Author: Vladimir Nabokov
Original Copyright Date: 1955
Back-cover Description
Awe and exhilaration-- along with heartbreak and mordant wit-- abound in Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov's most famous and controversial novel, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Most of all, it is a meditation on love -- love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation
My Thoughts
When Lolita opens up, it immediately sets this story as a memoir-confession of a dying man in a prison or mental institution. The main character, and narrator, Mr Humbert Humbert starts off as a child of 13 falling in love one summer with a girl (also 13). She dies of Typhus suddenly.
We then jump ahead to his adult years where he is a writer and academic in psychology and literature and he still has a fascination with pubescent girls between the ages of 10 and 14. He admits that he is the creepy man in the park that goes there only to ogle the girls, or nymphets, as he calls them. He admits he's had several trips to mental institutions and that he often spends the evening with young looking prostitutes.
How does one say that they liked a book where the main storyline revolves around such a off-putting pedophile? This is where Nabokov shines and my experience as a literary critic falters. I just don't have a way to articulate *how* Nabokov keeps you engaged in such an off-putting story. But he does. I can really only give you my thoughts as I read it.
Lolita is divided into two parts. In the first part of the novel, you are in the head of a mad-man crazed by pure, unadulterated (pun-intended??) love and devotion to his Lolita. It seemed to me, in the first chapters describing their relationship, that Humbert is a full on schizophrenic where he became that 13 year old boy again. His adoration of Lolita, his nervousness in anticipation of simply being in the same room as her; the luck of a glancing touch seemed just like a 13 year old would behave around his first crush. Nabokov balances this out with a narrator that interrupts himself to correct himself, or to say that he doesn't quite remember this detail or that. It pulled me out of his head, enough to keep me separated.
There were also very obvious omissions to his story which kept me at a safe distance. Everything he recollects is his side only; he doesn't project emotion for other characters, he only provides insight into the scenes which actively or directly concerned him. The other characters dialog is only there to either frame his thoughts or move the story along, but only as much as needed. For example, Lolita's mother, Charlotte, dies after being hit by a car whilst in a panic having discovered Mr. Humbert's feeling towards her daughter. Lolita was away at camp at the time and gets picked up by Mr. Humbert who told everyone (including Lo) that she was merely in a bad accident and in a hospital that was no where near where they lived. In the telling of this scene, the narrator never tells of Lolita's concern or anxiety over her mother's condition. It's as if she is just there for the ride; happily content on being his seductress. When she finally says that she wants to go see her mother, he says, "She's Dead" and that's the end of the chapter. That's all that is mentioned of it. No, "She cried for days, or She shed a single tear and glanced off into the distance"... Nothing. They just keep driving around the country. I think this is what the literary critics call an unreliable narrator.
Part two of the novel deals with the unraveling of his "peaceful life" with his beloved Lolita. Cracks appear in the lustful walls around the story through which you start to see glimpses of how Lolita actually viewed the situation. She wasn't the willing partner he made her out to be. After Lolita "betrays" him and escapes, the walls crumble all together. Again, this reinforces the unreliable narrator construct.
At this point, Nabokov transforms the story with a seemingly theater of the absurd quality where actual emotion on the part of anyone is scarce. His loss makes him numb, and that numbness seems to be projected onto other characters. Mr. Humbert's desire to kill the man who took the object of all his love and devotion away is presented in a simply stoic and matter of fact way; the way a farmer might say he had to kill a wolf who got into his hen house... Except, in this story, the man on the other side of the gun is also just as unemotional about his predicament.
All in all, it was a very good book, Literature in every sense of the word. If you can get past the base pedophelia, then it is a good read.
This is a book I've always avoided because of the paedophile at the heart of it; I know it is considered literature and a masterpiece, but I still couldn't do it. I guess I naievly assumed that all the focus on 'love' is what people liked and helped them overlook the criminal side of the plot. However, with your description of how it was written ('unreliable' narrator and so on), I can now see how it is Nobokov 's approach and skill that makes it art. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteit definitely was a difficult book, both in subject and language. A Russian born man who lived in Paris for a long time has an english vocabulary that would put most people to shame. I had to have a dictionary and google translate with me at all times when reading it.
ReplyDeleteI agree, it is a vast vocabulary even for.small things besides neologism
Deleteshe was 12 in the book...just say'n
ReplyDelete