A sensitive subject.
One of my favourite memoirs is David Thomson's Woodbrook, a beautifully written, but ultimately sad and wistful account of the period in theScottish-born author's life when, as a young man in the 1930s, he worked as a tutor for the Kirkwood family in Woodbrook House, Co. Roscommon. It's rich in descriptions of local rural life, the Woodbrook estate and the eccentric Kirkwood family, as well as very sympathetic reflections on Irish histroy and the injustices of British rule there. Central to the book, however, is Thompson's undeclared love for the eldest Kirkwood daughter, Phoebe, who was only 13 to 14 years old at the time.
Even though one gets the impression that Phoebe's mother noticed enough to be worried, there are plenty of reasons for concluding that there was probably nothing too inappropriate in Thompson's feelings. While Phoebe is portrayed as a beautiful and vivacious specimen of girlhood, one must also remember that Thompson wrote the book in his sixties and that his nostalgia for those apparently innocent and idyillic times is heightened by the fact that Phoebe does not survive the end of the book, dying tragically of an unexpected illness in her early teens. Nevertheless, I know people who have been brought up sharp by this aspect of the book and I myself wasn't entirely comfortable with it.
Similar things are said about Charles Dodgson, a.k.a. Lewis Carroll. Everyone knows that he was uncomfortable around grown-ups and boys, but was almost obsessed by young girls, even to the extent of taking nude photos of them. Such behaviour would be entirely inappropriate today, and should have been even then. However, whereas nowadays we would be aware that we were already crossing a line at that point, that awareness would not necessarily have been widespread in repressed Victorian society because sex was such a taboo subject that no rational discussion of behavioural boundaries could take place. This doesn't necessarily mean, however, that Dodgson engaged in any more physical forms of misbehaviour. All the indications are that he was disgusted by any kind of physicality and that his admiration for the juvenile female form, although inappropriate, stayed at the platonic stage. He may even, as Jonathan Miller suggests, have been a repressed homosexual. Yet people often get five from adding two and two, and jump to the conclusion that he was a pedophile.
There are other instances where art and our modern sensitivity around the sexual exploitation of children clash. May people are uncomfortable with Balthus's paintings of young girls, for example, even though I for one consider them well-observed and not the least bit erotic. However, the best-known and most controversial case is that of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita - both the book and the subsequent realisations in film.
I have to say I simply loved this book. And I say this as someone who gave up on reading the rest of Nabokov's works because I found them tedious. Of course Lolita is deeply disturbing - even shocking. It is certainly not suitable for children. And there are valid concerns around the films, especially the later Adrian Lyne version, which is the one that is closer to the book, in terms of the effect that it had on the very vulnerable lead actress.
Nevertheless it offers unique insights into many profound questions. These include loss of innocence (both that of boys and girls, but in different ways); the predatory element in male sexual behaviour that exults in the conquering of the vulnerable and defenceless; and the uncertain boundary between admiration of the physical beauty of children and their exploitation as objects of pleasure (a topic that Victorian society fought shy of and one that, for different reasons, we seem unable to treat maturely today). It also presents a satirical portrait of modern society - American society in particular - that is as true today as it was over 50 years ago when the book was written (Lolita could never have been written before WWII because the suburban society it describes is very much a product of the post-WWII boom).
Nevertheless, there are those, even outside ultra-orthodox Christian, Jewish or Moslem circles, who regard the book as disgusting, and its author as depraved. Many of these people assume that Nabokov must have been a pedophile because his portrayal of Humbert Humbert is so believable. I've never had the opportunity to consult an expert as to whether or not it is an accurate portrayal of a pedophile (I suspect not) but I find it incongruous that, despite the numerous instances where writers of fiction have convincingly entered the mind of a murderer, no-one assumes that all these authors have been murderers in real life.
Exploitation of children as objects of sexual pleasure is cruel, disgusting, and profoundly disgusting. However, it seems to me that Lolita, rather than being a manifesto for such behaviour, is a sensitive examination of the issues around it.
What I take from the three examples I've addressed in this piece is that the protection of children is not served by prurience.
Even though one gets the impression that Phoebe's mother noticed enough to be worried, there are plenty of reasons for concluding that there was probably nothing too inappropriate in Thompson's feelings. While Phoebe is portrayed as a beautiful and vivacious specimen of girlhood, one must also remember that Thompson wrote the book in his sixties and that his nostalgia for those apparently innocent and idyillic times is heightened by the fact that Phoebe does not survive the end of the book, dying tragically of an unexpected illness in her early teens. Nevertheless, I know people who have been brought up sharp by this aspect of the book and I myself wasn't entirely comfortable with it.
Similar things are said about Charles Dodgson, a.k.a. Lewis Carroll. Everyone knows that he was uncomfortable around grown-ups and boys, but was almost obsessed by young girls, even to the extent of taking nude photos of them. Such behaviour would be entirely inappropriate today, and should have been even then. However, whereas nowadays we would be aware that we were already crossing a line at that point, that awareness would not necessarily have been widespread in repressed Victorian society because sex was such a taboo subject that no rational discussion of behavioural boundaries could take place. This doesn't necessarily mean, however, that Dodgson engaged in any more physical forms of misbehaviour. All the indications are that he was disgusted by any kind of physicality and that his admiration for the juvenile female form, although inappropriate, stayed at the platonic stage. He may even, as Jonathan Miller suggests, have been a repressed homosexual. Yet people often get five from adding two and two, and jump to the conclusion that he was a pedophile.
There are other instances where art and our modern sensitivity around the sexual exploitation of children clash. May people are uncomfortable with Balthus's paintings of young girls, for example, even though I for one consider them well-observed and not the least bit erotic. However, the best-known and most controversial case is that of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita - both the book and the subsequent realisations in film.
I have to say I simply loved this book. And I say this as someone who gave up on reading the rest of Nabokov's works because I found them tedious. Of course Lolita is deeply disturbing - even shocking. It is certainly not suitable for children. And there are valid concerns around the films, especially the later Adrian Lyne version, which is the one that is closer to the book, in terms of the effect that it had on the very vulnerable lead actress.
Nevertheless it offers unique insights into many profound questions. These include loss of innocence (both that of boys and girls, but in different ways); the predatory element in male sexual behaviour that exults in the conquering of the vulnerable and defenceless; and the uncertain boundary between admiration of the physical beauty of children and their exploitation as objects of pleasure (a topic that Victorian society fought shy of and one that, for different reasons, we seem unable to treat maturely today). It also presents a satirical portrait of modern society - American society in particular - that is as true today as it was over 50 years ago when the book was written (Lolita could never have been written before WWII because the suburban society it describes is very much a product of the post-WWII boom).
Nevertheless, there are those, even outside ultra-orthodox Christian, Jewish or Moslem circles, who regard the book as disgusting, and its author as depraved. Many of these people assume that Nabokov must have been a pedophile because his portrayal of Humbert Humbert is so believable. I've never had the opportunity to consult an expert as to whether or not it is an accurate portrayal of a pedophile (I suspect not) but I find it incongruous that, despite the numerous instances where writers of fiction have convincingly entered the mind of a murderer, no-one assumes that all these authors have been murderers in real life.
Exploitation of children as objects of sexual pleasure is cruel, disgusting, and profoundly disgusting. However, it seems to me that Lolita, rather than being a manifesto for such behaviour, is a sensitive examination of the issues around it.
What I take from the three examples I've addressed in this piece is that the protection of children is not served by prurience.
posted by Reluctant Irishman @ 5:04 AM
1 Comments:
Hi,
Enjoyed your comments on Woodbrook, and like you, I thought it a very beautiful book. Just two comments; I believe the author, David Thompson was not born in Scotland, but in India of Scottish parents. You state that Phoebe died in her early teens. However, it is more likely she was in her early twenties, dying, it would seem, in 1945.
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