Finding “Lolita” in EAT ME, DRINK ME - PART ONE

During the course of this piece (which will be divided and presented in three sections), I hope to establish through developed comparison and hypotheses, the degrees to which Vladimir Nabokov’s doomed love story, Lolita, is present in the words and ethos of Marilyn Manson’s sixth studio album EAT ME, DRINK ME.

The record was initially unveiled with the wry melody of its first single, Heart-Shaped Glasses (When the Heart Guides the Hand), which obviously created a precedent for Lolita being referenced obliquely. However, rather than simply acting as a modal selling point, the emblem of the glasses is the first in a series of complicated and interwoven references to the bleak and degraded memoirs of Nabokov’s aesthete antihero, Humbert Humbert, and some curious cross-references to other influences and themes in the record.

To prefix slightly, I might point out that strangely, the icon of the heart-shaped glasses doesn’t find its basis in the novel or either filmed adaptation of Lolita. In interviews Manson has mentioned that they were used only in a publicity shot of Sue Lyon (Kubrick’s Lolita), for his iconic movie poster. The poster’s tag-line read “How did they ever make a movie of Lolita”, below the sultry, mischievous eyes and lollipop mouth of the girl-child. Additionally, Lyon was ordered to wear the glasses and adopt the same pose at the film’s premiere, for the purpose of several more publicity images, perhaps suggesting that the stunt was far more cognitively exploitative outside the confines of a poster. Despite the origins being less tangible than the image itself, it is certain the motif of the glasses concealing Lolita’s eyes beguilingly is from Nabokov’s hand, the passage detailing Humbert’s first glimpse of the her reading thus:-

“From a mat in a pool of sun, half-naked, kneeling, turning about on her knees, there was my Riviera love peering at me over dark glasses.”

Not wanting to jump ahead, I feel I should offer some information for the uninitiated. It might be significant to add that the inspiration for Manson utilising the glasses was born out of an in-joke between he and the album’s paramour, Evan Rachel Wood, after her observation that their relationship would create some controversy surrounding the age difference between the two, and her somewhat striking resemblance to Lyon’s embodiment of the character. Not only that, but she would apparently wear the glasses to his house for them to watch films together, no doubt creating a comforting, if not salacious extension of the joke for Manson’s benefit. Satire aside, the joke has evidently allowed for much inspiration musically, as the intricacies of EAT ME, DRINK ME stretch a lot further than satire...

Lolita’s prime concern is the lustful, jilted, illegal relationship between the protagonist Dr. Humbert Humbert and the “girl-child” of whom he becomes legal guardian after marrying her mother. He then takes Lolita on a psychological and sexual cross country excursion after the mother is killed in a car accident (albeit, upon discovering Humbert’s twisted fantasy for her daughter). Even in this seemingly brief incident (the passage of time leading up to her discovery far outweighing its impact), the trained eye can spot several references already, despite how insignificant they appear. The emblem of the motorcar has been a strong and prevalent one in Manson’s work for some time now, and was used most despondently during Just A Car Crash Away. This connection between the vehicle, death and forbidden sex indicate that Manson’s usage of the emblem is more than simple metaphor, it is perhaps instead a complex psychological signifier for the cyclical nature of human urges or fears, and the motion that these things develop throughout life. It relates back to being driven “off the mountain”, and the “impossible wheel” as mentioned in If I Was Your Vampire at the beginning of the record. There are other, more notable connections between wheels and spheres both on the album and in the book, but I will address them further into the text.

Moving back to the book’s narrative and travel, there are sections that emerge as disturbing and ultimately reprehensible even for the most bleak-humoured reader, as the sexual conquest of a twelve year old girl by a man in his forties is rendered sexless before it could even be accused of being pornographic. There are in fact, more continuous and poetic descriptions of the countryside through which these doomed lovers roam than the forced relations between man and girl-child. Humbert himself has more literal commentary to give on the appeal of the girl-child than actual scenes describing them, which overall lends a somewhat surreal atmosphere to the entire narrative, as it is difficult to perceive where his obsession starts, and where his crimes end. This, I believe, not only due to thematic reasons, is where I believe the predominant appeal in the book lies for Manson.
Despite his mantle as “God of Fuck”, Manson’s more pornocentric traits have perhaps been psychological ones, his mind being a better canvas for carnology than any record or music video. I say that even with the image of his conceptual, writhing love scenes in the Heart-Shaped Glasses video in mind, as the comparison with Lolita is not Manson saying “I am Humbert Humbert” any more than it is him saying he identifies with the character. It is more accurately, him using another “mask” to best convey his thoughts and emotions, despite how literal the descriptions may be.

The following quote is from Vogue 1966, Nabokov reflects on Lewis Carroll:
"I always call him Lewis Carroll Carroll, because he was the first Humbert Humbert. Have you seen those photographs of him with little girls? He would make arrangements with aunts and mothers to take the children out. He was never caught, except by one girl who wrote about him when she was much older."

As a man of the occult, significantly well versed in the laws of coincidence and reason, I imagine that it must have pleased Manson no end to revisit Lolita during his creative process and make the same discoveries I have subsequently noted. The other great literary influence on EAT ME, DRINK ME (and indeed, Manson’s work in general) is no doubt Lewis Carroll, whose Wonderland has been almost omnipresent in Manson’s work for several years now. Even the untrained eye couldn’t fail to note the similarity between two stories concerning young girls travelling across wild countries, and the fact that the fictional Alice was based on another named Liddell, whose real-life (though less lasciviously proven) relationship with Carroll raised the same eyebrows that Nabokov’s snivelling Humbert did, and still does...

However, there are other arenas for Alice, back to Lolita. In preparation and research for this essay, I plucked out my dusty copy of the novel, and spent a few days dissecting its innards. Even as it began I remembered the almost sing-song, nursery rhyme way that Nabokov constructed Humbert, which I consider not only to be entirely intentional, but without doubt the best way to portray the hand of a man obsessed with children. Humbert tells us of his initial, pre-pubescent fumbling with a “nymphet”, whilst still at the same physical age as his prey, which instantly evokes the line “She reminds me of the one in school” from Heart-Shaped Glasses, suggesting a lingering composite of a girl, whose image never really fades from the mind until the male finds the embodiment of it later in life. And this is certainly the crux of Humbert’s tale, that he has searched over twenty years to find the nymphet, and does so tempting all the fates.

As I have insisted, Manson’s story is not the same, only similar, the “Looking Glass” version if you will. Encouraged by even this small link, I read on and make other discoveries. It isn’t really until Humbert reaches Lolita’s abode that the tangibility of both the story and EAT ME, DRINK ME start to emerge. One could even consider that the wavering, uncertain tales of Humbert’s adolescent and pre-mid life were something of a “wasteland”, as he tells of luck lost, marriages past and his ramblings across the globe to find his inevitable goal. Really, the main body of this work starts predominantly from the moment that Humbert first ‘finds’ Lolita. Of course for those who have read the novel, Lolita is not even the girl’s real name, she is actually Dolores Haze, and Humbert goes to great length to describe why he can only attribute the name Lolita (his own composite) to her in certain places, and more importantly, at certain ages...

PART TWO to be revealed soon…