Dear List,

 

As a sort of whim, while putting together my syllabi for the semester, I decided to compile a Spotify (internet-based music app) playlist of songs that have Lolita in the title.  I gave up adding tracks after reaching nearly 100 (over five hours of music).  I haven’t listened to nearly all of them and the diversity seems to be great (there are a surprising number of German-language tracks).  But I thought I would share one that struck me as particularly clever, in that it clearly draws on the novel but also tells its own (satirical, I think) story.  There is even an erudite reference to Robert Polhemus’ fascinating book Lot’s Daughters, which contains a section on Lolita (“Debauching Lot’s Daughters and ‘The Power of Articulate Art’”)—where Polhemus makes the novel assertion that we should see the words “char lot” in Charlotte Haze’s name.  Anyway, here is a link to the song by MC Lars:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UFt44qRlsM

 

Matt Roth