Mad Lit: Jennifer Belle
At the release of her third novel, Little Stalker, the novelist revisits the appeal of Humbert Humbert and imagines downing scotches with Nabokov in the afterlife
By Ling Ma
Published: June 6th, 2007 | 12:01pm
“There are only so many things you can count on in this world,” declares Rebekah Kettle, the protagonist of Jennifer Belle’s third novel, Little Stalker
There are only so many good novels about single women living the big-city life, and Jennifer Belle’s novels are among the best, the most human and genuine. Her first-person narrators are solitary female flâneurs in continual drift through the pretty and gruesome parts of New York, and it’s always a treat to be in on their streaming monologues as they attend movie matinees alone, proclaim their particularities about lobster, make shrink appointments, and generally inflict their humanity on an otherwise indifferent world.
In Little Stalker, Rebekah is a 33-year-old frustrated writer procrastinating on her second novel. Among her pastimes is a fixation on 69-year-old Arthur Weeman, a Woody-Allen-esque filmmaker who Rebekah catches spying on school kids. While it may not be surprising that Jennifer chooses Lolita for our questionnaire, here’s a surprise: Once characterized as “the new Mary Gaitskill,” Jennifer coincidentally picks the same book that Mary Gaitskill once chose for our Mad Lit questionnaire.
Call it fate or screwball timing, but it’s just the sort of thing that might happen in a Jennifer Belle novel.
The book I choose is: Lolita
In one sentence, this book is about: a man falling to his knees before a child in white shorts and dark glasses.
I chose this title because: it is my favorite book and strongly influenced my novel, Little Stalker, and I didn’t want to spend any more time agonizing over what book to pick, discussing it in therapy, etc. Catcher in the Rye, the book I’ve read most often aside from the Little House series, seemed too obvious and not cool enough and I’m trying to have a very serious and literary reputation.
The first time I read it, I was: at French Woods Theater Camp in Hancock, New York, wearing navy high heeled pumps I bought on 8th Street and wore all summer for some reason. I was 11, sitting by the lake, holding the book in a conspicuous way so everyone would be impressed. I also read The Brothers Karamozov (funny, I chose two Russians) in this same manner, but don’t recall one single thing about it.
I’ve read it: three times.
One free-associative personal memory I have of this book is: the realization I had the last time I read it that I had started to relate to Humbert instead of Lolita.
My favorite part is: the beginning.
If I ever met the author, I would: at first be scared because he is dead. Why, I would wonder, had he chosen me, to say whatever it was he had to say? Then I would realize, if I was meeting him and he was dead, then I must be dead too. And that death was as I’d always suspected it would be: all-important writers like myself sitting on our bar stools drinking scotch, martinis, and talking shop. I’d be charming, flirtatious, and self-deprecating and try to enjoy myself for once and not worry about what I had left behind.
After reading it, this book caused me to: feel like I shared an understanding with older men, as if I were in a secret club, and to lose my virginity way too early.
One unresolved question I wondered about was: how a book could be so good.
Music to listen to when reading this: “You’re a Big Girl Now” by Bob Dylan.
You should read it when: someone asks you to fill out a questionnaire about a book. Or on your 13th, or 39th birthdays. When you feel too old or when you feel too young. When you want to remember what it feels like to be as powerful as a young girl or as vulnerable as a dirty old man. When you’re strong enough to be overwhelmed by greatness and not lose yourself, and when you’re weak and need greatness to bolster you. When you feel like being in the company of a genius. But mostly, you should read it after you’ve finished reading all of mine.
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We made poor Jennifer Belle fill out two Mad Lit questionnaires. Purchase the summer 2007 issue of Venus Zine to read about her love for Lovely Me: The Life of Jacqueline Susann by Barbara Seaman.
Issue #34
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