Lolita in Our Shared Shelf

Jan 30, 2011 Heather rated it liked it · review of another edition

Note: This review is written primarily to and for my three Goodreads (and actual) friends who also read it recently (Erin, Kathleen, and Bridget).

Well, I will fill in the missing star for the group. I'm giving it 3! I finished it awhile ago, and then discussed it w/Bridget by phone, so I'm just getting around to the actual review now. I agree that it was clever and well-written, but I also found it very dense and kind of boring at times. I also agree that it was disgusting at times - but I don't Note: This review is written primarily to and for my three Goodreads (and actual) friends who also read it recently (Erin, Kathleen, and Bridget).

Well, I will fill in the missing star for the group. I'm giving it 3! I finished it awhile ago, and then discussed it w/Bridget by phone, so I'm just getting around to the actual review now. I agree that it was clever and well-written, but I also found it very dense and kind of boring at times. I also agree that it was disgusting at times - but I don't think that made it not good, in fact I think that means the author accomplished what he was going for. The topic WAS disgusting and horrifying.

What did strike me the most is my horror at how anyone could ever possibly come away from reading this thinking that she had anything to do with contributing to their "relationship" or that it was in any way a mutual affair or worse a "love story" or NOT be disgusted or horrified. The author made it extremely clear that Humbert was coercing and raping her, and that any attempts to convince the reader otherwise were just the narrator trying to be liked. How anyone could ever think that a twelve year old would have anything to do with this - in this book, or ever - is mind boggling to me. I think the point of the book was that she didn't actually come onto him at all and that was his version, but even if she or someone did, SHE IS TWELVE. Clearly you should not take advantage of that. How. Is. This. Even. A. Question. (I never saw the movie so I'm wondering if the movie changed the presentation of the plot a lot? But even so, if she is 12 in the movie, I still stand by what I just said. I am horrified by anyone who would find that even remotely alright or blame a 12 year old girl AT ALL.)

Okay, off the soap box. I thought the best and most clever part of the writing is that the narrator could actually succeed at times in making me like him despite every horrifying thing that I just wrote above. It was like the original Dexter - taking a despicable character/behavior and somehow managing to get people on board (though for me, much less so with this than with Dexter, who is kind of at least supposed to be sort of helping people). In this case I would find myself kind of liking him for a moment and catch myself. What wasn't clear to me was how the narrator actually felt about his own actions. Was he disgusted by himself and kind of trying to cover for it, or was he actually alright with his choices?

Overall, it's very clever and apparently, from my online reading of spark notes, one of the first times an author produced an unreliable narrator. However, it also just really dragged at times, hence my 3 stars. Definitely a work of literature worth discussing. The writing and content, and how he merged the two and approached the topic, were pretty fascinating (except when it wasn't and I was bored).

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Oct 21, 2024 Cindy rated it did not like it

I guess I just don't see it. I can't see past the lude remarks, the disgusting behavior, the perverse inner monologue. I could care less about the landscape he's describing because it's interwoven with his escapades and manipulation of a child. It may be well written and it may showcase Nabokov's talent, his ability to look inside the mind of a pedophile. But it's just too much for me. ...more

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Dec 26, 2015 Maeve rated it really liked it

Shelves: 1001-book

I admit I picked up this book because I wanted to read "Reading Lolita in Tehran" and figured it would probably be good to have read Lolita first. I was surprised at the poetry of the language in this book. The narrator (HH) is amazingly both astoundingly self-aware yet also willfully ignorant of the atrocity of his actions. I think that's what makes it so creepy, how rational he seems while doing something so despicable. Nabokov has mastered the unreliable narrator and the unsympathetic protago ...more

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Nov 04, 2017 Esra Tasdelen rated it really liked it

For me, great literature is when I am allowed a peek into the depths of the human soul, with all its good and evil. And Nabokov definitely accomplishes this. I have taken away a star for a lack of readability though. He really does use some very obscure words (most of which are not even in the dictionary).

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