I'm sorry, I think you'll have to be more specific. Since the book I'm thinking of, is probably not the one you had in mind.
The book I'm thinking of is Lolita. It is, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest books in literary history, but also probably the most disturbing thing anyone will ever read and certainly not the kind of thing that pretty, doll-like, pseudo-Victorian fashion should be named after.
As far as I know, there's really no connection between the book and the fashion trend. A lot of the Lolita movement, at least in Japan, is in response to the exposure of skin and body. It's about modesty in other words and wanting to be cute and elegant while doing so. And as one follower of Gothic Lolita put it, it is not about men. The name Lolita was chosen for the sound and not the meaning that the Western world has associated with it. The idea of a "young tempting seductress" which is missing the point of the book, btw. But that's not the point of Lolita at all. Not many young children dress like this because there's a lot of extensive DIY work here even if a lot of stores are carrying it not. And I suspect it's because children are messy and want to run around a lot. And a lot of young men dress up in Lolita too.
I get all that and actually read that quote while I was doing research to figure it out myself, but considering the fact that word also has problematic implications in Japan, as it is used in the term "Lolita Complex" (which incidentally came into use around the same time as Lolita fashion became popular in Japan), I feel like there's more to it than just Lolita being a cool sounding word. My best guess is that it has to do with the doll-like aesthetic of Lolita fashion, which could have easily come from the way HH often treats Dolores "Dolly" Haze (the titular Lolita) like a doll, but that feels like a stretch too. Even so, I'm positive there's some connection between the book and the fashion style. When did I indicate that I thought it was about men in the way I assume you mean? On the contrary, I believe that it's about men (or women, to acknowledge the straight guys and gay gals who do it too) in the same way that the American Revolutionary War was about the Colonies being ruled by Britain. The whole point was to make it so the Colonies were not ruled by Britain. I know that's a sloppy metaphor, but I can't think of a better way to put it. Thank you. TW: Rape mention, gore, generally directed insults based on intelligence, angry tone, not necessarily in that order. Sorry to digress (and kind of go on a rant) here, but I actually never understood that's such a common misinterpretation. For god's sake, Dolores even refers to the hotel where earlier HH claims that she seduced him as "The one where you raped me." If that doesn't drive it home to the thick skulled masses that the "young tempting seductress" fantasy isn't the point or even present in any way shape or form, what will? Even after one reading, I understood that the whole point was to show how much people with HH's condition need psychiatric help as soon as they discover their condition, that we as a society need to get over our pedophobia and create an environment where such people can feel safe in getting that help, and to blow up the potential consequences of their not getting help into a logical extreme that can't be ignored: A depraved lunatic who only overcomes his condition (and even then only according to him and even then only sort of) after he's broken a human life to the point of no repair. And that's not even half of it. There's symbolism discussing the aftermath on the part of the broken life, multilingual wordplay that reveals even more undertones, and all sorts of little details that make it one of the richest reading experiences available to anyone who can look past the controversy. Listening to the audiobook, read by Jeremy Irons, last week confirmed that for me even more. It's as if the point is an arrow shot by an archer who can normally pin a fly to a tree from a mile away without killing it while the average reader (who is almost certainly reading it just for the controversy surrounding it and completely ignoring that it's also a really good book) is a target that moves to the side at the last second, causing the arrow to hit an innocent bystander square between the eyes. Sorry about the rant. That particular sentence just struck a nerve on the subject is all. I'm glad to see that someone else gets it.
Not sure how it is in English, and I haven' t read the book, but in French the word describes a child' s mind in an adult/sexualized body. Or in a broader sense a difference in maturity between mind and body. Lolitas definitely can be (and often are) dressed in a fashion quasi-universally perceived as sexualized, they' re just not necessarily aware of it or do it for different reasons.
I've never thought lolitas were sexy or perceived that as something that would even be considered so. I thought there was an intentional/unintentional irony in perveting an older era's modest dress in a horrendously gaudy way, so to hear that it's intended to be a modern modesty is so many levels of ironic intent that i don't even know what's going on anymore.
Spoiler: Lolita Plot Summary In the book, Lolita is a nickname for a girl (10 when we meet her, 17 by the end of the book), Dolores Haze, who is the subject of the sexual attraction of Humbert Humbert (HH), our middle aged narrator. The book follows his relationship with her as he gradually becomes more depraved and dependent on what he does to her and becoming more and more abusive in it, both physically and emotionally until she finally manages to run away with a different person with the same disease as HH. When we last see her, it's easy to tell that she's a broken mess, though she still gets what is arguably the happiest ending in the book (which isn't saying much). The story is told through the framing device of a book based on his testimony in a court case revolving around his crimes. It is also extremely well known and controversial, to the point where the name Lolita is now extremely rare all around the world. The book was published in France as pornography, which may be why you don't see to be as aware of the word's origin as many others. I don't think Lolita has any actual meaning in English besides as a (now exceedingly rare for obvious reasons) name for a girl or nickname for Dolores or Lola or to refer to Lolita fashion, which I don't understand and still disapprove of, but can't do anything about. In Japanese the word is where the term "lolicon" comes from, being a shortening of "Lolita Complex" which is a direct reference to the book. Lolita fashion also got its name in Japan, though the actual style started its life in North America, and as you can see from this thread, its relevance to the book is very debatable. Thanks for pointing out the French meaning, by the way. Personally, the fact that it's unattractive is why I find the idea behind the aesthetic somewhat appealing. It's refreshing to see something that I find unattractive that I can still recognize as an objectively (in the loosest sense of the word) good look.
Yeah, I'm going to come back to this discussion later. I have a killer headache and anything I post is going to be taken in the wrong way.
Oh I was totally aware it came from that book, I just had no clue what the book was about. And it is actually held in high esteem here nowadays. French, remember ? xD Besides I' ve had this song stuck in my head ever since I' ve read this thread :
Well, I highly recommend reading it, or at least listening to the fantastic audiobook by Jeremy Irons. Just whatever you do, make sure you take it seriously and avoid thinking about the controversy surrounding it. Otherwise it comes up short compared to how it's built up. Yeah, I just figured that the fact that it had to be published as pornography in France meant that it wasn't held in high regard. Here in the Western Hemisphere, porn is thought of as scummy underworld of the entertainment industry, so I assumed it wasn't a respected genre in most other places.
If I am to believe wikipedia Nabokov thought the book broke three puritanical american taboos : - Incest and pedophilia. - Mixed race marriage. - A happy and useful atheist who dies of old age. From what I gathered it' s the original English edition that was categorized as pornographic, because of its editor. The book has been censored in France at first, but that was under pressure from the English Home Office. All they could do was stall though, they couldn' t prevent French translations to flourish.
