Lolita

I think what the scariest thing about this book is not what actually happens in it (which is thankfully fictional), but what it reveals about ourselves. We, the readers, are the real jury here, with the power of either condemning or acquitting Humbert ditto. But Humbty-Dumbty is so suave and such a smooth operator that he spellbinds us into his little game of sensational excuses and slippery lies. I'm ashamed to admit at times I actually found myself sympathizing with old wily Humblepie. Like a demon he tempts us with poisoned candy apples and Turkish delights and we gormandize them ravenously, and we only realize what we've done once it's too late. What a exceptional, ghastly book.

Sí, la historia es interesante, estás pendiente página tras página de lo que les sucede a los personajes, de qué perversidad perpetrará Humbert, pero lo más grande de esta novela es cómo está contada. La poderosa prosa de Nabokov es excepcional y bella, su utilización del lenguaje sublime. Es casi como poesía narrada. Hay párrafos que son verdadera música, de verdad.

Hace años empecé este libro y, acabada la primera parte, abandoné su lectura por otra. Pensaba que el germen de la historia ya estaba explicada y que el resto no sería tan interesante. Me equivocaba.

No nos equivoquemos, estamos ante las memorias póstumas de un pederasta, que ya en la primera página del prólogo, se nos cuenta que ha cometido un crimen, por show more lo que dichas memorias nos llegan desde prisión. Humbert Humbert es un bastardo, no cabe duda. Y aun así, ejerce tal fascinación en el lector que es imposible no sentirse atraído por su historia y personalidad. Porque Humbert es un enfermo, con un deseo enfermizo, y como tal, llega un momento en que es digno de lástima, al igual que Lolita.

Humbert es un europeo que se establece en Norteamérica. Es un profesor dedicado a traducir obras del francés, y decide buscar una pensión donde vivir. Entonces conoce a Lolita, una niña de 12 años que lo trastorna y obsesiona por completo. Su misión a partir de entonces será seducirla...

La novela empieza con un 6, sube hasta un 9, baja hasta un 7, vuelve a subir a un 8, y en los capítulos finales llega al 10. Humbert Humbert deja una huella indeleble en la memoria del lector. Es, sin lugar a dudas, uno de los personajes más logrados de la literatura universal.

'Lolita' es una novela-con-temporizador, es decir, tiempo después de haberla terminado, tu memoria es a-saltada por imágenes y detales que, curiosamente, no son los más trascendentales. Y ésto es maravilloso. show less

Yeah, I think you've likely heard of Lolita. It's astonishing however how this novel seems to get characterized, in blurbs such as the one here on Goodreads. The "freedom and sophistication" in the telling of "a love story almost shocking in its beauty and tenderness", and "most of all, it is a meditation on love". How different and much less appealing the novel would seem I guess if advertised as a story told from inside the head of a child rapist. That would be irresponsible commercial blurbing.

It's an excellent novel, but a love story it is not. The protagonist is written in a way that certainly causes Nabokov controversy, because the character is writing this story to the reader from his prison cell and wants the reader to, yes, show more view it as a doomed love story. But that's what the character is doing, not what Nabokov is doing. Nabokov is tricky, I mean this is the 13th novel of his that I've read now, I know he's tricky and an extremely erudite writer, but still, this should be apparent.

Humbert tells us from the start of his journey with Lolita that he won her compliance by threatening her with what would become of her as an orphan child if she tries to escape him. He writes of withholding breakfast from her until she "performs her morning duties". He writes of "her sobs in the night - every night, every night - the moment I feigned sleep."

Humbert himself, despite his other self-delusions, seems pretty clear that the "love" in this situation is entirely one-sided, it's just that though he makes performative nods in his telling of the story to feeling guilt on occasion, he's entirely self-centered. He feels love, therefore this is a love story. The reader should obviously know better. It's not a love story, it's a story from the point of view of a child rapist. show less

THIS BOOK WAS SO GOOD (absolutely disgusting and vile ofc, but ykwim). The way the author gets you to sympathize with a pedophile is completely insane. You would NEVER think you could feel bad for a pedophile, yet somehow the author forces you to empathize and really, deeply understand his emotions and why he thinks and feels what he does. Despite the book being quite gross, a bit hard to read, and HIGHLY controversial, you simply CANNOT deny the absolute GENIUS that is Nobakov.

This is a novel which should be approached and dealt with very, very carefully indeed. What Nabokov has done here remains as liable to detonate and rip the world apart now as it did when it was first published nearly 50 years ago.

In particular because child sexual abuse is more in the headlines that it ever has been, Lolita is a novel that is likely to divide popular opinion. In much the same way as Imre Kertesz' Fateless does, it forces the reader to face the dilemma of what you do when something so repugnant is depicted so skilfully. With such sensitivity to the protagonists in the writing, you can't help but sympathise with them while at the same time having to constantly wrestle back to the forefront of your mind the reality of what show more is laid before you.

Lolita is a well-known story of a man's affair with a 12-year-old girl and the escapades they go to in order to maintain the secrecy of their relationship. It is astonishingly well written. Nabokov is one of the best writers of prose I think I've ever read. Of that there is no doubt, and I am very much looking forward to reading more of his novels. But it's the fact that it's so well written that brings about the dilemma that I've mentioned and the novel is pure genius for this construction.

The novel is also genius for the fact that it is just as (if not more) relevant for us today as it was on publication. Back when this was written, it wasn't only paedophilia that was taboo. Homosexuality was also very much something people would hide from the authorities. Today, one of these has now become perfectly acceptable to popular culture in the United States, the setting of Nabokov's novel, while he other is still regarded as a criminal offence.

One might argue that homosexuality and paedophilia differ in that the former occurs, at least in society's accepted form, between consenting adults whereas the latter does not. But Nabokov also challenges this assumption. How reliable a narrator Humbert Humbert really is we will never know. But, according to him, it is he that is seduced by Lolita, not the other way around. Does this then justify it? At what age are we able to make choices about what we do with our bodies? Homosexuality in the UK used to be a criminal offence and was then legalised for consenting adults over 21... then 18... and now 16 years of age. How did this reduction happen? Have we evolved to become more mature sexually at a younger age or is this simply based on society's view of what is acceptable or not? How can sex at 15 years 11 months of age be a crime when, a month later, it is a right?

So, will 2065 see a US society that accepts a 42 year old marrying a 12 year old? Maybe it will. And if you find this repugnant, what do you think will prevent it? Why will your grandchildren not find your current 'prudish' and 'bigoted' views about paedophilia derisory and so, oh, Old Testament? When society makes its moral rules simply through democratic opinion, all you need is a majority for it to be acceptable. When Lolita was published, it was unthinkable to many that a 16 year old boy could ever legally have sex with another and yet we live in such a time. What is unthinkable to us now will almost certainly be permissible in the future. History has taught us that and the novel as an art form has been its voice.

This has not only made my Hall of Fame (the first since Growth of the Soil over two years ago), but it has equalled the highest ever rating that I've ever given a book tying with Cry, the Beloved Country at 95%. That is quite an achievement, but definitely a deserved one. show less

One of the aspects I enjoyed about Lolita is the awareness that it is a narration. I was fascinated by Humbert's self-analysis. To me, it felt like the character was offering the reader "explanations" of why/how he was what he was. However, at the same time he was undermining the explanation by posing it as a rhetorical question and answer.

Nabokov depicted Humbert as an unreliable narrator -- the story we are reading is framed as Humbert's defense statement. Clearly Humbert has a motive to present his story with a particular bias. So, we are only shown his version of events. At times it is an an exaggerated/distorted version of reality, dropping hints that he was delusional, paranoid, etc. But if the narration is a defense statement, it show more throws into question the reliability of the presentation of Humbert's paranoia....

I was also fascinated by how Nabokov's use of language allows me to either gloss over the horrific acts or be completely creeped out. On the page, it is much easier to lose the acts in the beauty of the language (my first reading many years ago), but listening to a fantastic audio version by J. Irons, the meaning and emotion conveyed by intonations overpowers the language (and his Humbert really creeped me out).

Overall, the book made me question the nature of fiction -- we use stories to make sense of the world and to create a reality we believe is "true" -- but Lolita demonstrates that you can never know what it true; you can't know what really happened or why someone is the way they are. show less

this grew into far more epic a story than i had initially thought it'd be; i don't know if the author had ever been to america or just really did the research necessary, but taking a swedish?/french pedophile across the states and their attractions with the perfect victim (no strings attached apart from her childish disposition) is a pretty novel idea. stories of misogynistic and patriarchal sexual abuse are usually told from the perspective of the victim, so being subjected to the perpertrator's firsthand account—methodical, gratuitous, unrepentant sexuality all bared—is an interesting experience. It's especially interesting that nabokov recognizes that hearing from the creep how exactly their sexuality works ad nauseum would delve show more into self-indulgent edginess that no one would enjoy—instead, we hear justifications and gain a complete picture of our narrator's character by how he chooses to describe his assumed paternity of his victim and the manner in which he uses the power it grants him. in every one of his intimate relationships, he uses the power vested in him by the nature of the family to make the women and girls in his life completely dependent on him—a fact that he takes complete advantage of to fulfill his sexual desires. i'm using all these em dashes because nabokov did. i think what's really striking about this book is how familiar it all is; i'd expected it to be very russian, but the audience is almost immediately whisked off to mid-twentieth-century america, complete with rustic, backwater towns and only a superfluous engagement with the law necessary to get away with adopting and making a concubine out of a random woman's daughter. the narrator blends into every community he joins, all the while plagued with his scientific desire for sexual release. if the reader wasn't privy to his thoughts, this guy would come off as more or less an average father—or so he'd have you believe. i've no doubt that there is always something off about him that everyone else can pick up on, based on how paranoid he gets of others suspecting his crimes. his possessiveness and obsession make up half of his account, and while he moves on from talking about the scientific basis for the nymph's appeal, he certainly becomes grating to listen to. in that way, i think that a movie adaptation could capture the story really well, but would likely lack the essence of his pedophilic psychosis. show less