Lolita in Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

Aug 10, 2007 Tiffany rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books, recommendedby-a

I think a lot of people think this book is smut about pedophilia and child porn. Yes, Humbert Humbert likes sex. Yes, he talks about it some. Yes, a lot of the sex he talks about is with an underage girl. However, when Humbert/Nabokov talks about sex, he doesn't use the pornographic language I think a lot of people expect. He uses metaphors and abstract language, to a point where, if you're not paying attention, you can miss that two characters just had sex (and you miss the imaginative way of e I think a lot of people think this book is smut about pedophilia and child porn. Yes, Humbert Humbert likes sex. Yes, he talks about it some. Yes, a lot of the sex he talks about is with an underage girl. However, when Humbert/Nabokov talks about sex, he doesn't use the pornographic language I think a lot of people expect. He uses metaphors and abstract language, to a point where, if you're not paying attention, you can miss that two characters just had sex (and you miss the imaginative way of expressing certain adult reactions to certain adult situations). Conversely, there were quite a few times when I thought to myself, "Wait, was that a veiled way of saying he did her again? Or do I just have a dirty mind?"

I had a friend ("friend") long ago who's the one who suggested I read this specific edition because of all of its notes and its introduction. Yes, there are notes. Lots of them! I'm not sure I would have understood a lot of the book without them, or maybe they were just phrased/placed in such a way that I doubt myself about things I would have understood. Mainly, would I have figured out all of the clues about the love triangle had I not had it pointed out to me before I even got to the actual story (Appel begins talking about it in his introduction, leading me in such a way about all of the "clues" that I was expecting them, and thus wasn't sure I would have picked up on them without his pushing them on me from the very beginning)? The notes are also good if you're studying Nabokov's writing, because a lot of them show parallels between this and Pale Fire (which just kind of wastes your time if you're not reading this with the intention of comparing the two novels).

Now, going back to the smut. The friend ("friend") described Lolita this way (sorry for the plagiarism here, buddy, but I implied attribution to you): "Don't believe people who tell you this is a book about desire or pedophilia. It's a book about the art of fiction. Beautifully written..." He (the "friend"; and obviously Nabokov, too, since I didn't pick up on most of the things the notes had to explain, like the recurrence of the numbers 342 and 52) is much smarter than I am, but I am smart enough to have gotten that (or maybe I got that from reading Appel's notes): it's a book about the fiction in life (Humbert questions how much of this really went on), the fiction we tell others ("Your mother's in the hospital. No she's not. Lolita's my daughter. No she's not. I'm not ogling your child. Yes I am. I'm an author. I'm a teacher. I teach in New York. I teach in California. We're visiting family. No we're not."), and the art of writing smutty scenes in ways that make them sound absolutely beautiful and decadent, inviting the reader to imagine everyday occurrences in ways never done before. Or ways that are just funny (the parallels between "mushroom" (as in the play The Strange Mushroom) and sex made me laugh every time).

So yes, this book has the overall skeleton of a story about a man attracted to young girls. But it also has literary quality and the secondary (not-so-secondary) story of a man who becomes paranoid, delusional, and tries to recapture something that was never really his.

(But I also wonder if the "friend" recommended this edition because it talks about his fancy-pants alma mater SO much. Yes, yes, you went to a fancy school; shaddup about it.) ...more

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Feb 17, 2009 Maggie rated it liked it

"My heart was a hysterical unreliable organ."

I must be honest - this one took me quite a little while and left me terribly conflicted.

I've been attempting to read Lolita for years now, and took two serious attempts at it before I ultimately had to make it one of my resolution reads just so I'd finally commit to finishing the little bugger. The strange thing is that I had been sincerely enjoying Nabokov's masterpiece during all of my false starts. Each time I had found it unexpectedly funny, and "My heart was a hysterical unreliable organ."

I must be honest - this one took me quite a little while and left me terribly conflicted.

I've been attempting to read Lolita for years now, and took two serious attempts at it before I ultimately had to make it one of my resolution reads just so I'd finally commit to finishing the little bugger. The strange thing is that I had been sincerely enjoying Nabokov's masterpiece during all of my false starts. Each time I had found it unexpectedly funny, and the pedophilic protagonist surprisingly likable. Yet, each time and always somewhere around page 100, I'd abandon it without any particular reason. I liked it, but I couldn't bring myself to finish it. It was as simple as that.

It wasn't until this third, successful go that I understood what was holding me up: I could only truly enjoy Lolita and its notorious protagonist for as long as Humbert Humbert's lascivious desires remained vague, uncommitted longings in his head. I, perhaps better than most, understand all the arguments in Lolita's defense. Art isn't polite. Art challenges, often offends. And who would argue that Nabokov's novel isn't a work of art? It's hardly my place to presume what Nabokov's purpose was with writing Lolita, but what the novel does is challenge its reader to sympathize with a violent rapist. Quite the little mixed bag, eh?

And despite all his poise and charm, Humbert Humbert is revolting. He's a murderer who abused his first wife, plotted to kill his second, and repeatedly rapes a child. His attempt to rationalize his actions - claiming the existence of "nymphets" and painting little Lo as a flirtatious seductress - is a weak and transparent attempt to dilute the obvious truth of what happened between the two. Whether or not she was a flirt is irrelevant; Lolita was twelve years old when Humbert essentially kidnaps her and keeps her as his sexual plaything until she finally finds both the opportunity and the will to escape. Sure, Humbert is likable and tells his story with a silver tongue, but it's the nature of violent narcissists to be incredibly charming. From the moment Humbert took Lolita to bed, I had lost my ability to sympathize or find humor in his tale, and I found myself wading through the back half of the novel with a tight ball of dread festering in my belly.

And frankly, I'm a little surprised by my reaction to this book. I'm the furthest thing from a prude and I like to think it takes quite a bit to shock me, but I'd also like to think that my affections aren't so easily won, either. Certainly, it's going to take a lot more than a little charisma for me to sympathize with a skeevy pederass.

But, hey - it ain't art if it ain't challenging, right? ...more

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