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Customer Reviews
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Bring a Dictionary
I began reading Lolita after repeated recommendation, and at the end of the book felt only relief that it was finally over. As a younger reader, I found "Lolita" difficult to comprehend, searching the dictionary every few words, and missing the subtle puns and ironies that come from a learned reader, despite the beauty of the plot and the development of characters.
The tribute to Nabokov's writing found in "Lolita" seems overstated by literary critics. I emphasize my youth at this point because I acknowledge my naivety in the literary world. Novels with merit only entered my life recently, thus a perfectly good explanation for my otherwise unread repertoire. But I feel as though I am not alone in stupidity. The chance that a normal person understands the advanced allusions to other highly esteemed novels and the multitude of French phrases is slim. I speak from the perspective of the masses when I say that the language and allusion of Nabokov's "Lolita" transcended my typical knowledge, thus depriving me of the depth necessary to find the novel interesting.
It also takes away from the intrigue and interest of a novel when the vocabulary exceeds the reader's intellectual capacity. Long passages with mature words far beyond the reading level of an average citizen's had the meaning of the section fall on deaf ears. Sure, it was simple to overlook the words in favor of the continuity of plot, but the reader feels similar to American in a French embassy, knowing they are talking poorly about you with no other defense than to act dumb.
The beauty of the relationship between Humbert Humbert and Lolita is trite and insignificant without the diction and mechanics lining up with the heartbreaking storyline. "Lolita"'s splendor is lost among a sea of difficult vocabulary, random French, and implications far beyond the capacity of most. Out of respect for the literary world, it is certainly imperative to read, but the subtle allusions and irony are lost to confusion and ignorance.
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Love Lolita
I am halfway through this wonderful book and have to say that the way the author writes is facinating.
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Controversial, still..
This book is, well, more than just a little controversial after all these years due to the subject matter. I tried, honestly, honestly tried, to get over what the book is basically about, but I just couldn't. I'm sorry. I truly am. I know for some people this book is a favorite, but it just can't be for me. The reason I gave it three stars is because Nabokov's writing style is beyond wonderful. It was one of the only reasons I was able to get through the book. The man was obviously talented, and I truly respect him for that.
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A Meditation on the Value of Art
After 444 mostly highly praised reviews of this seminal piece of fiction, I will spare the reader any short-ordered synopsis or frugal summary. Plus, there are quite a lot of surprises to be had for a first-time reader with no knowledge of the book. If you can, distance yourself from too much familiarity with the plot and enjoy this masterly crafted novel with an open-mind.
Of course it is brilliant. Lolita is perhaps the most aesthetically pleasant pieces of art I have ever encountered. Humbert Humbert's prose is lively, erudite, stirring, beautiful, hilarious, tender, self-conscious, and any other like-minded adjective. Yet he is a monstrous villain. A likable one, but a villain, nonetheless -- one that we never truly sympathize with. Instead we pity him as we admire his gift for prose. But how can we reconcile admiring such a despicable man? Because he is brilliant, funny, and above all, human? By making the protagonist of the novel so morally corrupt yet so charming, as readers, we find ourselves with contradictory feelings. I think this is precisely the point Nabokov was trying to make. I believe he was attempting to question the very value of art itself, not, as some have said, what we value as a society. Society, in the end, doesn't really have anything to do with it. I believe Nabokov chose such a taboo subject to drive home this point even deeper than if old Humbert Humbert was merely a murderer. And Nabokov is not asking us to condone his actions. I think he is saying that art should be appreciated for what it is, only existing in and of itself. We have learned nothing as readers by the end of it, nor has left us with any impressionable message. And if the novel had taught us anything, should we trust it? It can only be appreciated for what it is. All we are left with is an excellently crafted story. In this sense, art is valuable no matter what lies beneath. If it is beautifully written, nothing should be able to take away from it, even if it is coming from a predatory animal. We should only enjoy art with its aesthetic merit in mind. He does, however, allow himself some sentimental recourse, however, which is what gives the novel so much weight.
In the end, I think it is important to read this novel with absolutely no bias and read it for what it is - a magnificent piece of art.
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A Pervert's Progress
"Lolita" was hugely controversial when first published in 1955. It was banned for a time in both Britain and France, although (rather surprisingly, given the often hysterical moral climate during the Eisenhower years) not in the United States. Today the most common reaction to many books (as well as films and popular songs) which fell foul either of the censors or of conservative public opinion during that era is "what was all the fuss about?", but "Lolita" retains its power to shock even today.
The reason is that the central character, Humbert Humbert, is not only a murderer but also a paedophile. Humbert, a French-born academic resident in America, is obsessed by what he calls 'nymphets', sexually desirable girls between the ages of nine and fourteen. This obsession appears to be the result of his tragic, and unconsummated, affair with his childhood sweetheart, Annabel, who died at the age of thirteen. In 1947 Humbert, then aged in his mid-thirties, moves to Ramsdale, a small New England town, where he becomes infatuated with Dolores ("Lolita"), the twelve-year-old daughter of his widowed landlady, Charlotte Haze. In order to remain close to Lolita, Humbert agrees to a proposal of marriage from Charlotte, who has fallen in love with him, although he has no sexual interest in her, or indeed in any adult woman. He eventually seduces Lolita after her mother's death in a road accident.
The book is divided into two parts, and I have often thought that Part I (which deals with Humbert's early life and his stay in Ramsdale and ends at the point where he and Lolita become lovers) would have made a superb novel, or perhaps more accurately novella, in its own right if Nabokov had published it on its own without any Part II. It is a brilliant psychological study, exploring the mind of a man who is despicable yet at the same time fascinating, at times almost sympathetic.
There was, of course, a good reason why the book could not end with Part I. A hundred years earlier Flaubert could only get "Madame Bovary" published by persuading a court that his heroine's suicide in the book's final chapters was a just punishment for her sins that would dissuade other Frenchwomen from cuckolding their husbands. In some respects little had changed between the 1850s and 1950s; there was still a moralistic convention that fictional criminals, just as much as real-life ones, had to be punished for their crimes, the main difference being that the novelist had a rather larger range of punishments available to him than the criminal courts. Nabokov could have concluded "Lolita" with Humbert in jail on a charge of statutory rape, but evidently rejected this option, possibly because it was too obvious. Instead he provided a nemesis in the shape of playwright Clare Quilty, Humbert's fellow-paedophile and his rival for Lolita's affections. (Despite his feminine-sounding Christian name, Quilty is male).
After Charlotte's death, Humbert takes Lolita out of school and takes her on a car journey around America, staying in motels. Much of the second part of the book is taken up with a description of their travels round America, during the latter part of which they are pursued by Quilty, who is determined to seduce Lolita away from Humbert. Unfortunately, I have never regarded Part II of the novel as altogether satisfactory- the plot seems to get lost and the story of their long journey becomes tedious and repetitive. For most of the book Quilty is a vague, shadowy presence, and when he finally appears near the end he emerges as a bizarre and eccentric character whom I found it difficult to believe in.
Another thing I should mention about this book is the author's extraordinary prose style, particularly remarkable in view of the fact that he was not a native-born English speaker. It is a record of his love-affair with his adopted language, a mixture of puns, word-games, literary allusions, recondite words and jokes. For example, Annabel's surname is Leigh, an obvious allusion to Poe's "Annabel Lee", a poem to which Nabokov makes reference several times in the early chapters. (He even considered naming the book "The Kingdom by the Sea"). Nabokov's word-games are often bilingual; at one point he uses the French sentence "Qu'il t'y mene" (literally "That he leads you there") for no other reason than that it spells out the surname of Humbert's enemy.
I said above that Humbert seems almost sympathetic, yet he never quite wins the reader's sympathy, and his attempts at self-justification never ring true, if only because the reader remains all too well aware that he is a fallible narrator. (The story is narrated by him in the first person and takes the form of a confession written by him shortly before he dies in prison while awaiting trial for Quilty's murder). By Humbert's account Lolita seduces him rather than vice-versa, but this may well be a fabrication designed to portray his victim as a sexually precocious temptress. (He also claims that she was sexually active with both boys and girls by the age of eleven). He claims to love her, but this is difficult to take at face value when one considers how he treats her. Quite apart from the question of underage sex, he disrupts her education, drugs her with intent to commit rape, plots to murder her mother and plans to abandon her when she turns fifteen, that being the age at which girls cease to interest him sexually. If that is how Humbert behaves towards someone he loves, I dread to think how he might have treated Lolita if he had hated her. At the end of his life, however, he does have a moment of enlightenment when he realises that he has deeply wronged the girl he claimed to love. Contrary to what some have claimed, Nabokov never intended this book to justify or glorify child molesters. It can be seen as a pervert's progress in which the central character condemns himself out of his own mouth.
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