Good books

AN, that's a pretty good description of the Brady Coyne books. I probably should have mentioned that the author, William Tapply, also writes books and articles about fishing, and this interest is prominently displayed in the Brady Coyne books. And in case you're wondering, there arent' any courtroom scenes in his books, all the action takes place elsewhere.

I'm trying to think if there's ever been a mystery that features a strip club. A couple books by Carl Hiaasen featured strippers. Seems to me I also remember a new author about 10 years ago whose first book took place largely in a strip club but I don't remember his name. Anyone else? I'd by happy to serve as technical consultant if anyone wants to write one.

Chitown, well thank goodness someone is protecting us from those frivilous lawsuits. Hooray lawyers.

I admire that clientele and practice..sounds like high dollars for not many billables. Alas, I am a drudge for the insurance business, handling trials and appeals in an effort to see that the horribly injured get a little as possible, and preferably nothing. But my time in the courtroom has already given me fodder for an autobiography. My time in strip clubs will be volume 2...

"King of pain, I will always be, King of pain..."

Warning!! Brady Coyne Spoiler ahead!!!

That was just too intriguing, so I googled "Brady Coyne"

"Boston lawyer Brady Coyne is not your average high-powered, headline grabbing attorney. In fact, he rather be fishing than practicing law, but it is the practice of law that permits him ample time to fish. The middle-aged, divorced (but hopeful), low-key Coyne has found his niche by handling the mundane legal matters (like wills) of a small & select clientele of Boston's wealthy & elite, who appreciate his both his discretion and his willingness to look into any number of unpleasant personal matters plaguing their lives. It is these "private" investigations that invariably make Coyne's life anything but mundane, in fact, they make it downright dangerous."

So I guess we replace fishing with strip clubs and keep him married... LOL. Not to say this IS you Chitown, just I like the idea of the character.

Chitown, one thing that will probably give you a good laugh - the hero (Brady Coyne) is how I picture you, which is why I suggested it in the first place. And I don't know whether you'll be flattered or insulted by that comment. Enjoy.

No, the novel at least is contemporary. Can't tell about either of the movies.

Thanks for the recommendation. I ordered "regular postage" on the shipping options (less money for postage...more for lap dances), so it will probably be another week or so before I get it. MIght be good reading to distract me from the houseful of Mrs. Chitown's relatives I get at Christmas.

AN, I was under the impression from the movie that it took place in the 19th century somewhare in Europe.

Chitown, I hope you enjoy the Tapply book. I should have suggested that you start with the first in the series, "Death at Charity Point" since they read better in order. But I doubt if you'll read them all anyway, there are about 20 books in the series. Let us know how you like it, my guess is it'll probably be a little on the light side for your taste. But he's a fun read.

FONDL, Lolita was written in the 1950's, and as I recall was set in the post WWII years also. It also takes place largely in America. Not that different a time and culture, or at least shouldn't be.

AN, as I said before I haven't read the book and it would probably disturb me too. I was only trying to point out that it may have presented an account of activities that weren't all that unusual for it's time and place. Remember that for much of history women were treated as chattel in many parts of the world and still are in some places. I doubt if young girls recruited into harems are asked if they want to. Or marriages that are arranged at a very young age. The older man-young woman liaison has a lot of historical precedence. For some of us that's what strip clubs are all about.

... is what disturbs me.

Took a while for me to finish that thought.

Forget age of consent, she did not "consent" in any meaningful sense is how I remembered it. The fact that the novel, which clearly presents Humbert as one messed up dude, when discussed in pop-culture usually presents Lolita as some sort of seductress.

You have to keep in mind that the book was written about a very different culture than our own. I'm not sure that terms like "age of consent" and "pedophile" had any relevance then. In fact I'm guessing that "age of consent" is a fairly modern concept, and that our choice of 18 as the correct age isn't supported even today in much of the world (isn't it 15 or 16 in England?) How old was Lolita in the book? And at what age did women typically marry then in that part of the world?

I guess between the two of you discussing things you have zeroed in on my discomfort with the book. I recall, and Chitown confirmed my memory, that Lolita was not a willing participant, even if you ignore the statutory part of it. After FONDL mentioning it, now my discomfort has a focus. Lolita is usually portrayed as a seductress in popular culture.

Yes, that was the James Mason/Sue Lyons version made in that extraordinary, storied and legendary year of 1962. The moviemakers got around some of the resistance to the movie by making Lolita a lot older than she was in the novel. I believe Sue Lyons was almost 20 when the book was made. In that same year, my mother was almost twenty, had been married for two years, and had given birth,or was about to give birth to me, in a very ordinary domestic situation. SO the movie was not going to scandalize anyone. It was the equivalent of having Harrison Ford and Gwyneth Paltrow in a romance, in terms of a "shocking" age difference.

COntrast that with the version that came out near the turn of the last century, in which I think Dominique Swain was about 12.

Does anybody know if that movie was ever released?

I've never read Lolita but I did see a movie by that name about 40 years ago. I don't recall much of it other than that a very pretty young girl spent a lot of time in a babydoll nighty sucking her thumb. And it seemed like she seduced him rather than the other way around. Anyway, I think obsession is a good topic for here, there's a lot of it in strip clubs.

I also have an interest in history but I prefer to get my information from novels, many of which are very well researched. I'm too lazy to read all that heavy stuff.

By the way, I caught an error in an earlier post on this thread. I said that Albert Speer was 66 when he died in flagrante with his girlfriend. In fact, he was 76. The girlfriend was, as I recall, in her late 30s.

Give that man a Blue Ribbon!

Which, to complete the analysis, is a bad thing. And H.H. is a bad man for doing it. This is a book with a protagonist, in the sense of a character around whom the action revolves, but no hero. On first reading, it is tempting to see Clair Q. as a hero, because we want the story to have one. HOwever, he is just as obsessed as H.H., but with different things (I think that he is modeled after Inspector Javert in Les Miserables).

To answer your question, AN, I think it is clear that she was NOT a willing participant..that is, that the sexual contact between her and Humbert Humbert was, in fact and as a matter of law, rape.

No, I'm willling to accept the legal definition of consent, such that she was, as a conceptual matter, unable to consent due to youth and immaturity. The subject matter of the book is plainly about a middle aged man who goes on the lam with a girl in late youth/early teen years in order to have sex with her.

However, I have an attitude toward the book which makes me a traitor to my normally fairly concrete, small town Midwestern politically conservative sensibilities. I don't see the book as a pornographic one. I see it as a story of longing and obsession. In this case, the longing and obsession happen to be Humbert Humbert's for Lolita--and Clair Quilty's pursuit of H.H. If I were a college literature professor, rather than a lawyer, I would like to construct a course that would study Lolita, Moby Dick, Proust's Remembrance of Times Past, as well as the films "Citizen Kane" and "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", which all have this common theme...how people become obssessed with an idea to the extent that it takes over their lives, sometimes to the point of destroying their lives. In Lolita, sex destroys everyone, including Lolita, who, as the last chapter briefly mentions, as a young woman long after the principal events of the book, dies in childbirth.

This was how Nabokov saw Lolita, and he was shocked when the only publisher who would originally take it was a noted pornographer. Although the book is about sex, it is not intended to be sexually tittilating or pornographic. HUmbert's obsession just happens to be about sex, in the way that Ahab's is for the whale (symbolizing the quest of man to subdue nature), and Charles Kane's is for his carefree youth.

I certainly understand the sensitive nature of the book, and I don't begrudge anyone who wants to stay away from it because of its subject matter. I knew that a movie had been made of the book about five years ago, but I thought that it was never released for lack of any company that was willing to promote distribute it.

I'm not a proponent of pedophilia, and I certainly don't promote the book as a manual for right living, any more than I would suggest a bunch of Boy Scouts use Lord of the Flies to plan their next camping trip. But I appreciate the psychological aspect of the book, and Nabokov's use of the English language.

Question, I haven't been able to find a copy of Lolita, but as I recall from my last reading she was not exactly a, willing participant? I'm probably putting that a little strong. Opinions?

parodyman--> You are the only one with a GROSS enough mind to be hung up on topic likes excertion, urination, sexual function, and GORE.

Folks, if 12 could just get together and lend parodyman--> 2 IQ points each, why might actually see him post non-gross, FUNNY (what he really wants to gain the social acceptance he is missing in his FREAKish life) posts.

I meantime I can't get engaged in a thread with him, b/c I don't want to bother reading 12 posts about excertion or whatever his pea-brain is hung up on the moment.

So true about the translation from novel to film. I was talking purely books although I will admit I love the cinema too.

Lolita being popular on a strip club discussion board, what a shocker...

Interesting thread, although I picked AN for one of my favorite posters he looses points in my book for not digging the horror genre. (Just Kidding) But I am kind of bummed that no one here seems to be into it. (Horror Fiction)

parodyman--> I can dig the horror genre a little more in literature than film, which you will see was my original point (don't like horror FILMS). Stephen King can write most contemporary authors into the ground. It doesn't always translate.

Perhaps a difference of definitions, I consider "dirty" just good consensal, if slightly unconventional, sex. Lolita is, in my recolection...sick. Perhaps I need to re-read it, it has been a while, but I'll leave it at that.

AN: No, I wasn't aware that the book touches on what are particularly sensitive subjects/topics to you, but I'm certainly content to let it go with the above.

Chitown, I am perhaps paranoid, but given the fact that I've read the book twice, the last time a good 10 years ago, and found it disturbing both times, I'm going to pass on engaging on the topic, perhaps out of respect, or out of the fear that you are goading me, knowing I have certain strong feelings on certain topics.

My experience with Lolita demonstrates the importance of what the reader brings to a book.

I first read it when I was fifteen, and all my knowledge of sex was hypothetical. I didn't see what the big deal was.

I next read it when I was a freshman in college, with some sexual experience. I thought it was a little racy.

I next read it when I was a young lawyer, with a moderate amount of experience with women. I thought, and still think, that it is the dirtiest book I have ever read.

davids, I am sort of an amateur student of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials (all of them, not just the major trial in 1946, but the entire de-nazification process, which continued until 1962) because it combines my professional interests with my historical interests. Therefore, I got a little annoyed by the many historical inaccuracies in the movie. On the other hand, I understand that this was not a documentary, but a commercially produced miniseries. I really don't care if Jackson was pounding his secretary at Nuremberg (as a fellow male, I hope he was, but that's besides the point), but I understand they had to throw that in for some romantic interest. The guy who played Goering completely ran away with the movie, and you could tell that the actor, Cox, really enjoyed the part. In fact, the miniseries has been criticized for making Goering look too good. Unfortunately, none of us in one-dimensional, and the fact is that, alongside his obvious horrible crimes, Goering was a personally charming individual. The historical inaccuracy that I think hurt the miniseries was the need that the screenwriter had to show Jackson, the American prosecutor, recovering from his initial missteps and humiliating Goering in cross-examination . The opposite is true: Jackson never recovered, and in fact was embarrassed by a number of the other defendants, including one of the acquittals, the former Reichsbank President, Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht.

As I looked at the transcripts, it became clear to me that the prosecution's case was built strongly and sufficiently on documents, and the year's worth of testimony was really just window-dressing. As you think about this trial, doesn't show how foolish all the people were who said the OJ Simpson case was the "trial of the century?"

When I was in college, my heroes were the prosecutors. As I went through law school and into law practice, I realized that the real heroes of the trial, from the point of view of lawyering, were the guys who got acquittals for their clients and, above all, Dix, Speer's lawyer, who got 20 years for his client. Nobody would have thought twice if Speer had hanged.

By the way, Speer died at the age of 66 of a stroke he sustained while pounding his girlfriend in a London hotel room. So let no one say that he had no admirable qualities.

I first read Gibbons in high school, and re-read it every 7 or 8 years. I get something new out of it every time I read it. It is one of those books I have to buy again occasionally, because I get distracted and annoyed by prior notes, underlinings, etc. from earlier readings.

I hesitate to make this comparison, but the same is true every time I re-read "Lolita", whixh is every five or six years.

Lolita. It seems to me that only a foreigner could have such an appreciation and command of our language. I still find Lolita disturbing, I'm sure you know what I mean, but damn good writing.

Chitown, as for Gibbons I am a latecomer. I realized, rather late in my life (at present age) that I had a lot of the benifits of a classical education, but was not entirely familiar with all of the original material. I endevored to read it all, or at least a lot of it. I don't wish Marx, Neitche (sp?), Hayek, et al on anyone, but Gibbons, damn could he write a story.

ChiTown, I've been on quite a history kick lately (about 6 to 7 years). Did al the usual suspects (David McCullogh, Joseph Ellis, etc) Haven't done much WWII since I read a lot of that when I was younger, but just for pure pleasure, have you ever read Gibbons' "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" ? I know, not entirely "historical" but damn good reading.

chitown: I think that miniseries was quite revisionist myself. I read the actual Nuremberg transcripts after watching it, and Goering held his own plenty good, I would say even had the upper hand on the American lawyer. He was definitely not blown out of the water. Speer was no good guy, IMO, just able to sell himself well after the fact and thus avoid the death penalty he surely deserved. He knew all about slave labour, for instance.

FONDL, I've never been much of a reader of contemporary fiction, but on your recommendation I've ordered one of the author's books.

My reading tastes tend more towards history. About six months ago, I saw the German movie, "Downfall," and a video of an HBO miniseries, "Nuremberg." I became intrigued by the theme in both movies of Albert Speer as "the good Nazi," so I have since then re-read both of his autobiographies, as well as a psychobiography of Speer by a Hungarian historian named Greta Serveny that came out about ten years ago. This also led to re-reading of Speer's trial testimony, which is on the Internet (as well as a trancript of the entire trial.)

Maybe it is a good time to leave the debris of the Third Reich and try a little fiction....

Those times were simpler because the people had overly simplistic conceptions of what fiction and nonfiction were, not because those notions ever actually existed in meaningful ways.

I was being a bit tougue in cheek. I think there was a time when the distinctions meant something and that's why they still exist, just like their used to be a distinction between news and entertainment shows on TV. Unfortunately those simpler times are gone.

AN, if you like Elmore Leonard, try Donald Westlake, very similar stuff. I also recommend Lawrence Block highly - he's like 3 or 4 different writers, depending on which books of his you read, they go all the way from very dark (the early Matthew Scudder books) to very light and humorous (The burglar Who ... series.)

Well, there are genres with certain conventions, just like in the movies. Me, I hate horror movies for the most part, so I avoid them. I also hate the chick novels (not the easy to spot ones with the standard bodice ripping covers, although I hate them too), and a classification helps if you don't know the author. I often do what FONDL does, and go by author (love Elmore Leonard, Christopher Buckley, Michael Chriton and Tom Wolfe, not so crazy about John Grisham or Tom Clancy anymore) but the genre sometimes helps.

It's marketing so bookseller chains will know where to put them on the shelves. It has little to do with the actual content of the book.