Anytime I mentioned that I’d never read Vladimir Nabokov’s iconic and controversial classic, Lolita, I get gasps of amazement. Apparently, it’s one of those you-have-to-read-it-for-bragging-rights kind of books. So I decided it was high time to read it.
I don’t want to give anything away for those of you who have not read the book but intend to at some point. But here’s the basic premise: Humbert Humbert is a European, having put behind a marriage and an academic career. His obsession with nymphets, girls of about 12-15, begins when he is 13 and in love with a young woman. After that relationship fails to meet its full potential, he spends his life seeking to fulfill that quest. On a trip to the United States, he meets Dolores Haze, the daughter of his widowed landlady, Charlotte Haze. This chance encounter with Dolores, whom he promptly deems a nymphet and nicknames Lolita, will dictate the rest of his life. Lolita is a novel of passion and deviancy, of language, of unfulfilled love, and of deep-seated longing.
After reading the novel, I find myself struggling with what to say about it in the end. Since I knew that the sexualization of a young girl occurred, I did not find myself surprised by the more unsavory parts of the story, particularly Humbert’s pedophilia. I did not like it, but I did not close my mind to the novel because those details were in there. But nor did I find myself with the innumerable language games and wordplay that Nabokov invoked all.the.time. I think it comes down to a matter of personal taste, and my personal taste is not necessarily the beauty of the language. Good writing is important, yes (ahem, E.L. James), but I don’t know that the language and allusions and slippage of references were the reason I’d recommend this novel.
In the end, Lolita felt like a Novel All English Majors Must Like, and in the end, I was underwhelmed by the unevenness of it. Alas.
This is one of those rare books that absolutely enthralls me with its language, but the content is abhorrent. I know that’s the point, but it still makes me feel all nasty. I don’t know if I can ever re-read it.
Also, it KILLS ME that the fucker wrote this in his second language. I can’t even write that well in English and it’s the only language I speak!
Same here, and I’m also very, very jealous of mr. Nabokov’s mad language skillz (though English is my second language, too, so I got that going for me).
I read Lolita when I was seventeen, which is probably too young, but it grabbed me and never let me go. It’s brilliant and disgusting and masterful all at once.
I don’t know that I could ever re-read this, either. And yeah. He’s disgustingly brilliant. I’m not that smart, and English is the only language I speak!
I tried to read this a few years back because I felt I couldn’t hold my head up in polite society without having done so. Like you, I couldn’t get enough enjoyment out of the language to overshadow both how distasteful the story was nor the fact that I found the whole thing a bit boring. So many of the great works of literature are just so dark or feature loathsome characters. I get enough of that in the news :P
I think for me that was the killer. I knew it was going to be disgusting, but I wasn’t prepared to be bored during the second half of the book. The first half is terrifically set up, but the second half felt like a major letdown.