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"I, on my part, was as naive as only a pervert can be." Dec 11, 2003 (103 of 112 found this helpful)
I have no real excuse for not reading "Lolita" before this late date. It's certainly a book that crops up in conversation a great deal. I watched the James Mason film version of the book years ago--perhaps that's what put me off. I recently watched the Jeremy Irons version and loved it. I suppose part of me asked why myself why I'd want to read a book that is essentially the ramblings of a middle-aged pervert. Anyway, I decided that I'd procrastinated long enough, and it was time to get serious and find out what all the fuss is about.
The story is narrated by middle-aged Humbert Humbert. He's a pedophile--although he's tried denying it, tried disguising it, and tried channeling his baser instincts, but as luck would have it, Humbert finds himself as the lodger at the home of a buxom, lonely widow, Charlotte Haze and 12-year-old daughter, Lolita. Humbert doesn't particularly even like Lolita--he actually finds her rather dull, but she becomes a vessel for the fantasies left by Humbert's unfulfilled first love affair.
Due to the subject matter, the book was, at times, rather difficult to read, and it is a tribute to Nabokov's skill as a writer that I was gripped by this story. Humbert Humbert is at his most 'human' (introspective) during his pre- and post-Lolita phases. Once Humbert crosses the boundaries of ethical behaviour and begins a physical relationship with Lolita, there is no going back. At times, Humbert congratulates himself for his cleverness and calls himself a "magician," and then at other times, Humbert seems to realize how despicable he truly is. Unfortunately, the occasional flash of insight is too pale and fleeting to release Humbert from his obsession with his "nymphet" and so Humbert accepts his enslavement and ultimate fate. As the novel develops, Humbert relates his seduction of Lolita and his subsequent relationship towards the child. His manipulative behaviour with Lolita was nauseating, and he acknowledges that Lolita has "absolutely nowhere else to go." Humbert keeps it that way--and turns Lolita into his personal prostitute. Vain, selfish Humbert is a despicable character and at no point did I feel one iota of sympathy for the man. His ability to focus solely on his destructive, obsessive needs is chilling. And yet while I despised the character of Humbert, the story was compelling. How did Nabokov manage this? The brilliant ending of the novel is a triumph of literature, and the words gave me goose bumps. "Lolita" is one of the best books I have ever read--displacedhuman.
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porn, poetry and pyrotechnical language Oct 6, 1999 (69 of 75 found this helpful)
If you've only heard of "Lolita" from its reputation as being "pornographic", you are in for a surprise when you read it. Yes, it involves a lecherous, middle aged man chasing after a 12 year old "nymphet". Yes, it is deeply disturbing and makes one queasy at times. It is also a brilliant, funny, witty, literary rollercoaster which will delight you and dazzle you with the beauty of language. Nabakov can make words jump through hoops you never even knew existed, while he explores the dark realms of obsession and longing.
The narrator, Humbert Humbert, is a fascinating construction. As readers, we find ourselves simultaneously repelled by his actions and sympathetic to his yearning. We are utterly charmed by his wit, intelligence and verbal acrobatics, sometimes to the point where we lost sight of what he's doing to his object of desire, Lolita.
I would suggest that all readers reaquaint themselves with the concept of the "unreliable narrator" before they sink into Humbert's hypnotic web of logic. When you find yourself sympathizing with Hum about Lolita's "cruelties", try to remember that you are seeing everything through his twisted and self-serving lens. Humbert has rationalized his behavior so deeply and reports it to us so entertainingly, that we find ourselves accepting his interpretations of people and events at face value. However, we must remember that Hum is capable of the most monsterous of deceptions (note how long it takes him to inform Lolita of her mother's demise), and of self deceptions. Read between the lines. Question his reading of events. Pay attention when his reporting is at odds with his interpretations of them. As one example, Humbert tells us that he was seduced by Lolita, giving us the impression that she was sexually mature and a willing partner. Contrast that with his throwaway mentioning of her "performing" for him in exchange for treats, and watching television as he took his pleasure in her. And don't ignore Lolita sobbing each night, as he seems to do.
Nabokov has created a connundrum for us as readers. He uses the most glorious tricks and delights of the English language to tell his tale of self-deception and rationalization masquerading as "love". Look beyond the circus to the grime beneath it, and appreciate the mastery that gives us both.
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Still Controversial Nov 12, 2000 (301 of 346 found this helpful)
This is a magnificent book in many ways, most of which have been commented on--often brilliantly--by Amazon reviewers. I would therefore like to restrict my comments to the morality of the book, and to those who to this day view the book with outrage. Even those who admire the book somehow feel compelled to comment that they are "disturbed" by it. Why is this? Let us first examine the novel itself.
As everybody knows, it is the story of Humbert Humbert, a full-grown, adult male--not an old man--who seduces a compliant twelve-year old girl, and then goes on to have a year or so long "affair" with her. I put the term "affair" in quotation marks, because it probably isn't appropriate to describe a sexual relationship between a full grown male and a female child in such terms. Is it safe to say that most rational human beings disapprove of such relationships? It is certainly safe to say that Nabakov--and his narrator--know that such relationships are wrong. This is important. The tale is not only told in the context of a moral universe, it is also told by a character who is in acceptance of a moral universe. Oh, he makes a comment here and there about some medieval king marrying his twelve year old cousin, but clearly, his heart isn't in it. He knows that he is a monster, a "brute."
Indeed, his goal was never to have sex with a conscious Lolita to begin with. His goal initially was only to fondle her after drugging her to induce sleep; she was never to know what he was doing. Of course this is also reprehensible, but clearly it shows a conscience at work. A conscience motivated in part by fear, to be sure, but also a conscience for the welfare--at least early on--of this little girl. Conscience is not normally a factor in purely prurient forms of entertainment.
Following this encounter, he takes Lolita on a journey across, around, and through the United States, living in hotel rooms, and buying clothes and food on the move. Toward the end of this, we find one of the most moving paragraphs in literature: "And so we rolled East . . . We had been everywhere. We had really seen nothing. And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy, enormous country that by then, in retrospect, was no more to us than a collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour-books, old tires, and her sobs in the night--every night, every night--the moment I feigned sleep." The narrator's revelation of such anguish on the part of his victim clearly works against the argument that this novel was merely intended to be pornographic.
Humbert makes it clear that he loves his Lolita. There can be no mistake about this. He loves the way she moves. He loves the down on her arm. He loves her grace on the tennis court. He loves the way she flicks her head at him when looking up from a book. He loves her toes, her shoes, her name. He describes her in beautiful, poignant, poetic language, memorable and moving in every respect. Indeed the English language has rarely been used so wonderfully. But nowhere in this book does he describe in such terms or any other terms her sexual characteristics, or comment at length or in glaring detail his physical relations with her.
Finally, there is no effort to sugar-coat the effect of all of this on Lolita herself. We learn that after she left Humbert, she entered into a series of tawdry sexual escapades--still at too young an age--with a debased playwright. We last see her in her late teens, married to a bumpkin, and living in a clapboard shack surrounded by weeds.
Obviously, to anybody who has bothered to read this book, the presentation of the subject matter is not what is objectionable. Therefore, what apparently disturbs most people is the subject matter itself. But why? Why doesn't the latest grisly serial-killer-of-the-month novel inspire such protest? (Has there ever been a time in th
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A road movie of the mind Jun 27, 2008 (31 of 33 found this helpful)
Praise be to Graham Greene, who was not only an interesting novelist (e.g. The Quiet American), but he also has the merit of saving Nabokov's Lolita from obscurity. When the book found no publisher in the US, it was first brought out by a shady Parisian company that specialized in erotic books in the English language. That was a tourist attraction in Paris. For reasons unknown to me (why would Greene even know the series? he had other oddities about his character), Greene took notice of the book and named it as one of the best books of the year in a magazine article in the UK. That was the beginning of the road to fame and riches for Nabokov, including an Oscar winning, but lousy movie.
I admit I have not read Lolita recently, but I did at least twice some time ago, and I read his movie script in the LoA volume. Why do I review it now? Simply because J. talked me into it. Women can be persistent.
J did not like Lolita because she saw it as pedophile porno. I am aware that one can read the book that way. Actually most of the first buyers must have been looking for that, but most of them were badly disappointed.
Sure, the book is about a pedophile, but Nabokov never told us a straightforward story. One must be prepared to encounter mystifications and traps and double meanings.
Lolita's main text body is the alleged memoir of a man who has died in jail, where he was held for murder. We learn only late into the story who the victim was. Oddly, he was not in jail for rape and kidnapping, which he freely admits to in his text.
The hero is a decadent middle aged European of a cultured background. He has come to New England as a professor for literature. He is a pedophile, who can only 'love' pre-puberty girls. Nabokov's original title for the book was Kingdom by the Sea after E.A.Poe's poem. Humbert Humbert (the name should tell us that we can't expect clear sailing on meanings) settles down and meets a woman with the kind of daughter that he fancies. He marries her to get at the child. The woman dies (don't necessarily believe the version of her death that HH tells us), he kidnaps the girl Dolores, rapes her, and goes on the road with her, moving from place to place all over the US, settling here and there briefly, always running away before attachments can be formed. And still there comes a time when Lolita runs away from captivity.
What is the book about? It is also a little bit about pedophilia, sure, but it is mainly about an immigrant's experience of the US. Nabokov wrote about his own observations with his New England university environment, and to a large extent he wrote about his long car trips across the US on his butterfly hunts. The places where HH stays with Lolita are Nab's own stations, where he stayed with his wife, who drove the car.
HH is not a man who can be believed. He twists his tale to his liking, and even his admissions of wrongdoings with the girl have a strong smell of self-saving euphemism. The man is a self-centered egomaniac.
Lolita is not my favorite Nab-book, actually, but it is well worth reading more than once.
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A great and troubling book Jan 21, 2000 (45 of 51 found this helpful)
Lolita is both a great and troubling novel. It's difficult to imagine Nabokov writing anything of poor quality. His prose has a natural flow and an effortless sophistication that I have never seen in any other writer of the English language. He writes with grace and maturity that lend his prose a certain amount of authority. Once can hardly question the master, and this may be why I was seduced by "Lolita" the first time I read it.
During the first reading, I was swept away by the caricature of Humbert Humbert. His old world manner, his cool, self-justifying narrative, and his academic contempt for trendy concepts such as Freudian Psychology and Existentialism were humorous and refreshing. I was seduced by the characterization and language in the novel and hardly thought of it in realistic terms. This perspective was only reinforced by seeing the original film with Peter Sellers and James Mason. Like my first reading of the novel, the film had a gentle and irresistible current of humor that made it difficult to imagine the events actually occurring in the lives of real people.
The second time I read "Lolita" I had a far more troubling experience. I still enjoyed the novel's writing and characterization, but this time it struck me on a realistic level. I found myself empathizing with Lolita and imagining what the world must be like from her perspective as she traveled around the country in the company of a foster parent who habitually molested her. I was especially stunned by the scene in which Humbert first informs her that she cannot leave him and return to her mother because her mother is dead. Lolita storms out of the room but eventually returns to Humbert's bed and tearfully wraps her arms around him. When she does this, Humbert chillingly informs the reader that she simply had nowhere else to go. In that moment, I was suddenly immune to the charm of Humbert's narrative and enormously sad for Lolita.
Coincidentally, just after my second reading of Lolita, I saw the film with Jeremy Irons. Unlike the earlier version, the film treated the story in a blunt and realistic manner. The humorous characters and witty dialogs were overshadowed by a constant coldness and brutality throughout the film.
"Lolita" is a great novel, but we should be wary of how and why we appreciate it. Some readers and critics view Lolita as a tragic love story while others consider it a celebration of the open road. Some even argue that "Lolita" is a metaphor for the clash between European and American culture. "Lolita" may well be all these things and more, but it is also a much darker chronicle of the tormentor's mindset. Humbert's narrative is charming and full of old world conceit, but it is also a tool of disguise. Humbert self-consciously uses style to conceal the naked brutality of his craving and the harm it causes Lolita. He disguises himself as the doomed lover and portrays her as the tormenting muse.
We should praise Nabokov for this clever role reversal. It is a wonderful mechanism for employing style in an imaginative manner as Humbert alerts us in his opening monologue ("Can you stand my style!"). But while we can admire Nabokov's skill and imagination, we should not take Humbert at his word for who and what he is.