Oh my Lo

Here in Japan, when you buy a book the person behind the counter always wraps it up in a standard brown paper book cover. This is to protect the book as well as the privacy of the reader, to some extent.

Not so back in the U.S. What you buy is what you get and if you want to wrap the book up to hide whatever filthy pulp you're reading, well you're going to have to do it yourself.

So I find myself lately getting strange stares from other passengers on the train. The reason? I'm reading Nabokov's Lolita which I purchased back in Seattle. No book cover to hide behind for me. The Japanese are familiar with the term Lolita, so a book with the word stamped across a picture of a schoolgirl's slightly parted legs raises some eyebrows. I'm apparently a dirty old man for enjoying this book.

That said, Humbert Humbert would have loved Japan. Everywhere one looks is another nymphet with her skirt riding high on her adolescent thighs. Maybe I am that dirty old man, after all.