Lolita Turns 50

This is the true scandal of Lolita. Not that a man should love a child, but that he should prove so helpless to stanch his desires. Deep emotion is the book's central transgression and its saving grace.      Never has this been more obvious than the current era, which has placed carnality in the service of capitalism by stripping from sex any vestige of authentic feeling. We see more and more these days -- virtually any dirty image is at our fingertips -- but feel less and less. Everywhere we look, glistening parts are pumping away in congress, yearning to excite our wildest consumer fantasies. Every day, it becomes harder and harder to make a clear distinction between pornography and advertising.      But Lolita? It has nothing to sell but the truth of ourselves: our afflictions of want, our shame, elusive and horrible and blessed.