American Girl:
I am actually really looking forward to reading this book! I vaguely remember seeing parts of the movie when I was much younger, and I am eager to read the book and revisit the story. I remember very little of the movie, except that a young girl falls in love with her stepfather and they run off together. It’s such a taboo topic and rarely (if ever!) written about in a non-fiction way. I am always intrigued to read a book that covers uncharted territory in the literary world.
Brit Boy:
I must admit that I’m not that excited about this book, certainly not as much as you are. The only things I can think of when I hear the name Lolita is dodgy top shelf literature and questionable old men. I am however curious as to how the story pans out with it making its way on to our list, deserving or not we shall see soon enough.
Editorial:I was first to really start reading a good chunk of this book and was very shocked and upset about the contents. Enough for me to tell American Girl that she may not want to read it, there were certain parts early on in the book which made me feel uncomfortable and obviously were describing the actions of a pedophile. It took some effort but I pushed passed it more to see whether American Girl could stomach the rest.
This book caught me extremely off guard. First and foremost, based on my vague memories of the movie, I thought “Lolita” was around the age of 15 or 16 when she chose to run off with her step-father. However, she was only the age of 12, and “Humbert Humbert” was a clear pedophile, marrying Lolita’s mother only to get closer to his precious Lolita. Humbert had a long obsession with young girls, going as far as dubbing them his “nymphettes”. Personally, being re-married and my husband being a step-father to my current 13 and 15 year old daughters, it consistently made my stomach turn hearing how Humbert would try to seduce Lolita. In order to even read this novel my mind would always make Lolita much older, which would often work until I was reminded by the author of her young age.
The age thing bothered me a great deal also, especially having daughters both sides of 12, it was something I had great trouble getting my head round. However I to fell into the trap of thinking her older most of the time until I was brought back to earth with a bump. I think part of the reason that I read the book assuming her to be older was purely because of the fact it is so wrong and I guess my head was protecting me. Well I was thinking about this and one of the things which was bugging me, was am I just out of touch with the possible age of marriage in the USA. Well after a small bit of googling I found out that half of the U.S. States do not have a legal minimum age of marriage and the traditional common law age of marriage is 14 for boys and 12 for girls. More mind-boggling is the fact that “Over the past 15 years, more than 200,000 minors married in US, and in Tennessee girls as young as 10 were married in 2001.” Now that is just disturbing, the book ceases to be a work of fiction.
While Humbert is married to “Mrs. Haze”, he continually lusts after her daughter, Dolores. ‘Lolita’ seems to have an innocent school girl crush on Humbert, because he looks a lot like an actor which she always fancied. Humbert uses this to his advantage and begins the process of trying to seduce Lolita all under the presence of her mother. To make matters worse, Lolita’s mother discovers the truth of Humbert’s obsession but dies in a freak accident, leaving Humbert in full control of Lolita. This enables him to seduce her fully, and to convince her that this is actually the best life for her, and that she has no other options.
While the book is on such a disgusting topic, I will say it does not dive into graphic sexual detail. Also, while written entirely in Humbert’s perspective, the reader only catches glimpses of the torture that Lolita is experiencing. It is haunting because at times, the reader almost feels bad for Humbert as well. He has genuine love and affection for Lolita and would do anything for her (except let her go), even trying to be a good “Dad” to her.
I also found interesting that the book was written completely from Humbert Humbert’s point of view. It was always written in the first person, and consequently Lolita was referred to more as an object of desire than a person with feelings or thoughts of her own. I’m not sure whether this made it less disturbing what he was doing / thinking, but it did serve to blur the boundaries a little and as American Girl states above you did find yourself occasionally feeling sorry for him. I wonder whether anyone has thought to rewrite the book from Lolita’s perspective, I’m sure that would be a thoroughly different read. The voice of a mentally ill individual moving through society undetected reminded me a lot of American Psycho, another of the books on our list. Although Lolita is not as graphically told, in my mind it is equally disturbing.
I too agree that it would be an interesting read written from Lolita’s perspective, I was always wondering how she felt about the whole ordeal, why she didn’t leave, etc… At times (at least from Humbert’s perspective) it didn’t seem like Lolita cared about the whole arrangement. In fact, it seemed liked Lolita behaved like a normal teenager complete with stroppy moods but through it all I just felt sad and devastated for this poor girl and the life that was being taken from her. Humbert never appeared to rape Lolita, but still the damage he was doing to this young woman’s life was beyond repair. Lolita would never have a chance to live a “normal” life after these experiences.
“I recall certain moments, let us call them icebergs in paradise, when after having had my fill of her – after fabulous, insane exertions that left me limp and azure-barred- I would gather her in my arms with, at last, a mute moan of human tenderness (her skin glistening in the neon light coming from the paved court through the slits in the blind, her soot-black lashes matted, her grave gray eyes more vacant than ever – for all the world a little patient still in the confusion of a drug after a major operation) – and the tenderness would deepen to shame and despair, and I would lull and rock my lone light Lolita in my marble arms, and moan in her warm hair, and caress her at random and mutely ask her blessing, and at the peak of this human agonized selfless tenderness (with my soul actually hanging around her naked body ready to repent), all at once ironically, horribly, lust would swell again – and “oh, no,” Lolita would say with a sigh to heaven and the next moment the tenderness and azure – all would be shattered.”
The reviews on the book jacket say this is “the most convincing love story of the century”, and “Intensely lyrical and wildly funny”. Yet, I don’t find any of these things true. I found it sick and so incredibly sad.
I also found the quotes quite strange, I don’t think they applied at all. I do think that this book deserves a place on the list, mainly due to the fact that this has made its way into popular culture, I think even if you haven’t read the book or even know much about it, then you will have heard of Lolita.
Ironically, I also feel that Lolita does deserve a spot on this list for a few reasons. First, it goes somewhere books generally don’t go. In fact, it is so well written that you feel the author (Vladimir Nabokov) must have personally been a pedophile. He addresses this in an author’s note at the end of the book, and his struggles with getting it published due to the explicit nature. He swears he was inspired to write this story after seeing a news article discussing a chimpanzee that had drawn a picture depicting the bars of its cage. I still am not convinced he was not a pedophile himself, even if not in action, but some hidden secret in the darkest parts of his soul. Next, I feel this book deserves a spot on the list because it could have possibly changed sexuality and inspired a new type of “sexiness”. Think naughty school girl, pigtails, lollipops, etc. Anything that has the potential to influence our culture to this degree deserves a spot on this list. Finally, I think people should read this book, to experience its sadness so that it is not “normal” to find school girl things sexy and attractive. For example music videos such as Britney Spears “Baby One More Time”,
or Alicia Silverstone in Aerosmith’s video “Crazy” should not be an acceptable part of our culture. A teenager discovering herself and her sexuality should not be preyed upon by grown men. I am normally very free-spirited and accepting, but I think society’s views on women and our teenage girls needs to change, the #metoo campaign is the start of this but I hope it starts to reach all aspects of how women are objectified in our society.
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