“My Dear Pet”—that’s how the accused begins his monologue in court, but he’s addressing his beloved. He is 49; she is 14.
This story is told by a veterinarian—the “corruptor of minors”—obsessed with the farmer’s daughter. She has wheat-white hair and a black as midnight imagination. Their relationship looks like the dynamic between a predator and its prey—love without love. For him, she is a sweet little creature; he is the only person who understands her.
It’s a dark, bubbling stream of thoughts, with chapters without a single line break and winding sentences. Ambiguity is one of the novel’s strengths. Of course, as in Nabokov’s “Lolita,” we’re dealing with a very unreliable narrator.