Country: USA/Russia
Genre: Literary/Drama
Pages: 309
Vladimir Nabokov is a writer that understood the lasting power of a good, well-crafted fiction story. Lolita is a novel we can all learn from, in its themes, its structure and its prose. Nabokov wrote it to piss off the well-thinking majority, just to see what would happen and this is one of the manliest literary stunts ever, in itself. Here's a funny anecdote. Josie read it two weeks before I did. She went to the doctor (minor back injury, nothing serious) with Nabokov's book under her arm, which caught the attention of the physician.
"You're reading Lolita?"
"Yes, it's quite disturbing, but it's good. Have you read it?"
The good doctor scoffed and said: "I see enough horror stories in my daily job, I don't need to go home at night and read some fictional ones".
That, ladies and gentlemen, is how good Vladimir Nabokov is and how important and pertinent Lolita still is today. The blast radius of collective shock is still strong, fifty-five years after its release, thirty-three after Nabokov passed away. Now let me ask you, how many writers can manage to withstand that kind of shock value without losing an ounce of dignity? Lolita is still shocking people as of today because there are still people living under a rock and refusing to deal face-to-face with the problem of pedophilia. Well, Nabokov did as I wasn't even in my father's thoughts and did it with such style and thoroughness that it assured its strong posterity.
If you look at the story up front, without digging, here's what you have. Humbert Humbert, writers, literary scholar and pedophile (he admits of his own volition that he was always like this), moves in with a widow, Charlotte Haze after a difficult break-up with his wife Valeria, only to fall desperately in love with her daughter Dolores, otherwise known as Lolita. Problem is that Charlotte is in love with Humbert and forces him to marry her or move out. Humbert decides to marry Charlotte, so he can stay close to Dolores, which is cool, because Charlotte is so in love with him, she has no clue what's going on. But she finds Humbert's journal one night, confronts him and manages to kill herself in a gesture of blind grief (running in the street in the rain). Then starts the strange love relationship in between Humbert and Lolita, as well as their escapade to consume their "feelings" (for a lack of a better term), away from the well-thinking majority.
That in itself, is pretty disturbing. The passion of Humbert, juxtaposed with the mechanic, almost droning ways of Dolores are enough to fuel the nightmare of any parents for many years. He's a terrible man, no doubt. But he's where Nabokov truly shines. He situates Humbert in a literary tradition of incestuous fiction, which also happen to be "classics". Humbert blames the death of his childhood love Annabel Leigh for his behavior. She's an off-shoot from a transcendent character called Annabel Lee, by Edgar Allan Poe, who happened to be one of the most notorious incestuous writers (I have written a paper about that). So Humbert writes himself in the continuation of an already canonized writer. Many of them actually. You can also find subtle allusions to Lewis Carroll throughout the text. (Nabokov called Carroll the first Humbert Humbert). Nabokov is legendary for playing that kind of tricks with his readers. In Lolita he asks the question: "You always loved them, so why wouldn't you love him now?"
BAM, just like that.
Did I forget to mention it was also wonderfully well written? Nabokov is one of the best prose stylists of the 20th century and his taste for alliterations always make him a pleasure to read. His sentences roll right off your tongue. And they all seem so well studied. You can pick any sentence from Lolita, say it over and over and never get bored of it. I will say it, Lolita is one of the greatest works of fiction of our time. Not only it addresses the problem of pedophilia as a social issue, from an offender's perspective, but it also pries under the reader's cap and asks him some very important questions. What are you looking for when you're picking up a book? Aren't you a bit devious yourself? The novel is written from Humbert's first person perspective, what were you hoping to find, but a literary character confused about his lineage. It's the second Nabokov novel I read after Pale Fire and I enjoyed this one a lot more as it prototyped the post-modern avant-garde, without being so complacent about it. I felt it was my duty to read Lolita before any other Nabokov novel, despite how good they all look, because I didn't want to be that shithead who has read ten Nabokovs because he's good, but not Lolita, because it's popular. But after reading it, the reach of this novel is a lot broader than I would have thought. A little too verbous and pedant by the line, but...wait for it...one of the most important novels ever written.
20th Century Classic
"You're reading Lolita?"
"Yes, it's quite disturbing, but it's good. Have you read it?"
The good doctor scoffed and said: "I see enough horror stories in my daily job, I don't need to go home at night and read some fictional ones".
That, ladies and gentlemen, is how good Vladimir Nabokov is and how important and pertinent Lolita still is today. The blast radius of collective shock is still strong, fifty-five years after its release, thirty-three after Nabokov passed away. Now let me ask you, how many writers can manage to withstand that kind of shock value without losing an ounce of dignity? Lolita is still shocking people as of today because there are still people living under a rock and refusing to deal face-to-face with the problem of pedophilia. Well, Nabokov did as I wasn't even in my father's thoughts and did it with such style and thoroughness that it assured its strong posterity.
If you look at the story up front, without digging, here's what you have. Humbert Humbert, writers, literary scholar and pedophile (he admits of his own volition that he was always like this), moves in with a widow, Charlotte Haze after a difficult break-up with his wife Valeria, only to fall desperately in love with her daughter Dolores, otherwise known as Lolita. Problem is that Charlotte is in love with Humbert and forces him to marry her or move out. Humbert decides to marry Charlotte, so he can stay close to Dolores, which is cool, because Charlotte is so in love with him, she has no clue what's going on. But she finds Humbert's journal one night, confronts him and manages to kill herself in a gesture of blind grief (running in the street in the rain). Then starts the strange love relationship in between Humbert and Lolita, as well as their escapade to consume their "feelings" (for a lack of a better term), away from the well-thinking majority.
That in itself, is pretty disturbing. The passion of Humbert, juxtaposed with the mechanic, almost droning ways of Dolores are enough to fuel the nightmare of any parents for many years. He's a terrible man, no doubt. But he's where Nabokov truly shines. He situates Humbert in a literary tradition of incestuous fiction, which also happen to be "classics". Humbert blames the death of his childhood love Annabel Leigh for his behavior. She's an off-shoot from a transcendent character called Annabel Lee, by Edgar Allan Poe, who happened to be one of the most notorious incestuous writers (I have written a paper about that). So Humbert writes himself in the continuation of an already canonized writer. Many of them actually. You can also find subtle allusions to Lewis Carroll throughout the text. (Nabokov called Carroll the first Humbert Humbert). Nabokov is legendary for playing that kind of tricks with his readers. In Lolita he asks the question: "You always loved them, so why wouldn't you love him now?"
BAM, just like that.
Did I forget to mention it was also wonderfully well written? Nabokov is one of the best prose stylists of the 20th century and his taste for alliterations always make him a pleasure to read. His sentences roll right off your tongue. And they all seem so well studied. You can pick any sentence from Lolita, say it over and over and never get bored of it. I will say it, Lolita is one of the greatest works of fiction of our time. Not only it addresses the problem of pedophilia as a social issue, from an offender's perspective, but it also pries under the reader's cap and asks him some very important questions. What are you looking for when you're picking up a book? Aren't you a bit devious yourself? The novel is written from Humbert's first person perspective, what were you hoping to find, but a literary character confused about his lineage. It's the second Nabokov novel I read after Pale Fire and I enjoyed this one a lot more as it prototyped the post-modern avant-garde, without being so complacent about it. I felt it was my duty to read Lolita before any other Nabokov novel, despite how good they all look, because I didn't want to be that shithead who has read ten Nabokovs because he's good, but not Lolita, because it's popular. But after reading it, the reach of this novel is a lot broader than I would have thought. A little too verbous and pedant by the line, but...wait for it...one of the most important novels ever written.
20th Century Classic