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Fw: A strange Lolita sighting
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----- Forwarded message from jansy@aetern.us -----
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 14:12:57 -0300
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
Reply-To: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
Subject: Fw: A strange Lolita sighting
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
----- Original Message -----
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 12:28 PM
Subject: A strange Lolita sighting
Dear List,
As I was leafing through a book titled " The Most Evil Women in History" (
2004), by Shelley Klein, I came to the chapter on Valeria Messalina, third
wife of Tiberius Claudius Caesar, Caligula´s uncle, considered " the synonim
of all feminine vices and faults ".
I was struck by the chapter´s title ( as it also appears in the book´s Index) :
" Valeria Messalina, a Roman Lolita ".
Underneath, a quote from Robert Graves´, " I, Claudius":
" When a not very intelligent or handsome fifty-year old man falls in love with
an adolescent girl of fifteen, very bright and beautiful, there is usually no
good outcome".
Why not Ada, I thought... Wasn´t she also a nymphet in the eyes of Professor
Rack, Krolik´s ... and probably her father´s ? But then, poor Lolita is more
famous!
I found the book in a translation, so the English words are not as they must
appear in Klein´s or Graves´ original. Jansy
----- End forwarded message -----