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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18133.Lolita?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Lolita" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166857377m/18133.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18133.Lolita?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Lolita</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5152.Vladimir_Nabokov">Vladimir Nabokov</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/16137769?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 3 of 5 stars This is a strange book, subtle, sinister (“from the left”) in its ability to turn liberals into prudes and prudes into libertines without ever knowing it. 
 
 I read "Bend Sinister" as an undergraduate, and was irritated that Nabokov could write so incredibly well in his non-native tongue. Envious of that talent and intelligence, I was also curious as to why he would use that talent to teach me about America, when he could be talking about Russia, a lá "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov. 
 
 I still feel that way after reading Lolita. I have picked it up several times over the years and put it down just as many, for different reasons: put off by the subject, put off by the unsatisfied prurience so deceitfully incited, shamed by the perfect portrayal of his libidinous licentiousness, and frustrated by the fictional caricatures of dull, amoral adults and their America. However, after topping so many best books of the millennium lists, one would have to be a Yahoo to ignore it. 
 
 What I least like about the book is the author’s manipulation of his “reader.” First, he speaks directly to the reader, encouraging sympathy through his feigned honesty; but once engaged, he creates an artifice that allows the book-holding reader to eavesdrop on the several other manufactured audiences so as to misdirect the direct reader’s sympathy, patience, judgment—and so excuse his prurient indulgence. As soon as one is ready to hang Humbert for his amorality, he introduces a narrow-minded courtroom, a myopic judge, a vengeful detective, etc., and so slips the reader’s noose from his neck. Sinister.
 
 It is arrogance that leads Nabokov to the conviction that the lascivious soul in us will offset our moral rectitude. He dangles his Lolita like a piece of catnip. He wrote that this was simply a story he had to get off his chest, but elsewhere he says his characters do not drive his pen, rather they are his slaves. They do that which he wants. So, if one can escape the hypnotic anticipation of what perverse behavior might come next (it doesn’t), then one can get a meta-view of his character. I thought Nabokov used her as his opinion of America: we are all adolescence and lust and mediocrity and banal. His Dickensian descriptions of dim-witted tenement life in New England and the boring restlessness of road life in the West are dispiriting. His Lolita is the archetype of triviality. And, to blame it all on Poe (i.e., Annabelle Leigh) is immature. 
 
 Though the book world says we must celebrate this achievement--Vanity Fair squibs that this is, “The only convincing love story of our century”—someone must discern between love and pedophilia. This isn’t "Dangerous Liaisons," this isn’t Molly Bloom and her soliloquy, this isn’t Baudelaire--the topic is pedophilia. Where is the morality that supersedes our guttural instincts? A love story? I rather think it is Nabokov’s dismissal of America as shallow, distracted, indulgent, libidinous, and trivial. We are, at best, not East Egg, not West Egg, but ham and eggs.
 
 Now, if he were writing about Lady Chatterley and not her pubescent daughter, then we’d be free to talk about art. And it is art. Nabokov is as mesmerized with the English language as Humbert is with Lo, more so. The allusions to authors and major works cascade; he parodies Joyce’s style on one page, Faulkner’s on another; he lampoons Freud, and appeals to Byron; his paragraphs are tapestries, his vocabulary would challenge the OED. It is interesting to note that researchers have identified pre-existing stories or events that provide Nabokov with the structure his tale. So with tale set, the art becomes paramount. This would, perhaps, explain why so many (especially female) reviewers excuse Nabokov from the subject and defer to the art. At least, I think they do, they say they do. Whatever, as erotica, it flops; as master of the English language and literature,he astounds. 
 
 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/278736?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

W's review
rating:

This is a strange book, subtle, sinister (“from the left”) in its ability to turn liberals into prudes and prudes into libertines without ever knowing it.

I read "Bend Sinister" as an undergraduate, and was irritated that Nabokov could write so incredibly well in his non-native tongue. Envious of that talent and intelligence, I was also curious as to why he would use that talent to teach me about America, when he could be talking about Russia, a lá "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov.

I still feel that way after reading Lolita. I have picked it up several times over the years and put it down just as many, for different reasons: put off by the subject, put off by the unsatisfied prurience so deceitfully incited, shamed by the perfect portrayal of his libidinous licentiousness, and frustrated by the fictional caricatures of dull, amoral adults and their America. However, after topping so many best books of the millennium lists, one would have...more This is a strange book, subtle, sinister (“from the left”) in its ability to turn liberals into prudes and prudes into libertines without ever knowing it.

I read "Bend Sinister" as an undergraduate, and was irritated that Nabokov could write so incredibly well in his non-native tongue. Envious of that talent and intelligence, I was also curious as to why he would use that talent to teach me about America, when he could be talking about Russia, a lá "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov.

I still feel that way after reading Lolita. I have picked it up several times over the years and put it down just as many, for different reasons: put off by the subject, put off by the unsatisfied prurience so deceitfully incited, shamed by the perfect portrayal of his libidinous licentiousness, and frustrated by the fictional caricatures of dull, amoral adults and their America. However, after topping so many best books of the millennium lists, one would have to be a Yahoo to ignore it.

What I least like about the book is the author’s manipulation of his “reader.” First, he speaks directly to the reader, encouraging sympathy through his feigned honesty; but once engaged, he creates an artifice that allows the book-holding reader to eavesdrop on the several other manufactured audiences so as to misdirect the direct reader’s sympathy, patience, judgment—and so excuse his prurient indulgence. As soon as one is ready to hang Humbert for his amorality, he introduces a narrow-minded courtroom, a myopic judge, a vengeful detective, etc., and so slips the reader’s noose from his neck. Sinister.

It is arrogance that leads Nabokov to the conviction that the lascivious soul in us will offset our moral rectitude. He dangles his Lolita like a piece of catnip. He wrote that this was simply a story he had to get off his chest, but elsewhere he says his characters do not drive his pen, rather they are his slaves. They do that which he wants. So, if one can escape the hypnotic anticipation of what perverse behavior might come next (it doesn’t), then one can get a meta-view of his character. I thought Nabokov used her as his opinion of America: we are all adolescence and lust and mediocrity and banal. His Dickensian descriptions of dim-witted tenement life in New England and the boring restlessness of road life in the West are dispiriting. His Lolita is the archetype of triviality. And, to blame it all on Poe (i.e., Annabelle Leigh) is immature.

Though the book world says we must celebrate this achievement--Vanity Fair squibs that this is, “The only convincing love story of our century”—someone must discern between love and pedophilia. This isn’t "Dangerous Liaisons," this isn’t Molly Bloom and her soliloquy, this isn’t Baudelaire--the topic is pedophilia. Where is the morality that supersedes our guttural instincts? A love story? I rather think it is Nabokov’s dismissal of America as shallow, distracted, indulgent, libidinous, and trivial. We are, at best, not East Egg, not West Egg, but ham and eggs.

Now, if he were writing about Lady Chatterley and not her pubescent daughter, then we’d be free to talk about art. And it is art. Nabokov is as mesmerized with the English language as Humbert is with Lo, more so. The allusions to authors and major works cascade; he parodies Joyce’s style on one page, Faulkner’s on another; he lampoons Freud, and appeals to Byron; his paragraphs are tapestries, his vocabulary would challenge the OED. It is interesting to note that researchers have identified pre-existing stories or events that provide Nabokov with the structure his tale. So with tale set, the art becomes paramount. This would, perhaps, explain why so many (especially female) reviewers excuse Nabokov from the subject and defer to the art. At least, I think they do, they say they do. Whatever, as erotica, it flops; as master of the English language and literature,he astounds.

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message 1: by Ginnie

03/18/2008 10:29AM

Wonderful review. Thanks to the Goodreads program which alerts me to what friends are posting I didn't miss this - which would have been a real loss to me. There are several suggestions here, most notably Nabokov's condescension toward American culture in all its aspects, that will broaden my thinking about the author. Especially interesting is that VN was teaching at Cornell while he was writing Lolita and apparently scorned the intelligence of his students (talk about Yahoo, eh W.!)
I think I remember reading that Nabokov rejoiced over Lolita's financial success for freeing him from the academic treadmill. Lots to think about here. Glad you finally finished it to write your review. This is one of the books I reread every few years and next time I will have some new questions to ask of the text.