There is no doubt that 9-, 10-, 11- and 12-year-olds of the 1980's have more in common with Lolita, at least in what they know, than with those guileless and innocent creatures in their shiny Mary Janes and pigtails, their scraped knees and trusting ways that were called children not so long ago.īut if parents are no longer surprised, many are still distressed and genuinely con-fused about whether their children are being inevitably cheated out of childhood or whether some good may come from this early worldliness.
The public of 1956 was outraged not only by the thought of early sex but also by the image of a child so knowing, jaded and unchildlike. Twenty-five years after ''Lolita's'' publication, as Edward Albee's dramatic adaptation prepares to open on Broadway, Nabokov's vision of American childhood seems nothing if not prescient.
Youngsters who look beyond the provocative jacket-Steffie, in low-cut gown and fur, leaning against an adult book store-will find a skewed but unmoralizing story with a much manipulated central figure.Once upon a time, in the Golden Age of Innocence, an imaginary 12-year-old girl from New England named Lolita slept with a middle-aged European intellectual named Humbert Humbert and shocked American sensibilities the daily reviewer of The New York Times called Vladimir Nabokov's novel ''repulsive'' and ''disgusting.'' Ultimately Favor turns her out when one of the cops, interceding on Stephanie's behalf, breaks a few of the pimp's favorite bones then, too quickly, Steffie is approached by the Greenhouse, a social agency which helps her off the street and onto a bus home. The 14-year-old hears about rather than witnesses the most treacherous Times Square scenes (drugs, violence) but has her share of eye-openers, presented with a little literary tailoring: her sequential losses of innocence (first trick, kinky request, arrest, etc.) are intercut with dreamy memories of home and ""realistic"" patrol car conversations between two cops assigned to the ""Pussy Posse."" Also walking the street are some seedy Times Square regulars, including Favor's tough main lady and the rest of his stable-none of whom warms up to the talented newcomer. Steffie goes through the paces, enjoying a glittery new wardrobe and A-one attention from her glamorous pimp Favor, but her movements seem curiously mechanical, her experiences too carefully orchestrated. Author Arrick has used restraint and judgment in treating such a knotty subject, but the book seems plotted by intent rather than by inspiration. In this unsensationalized story of teenage prostitution, ingenuous, small-town Stephanie arrives in New York with modeling aspirations, slips inevitably into The Life, and returns home after several months, appropriately wised up and apprehensive about her future.
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