La ronde
(WARNING: Plot and narrative twists discussed in close detail)
Credit where credit is due: was invited to listen to a podcast on Kubrick's film Lolita (which I'd written about some weeks ago) and while I disagreed with most of the conclusions reached the discussion did set me to thinking more on the film--leading to this, an attempt at elaboration and clarification.
Mention the film's title or the Vladimir Nabokov novel it was adapted from and people immediately think of middle-aged men chasing prepubescent girls; the name was enshrined in hardbound form in The Lolita Complex--a collection of cases about young girls seducing older men presented as a serious psychological study (actually fake, the author Russell Trainer--who could've stepped straight out of a Nabokov novel--being something of a con artist). When the book was translated into Japanese the title--shortened to 'lolicon'--was adopted to refer to a whole genre of anime and manga depicting attraction to young girls, not to mention the strange sad men who obsess over them.
I've found one serious piece on Nabokov's novel. Not a peer-reviewed research paper but an article by a psychology professor (Psychology Today, for the record)--and it discusses Humbert's narcissism not his pedophilia (or hebephilia, depending on the age of the youth involved).
Unless someone can produce such a study (not saying it doesn't exist but there's nothing readily available through Google) I suspect Nabokov's Humbert Humbert is meant to be more of a literary construct (think Russell Trainer, only brilliant) than a serious psychological or psychiatric subject, the pedophilia (or hebephilia) in Lolita more a MacGuffin diverting attention away from the author's true purpose: to "fix once for all the perilous magic of" obsession.
