Nancy and Lolita

In today's al-Sharq al-Awsat, Anis Mansour compares Nancy Ajram to Lolita.  The "passionate desire" [al-wala'a] for Nancy can be seen in that the newspaper, magazines, parties, everything is filled with nothing but Nancy, as men of all ages tremble before her even though they know nothing about her, and even though her music and her dancing offer nothing evidently extraordinary.   When Nabokov published Lolita, Mansour argues, censors in America and Britain - and Egypt - banned the book, not because it showed a young girl's virginity threatened or because she aroused passions wherever she went, but because it portrayed a respectable man gone mad over her.   

At any rate, it's just fun to see Anis Mansour invoke Vladimir Nabokov and Simone de Beauvoir in order to explain Nancy Ajram.

Comments

[Nur al Cubicle]

OT. Al Jazeera reporters arrested in Egypt was they were covering a meeting and a street protest. "Authorities arrested 6 al Jazeera reporters and two production team contractors as they were covering protests in downtown Cairo and confiscated their cameras." (It was a pro-Mubarek protest to boot.) The team had permission to broadcast live coverage of a judicial committee meeting determing if it would monitor elections. Two Al Jazeera reporters were arrested inside the building while the others were arrested outside.

[Penta]

It somehow creeps me out that the author hardly got the point re why Lolita was banned. It was, where it was banned, rarely more than the fact that a kid was the sex object. It still creeps out most people.

I dunno what to think. Does it mean that the author sees kids having sex with adults as something normal, or is he just clueless?