to love someone’s soul so much that it transcends the physical…sigh again!
Anyways, I could go on forever, but who wants to read that? SO, thank you for giving me talking points and tell me where I’m wrong. I keep trying to do reread posts, but I read too fast and even though I am rereading the same stuff, each time i get a little bit different stuff.
Fiction
Penguin UK
April 2, 2009
400
Cassie Palmer, the world's chief clairvoyant, just can't seem to stay away from trouble. After trying to come to an agreement with the Silver Circle - the magical organisation that's been trying to kill her for years - she finds herself kidnapped by one of its members and swept away in the ley line system, a series of magical currents that occupies the space between worlds. Cassie manages to escape but, fearing for her safety, she decides to invest in a magical device for protection. However, all she can afford is a statue that grants wishes ...But what Cassie doesn't realize is that the statue doesn't always grant wishes the way the wisher would like. And when she wishes for the strength to shift herself and companion Pritkin away from a dangerous fight, the statue grants the wish by switching her into Pritkin's body and him into hers. And that's when the real trouble starts ...
Author Scott Lynch responds to a critic of the character Zamira Drakasha, a black woman pirate in his fantasy book Red Seas Under Red Skies, the second novel of the Gentleman Bastard series.
The bolded sections represent quotes from the criticism he received. All the z-snaps are in order.
Your characters are unrealistic stereotpyes of political correctness. Is it really necessary for the sake of popular sensibilities to have in a fantasy what we have in the real world? I read fantasy to get away from politically correct cliches.
God, yes! If there’s one thing fantasy is just crawling with these days it’s widowed black middle-aged pirate moms.
Real sea pirates could not be controlled by women, they were vicous rapits and murderers and I am sorry to say it was a man’s world. It is unrealistic wish fulfilment for you and your readers to have so many female pirates, especially if you want to be politically correct about it!
First, I will pretend that your last sentence makes sense because it will save us all time. Second, now you’re pissing me off.
You know what? Yeah, Zamira Drakasha, middle-aged pirate mother of two, is a wish-fulfillment fantasy. I realized this as she was evolving on the page, and you know what? I fucking embrace it.
Why shouldn’t middle-aged mothers get a wish-fulfillment character, you sad little bigot? Everyone else does. H.L. Mencken once wrote that “Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” I can’t think of anyone to whom that applies more than my own mom, and the mothers on my friends list, with the incredible demands on time and spirit they face in their efforts to raise their kids, preserve their families, and save their own identity/sanity into the bargain.
Shit yes, Zamira Drakasha, leaping across the gap between burning ships with twin sabers in hand to kick in some fucking heads and sail off into the sunset with her toddlers in her arms and a hold full of plundered goods, is a wish-fulfillment fantasy from hell. I offer her up on a silver platter with a fucking bow on top; I hope she amuses and delights. In my fictional world, opportunities for butt-kicking do not cease merely because one isn’t a beautiful teenager or a muscle-wrapped font of testosterone. In my fictional universe, the main characters are a fat ugly guy and a skinny forgettable guy, with a supporting cast that includes “SBF, 41, nonsmoker, 2 children, buccaneer of no fixed abode, seeks unescorted merchant for light boarding, heavy plunder.”
You don’t like it? Don’t buy my books. Get your own fictional universe. Your cabbage-water vision of worldbuilding bores me to tears.
As for the “man’s world” thing, religious sentiments and gender prejudices flow differently in this fictional world. Women are regarded as luckier, better sailors than men. It’s regarded as folly for a ship to put to sea without at least one female officer; there are several all-female naval military traditions dating back centuries, and Drakasha comes from one of them. As for claims to “realism,” your complaint is of a kind with those from bigoted hand-wringers who whine that women can’t possibly fly combat aircraft, command naval vessels, serve in infantry actions, work as firefighters, police officers, etc. despite the fact that they do all of those things– and are, for a certainty, doing them all somewhere at this very minute. Tell me that a fit fortyish woman with 25+ years of experience at sea and several decades of live bladefighting practice under her belt isn’t a threat when she runs across the deck toward you, and I’ll tell you something in return– you’re gonna die of stab wounds.
What you’re really complaining about isn’t the fact that my fiction violates some objective “reality,” but rather that it impinges upon your sad, dull little conception of how the world works. I’m not beholden to the confirmation of your prejudices; to be perfectly frank, the prospect of confining the female characters in my story to placid, helpless secondary places in the narrative is so goddamn boring that I would rather not write at all. I’m not writing history, I’m writing speculative fiction. Nobody’s going to force you to buy it. Conversely, you’re cracked if you think you can persuade me not to write about what amuses and excites me in deference to your vision, because your vision fucking sucks.
I do not expect to change your mind but i hope that you will at least consider that I and others will not be buying your work because of these issues. I have been reading science fiction and fantasy for years and i know that I speak for a great many people. I hope you might stop to think about the sales you will lose because you want to bring your political corectness and foul language into fantasy. if we wanted those things we could go to the movies. Think about this!
Thank you for your sentiments. I offer you in exchange this engraved invitation to go piss up a hill, suitable for framing.
Here follows is a non-comprehensive list of historical female pirates and sailors, women of color first:
- Ching Shih (1775-1844): controlled south China seas, had 80,000-man fleet at her disposal, outlawed rape, extorted retirement package from the Chinese government.
- Sayyida al-Hurra (1482-1562): Pirate queen of Morocco who bedeviled Portuguese and Spanish fleets after being kicked out of Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella in her youth.
- William Brown (1800s, birth name unknown): married Grenadan woman who disguised self as man after fight with her husband and became a sailor.
- Jacquotte Delahaye (1600s): half-Haitian woman who, according to some sources, took over an island and led a force of hundreds of pirates.
- Hingyuon (1800s): Filipina warrior/probable pirate who led armies in Cebu; relative of Humabon, “first truly wealthy person in Cebu”
- Lai Choi San (1900s): Chinese pirate who commanded 12 ships and was a model for the Dragon Lady archetype; thinly-sourced
- Mary Lacy (1740-1801): willful bisexual runaway who became first female shipwright; disguised self as man but claimed pension under own name
- Alfhild (400s): Viking princess who decided to become a pirate instead of getting married.
- Anne Dieu-le-Veut (1661-1710): French pirate who fought along Laurens de Graaf for many years.
- Anne Bonny and Mary Read (1700-1782, c.1690-1721): probably the two most famous female pirates of all time
- Granuaile aka Grace O’Malley (1530-1603): Irish pirate queen who led rebellions against England, personally negotiated with Elizabeth I, gave birth on a ship.
- Cecilia Vasa (1540-1627): Swedish princess who got into endless scandals, became a pirate briefly, was utter black sheep, hated the English.
- Mary Patten (1800s): Took control of ship when her husband suffered mutiny, learned medicine, navigated to port, all while pregnant
- Christina Anna Skytte (1643-1677): Swedish baroness and pirate, very ruthless
- Jeanne de Clisson (c.1300-1359): burnt down much of the Normandy coast and sank a ton of ships after her husband was killed.
- Charlotte Badger (1778-?): Australian convict/single mom who took over ship, sailed to New Zealand, settled with Maori tribe.
In conclusion: read a goddamn book, critic person.
You know, the trolls on the internet are not good people. Nor are they sane!
[Top]Midnight’s Daughter
So, I am skipping around a bit and I know it all to well…but here’s the thing. I am trying really hard to do reviews of all the Karen Chance books but there is just too much. Each book is a gazillion things and I’m working hard to try and list them all,but my reviews end up being books themselves, even if I only write one sentence per event and I end up writing way more than 1 sentence. So, while I am struggling through page by page to make sure you get everything I’m also reading on my own time. So I’m about 2/3 through Midnight’s Daughter and only 1/3 through the review of Touch the Dark…
But I just can’t keep my mouth shut. I’m giggling over Dory. Shaking my head at Louis-Cesar. Totally enchanted by Radu. Laughing at Radu telling Dory he had to stay way from Louis-Cesar because of the “timeline thing” which is a summary of Cassie book 1. Dory says that thing I’d know about if I knew what was going on in the family? and Radu just keeps right on going like she know what in the sam hill he is talking about. Imagining a dinner with Radu dressed flamboyantly and miniature cows herding around on the table then falling in the lap of the guests. The King and the Troll Widow and stinky all trying to eat the cows. Radu’s dismay at the chef being upset. The Sheer absurdity of it all! Then, Dory turning down sex with the king of the fae-only to bite him and have it be the opposite of what she wanted to happen! And the hilarity of her and Radu talking in the parlor as the chandelier swings from the fight between Louis-Cesar and Caedmon over Dory’s honor…Its just too much to stay quiet. I have to share it, but I don’t know how!
[Top]
When I first encountered the literary classic Lolita, I was the same age as the infamous female character. I was 15 and had heard about a book in which a grown man carries on a sexual relationship with a much younger girl. Naturally, I quickly sought out the book and devoured the entire contents on my bedroom floor, parsing through Humbert Humbert‘s French and his erotic fascination for his stepdaughter, the light of his life, the fire of his loins — Dolores Haze. I remember being in the ninth grade and turning over the cover that presented a coy pair of saddle shoes as I hurried through the final pages in homeroom.
Although I remember admiring the book for all its literary prowess, what I don’t recall is how much of the truth of that story resonated with me given that I was a kid myself. Because it wasn’t until I reread the book as an adult that I realized Lolita had been raped. She had been raped repeatedly, from the time she was 12 to when she was 15 years old.
As a young woman now, it’s startling to see how that fundamental crux of the novel has been obscured in contemporary culture with even the suggestion of what it means to be “a Lolita” these days. Tossed about now, a “Lolita” archetype has come to suggest a sexually precocious, flirtatious underage girl who invites the attention of older men despite her young age. A Lolita now implies a young girl who is sexy, despite her pigtails and lollipops, and who teases men even though she is supposed to be off-limits.
In describing his now banned perfume ad, Marc Jacobs was very frank about the intentions of his sexy child ad and why he chose young Dakota Fanning to be featured in it. The designer described the actress as a “contemporary Lolita,” adding that she was “seductive, yet sweet.” Propping her up in a child’s dress that was spread about her thighs, and with a flower bottle placed right between her legs, the styling was sufficient to make the 17-year-old look even younger. The text below read “Oh Lola!,” cementing the Lolita reference completely. The teenager looks about 12 years old in the sexualizing advertisement, which is the same age Lolita is when the book begins.
And yet Marc Jacobs’ interpretation of Lolita as “seductive” is completely false, as are all other usages of Lolita to imply a “seductive, yet sweet” little girl who desires sex with older men.
Lolita is narrated by a self-admitted pedophile whose penchant for extremely young girls dates all the way back to his youth. Twelve-year-old Dolores Haze was not the first of Humbert Humbert’s victims; she was just the last. His recounting of events is unreliable given that he is serially attracted to girl children or “nymphets” as he affectionately calls them. And his endless rationalizing of his”love” for Lolita, their “affair,” their “romance” glosses over his consistent sexual attacks on her beginning in the notorious hotel room shortly after her mother dies.
This man who marries Lolita’s mother, in a sole effort to get access to the child, fantasizes about drugging her in the hopes of raping her — a hypothetical scenario which eventually does come to fruition. Later on as he realizes that Lolita is aging out of his preferred age bracket, he entertains the thought of impregnating her with a daughter so that he can in turn rape that child when Lolita gets too old
Lolita does make repeated attempts to get away from her rapist and stepfather by trying to alert others as to how she is being abused. According to Humbert, she invites the company of anyone which annoys him given that the pervert doesn’t want to be discovered. And yet, he manipulates her from truly notifying the authorities by telling her that without him — her only living relative — she’ll become a ward of the state. By spoiling her with dresses and comic books and soda pop, he reminds her that going into the system will deny her such luxuries and so she is better off being raped by him whenever he pleases than living without new presents.
Given that Humbert is a pedophile, his first-person account is far from trustworthy when deciphering what actually happened to Lolita. But, Vladimir Nabokov does give us some clues despite our unreliable narrator. For their entire first year together on the road as they wade from town to town, Humbert recalls her bouts of crying and “moodiness” — perfectly understandable emotions considering that she is being raped day and night. A woman in town even inquires to Humbert what cat has been scratching him given the the marks on his arms — vigilant attempts by Lolita to get away from her attacker and guardian. He controls every aspect of her young life, consumed with the thought that she will leave him with the aid of too much allowance money or perhaps a boyfriend. He interrogates her constantly about her friends and eventually ransacks her bedroom revoking all her money. Lolita is often taunted with things she desires in exchange for sexual favors as Nabokov writes in one scene:
“How sweet it was to bring that coffee to her, and then deny it until she had done her morning duty.”
Lolita eventually does get away from her abusive stepfather by age 15, but the fact that she has been immortalized as this illicit literary vixen is not only deeply troublesome, it’s also a completely inaccurate reading of the book. And Marc Jacobs is not alone in his highly problematic misinterpretation of child rape and abuse as “sexy.” Some publications and publishing houses actually recognize the years of abuse as love.
On the 50th anniversary edition of Lolita, which I purchased for the sake of writing this piece, there sits on the back cover a quote from Vanity Fair which reads:
“The only convincing love story of our century.”
The edition, which was published by Vintage International, recounts the story as “Vladimir Nabokov’s most famous and controversial novel” but also as having something to say about love. The back cover concludes in its summary:
“Most of all, it is a meditation on love — love as outrage and hallucinations, madness and transformation.”
“Love” holds no space in this novel, which details the repeated sexual violation of a child. Although Humbert desperately tries to convince the reader that he is in love with his stepdaughter, the scratches on his arms imply something else entirely. Because the lecherous Humbert has couched his pedophilia in romantic language, the young girl he repeatedly violated seems to have passed through into pop culture as a tween temptress rather than a rape victim.
Conflating love or sexiness with the rape of literature’s most misunderstood child is dangerous in that it perpetuates the mythology that young girls are some how participating in their own violation. That they are instigating these attacks by encouraging and inciting the lust of men with their flirty demeanor and child-like innocence.
Let it be known that even Lolita, pop culture’s first “sexy little girl” was not looking to seduce her stepfather. Lolita, like a lot of young girls, was raped.
Source: http://www.mommyish.com/2011/11/16/lolita-novel-sex-rape-pedophilia-541/2/#ixzz3N4PFEyex
I was going through this at age 11 when i got my hands on the book, and i never read it as sexual. I cried and related to her on such a deep level. Anyone who thinks lolita is a love story is gross.
Too real. Lolita means so much to me, because I was raped by an older adult man when I was 15 and years later when I came forward about it people said it was my fault because I flirted with him. A friend of his even teased me with the comment “weren’t you his little Lolita?” Lolita. Is Not. A love story. The continuous sexual abuse of a teenage girl is not love.
What chaps my ass is that NABOKOV didn’t see it as a love story. He found Humbert repugnant and went out of his way to make him so.
He hated that people saw it as romantic when he’d meant to write a fucking horror novel.
I hate when people call themselves Lolita or that fucking Lana del Rey song.This book is about a little girl being raped constantly and they make it seem like a seduction or tease.Please people read this article or read what the book really is this story makes my gut churn.I was being molested as a kid and had mental games played on me.Please Please Please to save another persons life stop romanticizing this story let people know this isn’t no old century love this is rape
Rape is never ok. Nor is a relationship between an adult and a child. I read a lot but it is imperative that this be a truth of our age. Too many people refuse to stand up to protect that truth. Many of my favorite heroines were abused as children.
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