Books I've read so far this year...

[nekosensei]

1. The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
2. The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
3. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
4. The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
5. The Once and Future King by T. H. White

6. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov -- Reading this book made me feel dirty or something. When I finished reading it, I closed the book and told doomsey that it was a complete and utter mindfuck. Wow...this is kind of a hard review to write because I get the feeling that this book is pretty complicated. I think, one of the reasons that this book is considered a classic is because it took a pretty scandalous subject and used it to tell a story using a very sophisticated style. I also think it's also worth noting that he makes a point of telling his story without using swear words and other vulgar language. He also made word plays and such in French, which I probably missed out on since I don't speak French and can only read things that are written in a plain, simple language. Too bad the book didn't have footnotes explaining what was going on.

The way the characters were portrayed was interesting, and one of these days I'm going to have to watch the Kubrick film in order to find out what his interpretation of the characters were. Here are some of my ponderings. Many critics seem to think that Lolita seduced Humbert Humbert, especially when they were in the first hotel, but I'm wondering if that really wasn't the case. The novel was written from Humbert Humbert's point of view. In fact, his story was presented as a memoir written while he was in prison. Part of me wonders if what happened at the hotel didn't really happen as he presented. One of the pedophile's MO is to blame the victim. (And I think Nabokov knew their MO when he wrote the novel. My sense of the novel was that he pretty much nailed pedophile tactics. In other words, getting the victim's trust beforehand, and later, intimidating the victim not to tell because they'll get into more trouble. In Lolita's case, he told her that she would end up a ward of the state). In other words, the victim seduced him first or acted indecorously, so therefore, the abuse they received was their fault. Also interesting is that Humbert Humbert points out that Lolita told him that she did have a sexual encounter while she was away at summer camp, and that sounds like another way of discrediting her. Maybe a lot of girls start to get curious about sex when they're twelve or thirteen years old, and it's possible that she may have had a girlhood crush, but I can hardly imagine a girl that age initiating sex with a man who is almost forty. My guess was that she was, in reality, pressured or coerced.

In the first half of the book, Humbert Humbert wanders from motel to motel throughout America, portraying Lolita as some kind of goddess, or in his terms, a nymphet, who he is able to bribe into giving him sexual favors in exchange for candy, toys, and movie magazines. I think you can kind of see who the real Lolita is through the lines. A twelve going on thirteen year old girl who is horrified to learn that her mother had died, leaving her trapped with her child-molester step-monster step-father. She must have been disgusted with Humbert Humbert, but to her, there really was no other place she could go. And, from some of the scenes at the all-girls' school in Beardsly (after their year long cross country trip), you could tell that she was a very troubled girl. It seems to me that, towards the end of the book, Humbert Humbert finally admits that he misinterpreted or misrepresented Lolita when he looked back on her reaction to a friend of her's, Avis', family when they come to pick their daughter up. Maybe there was more to her than what he thought. He eventually expresses remorse that he took away her childhood and fucked up her life.

Anyhow...that's what I got out of the novel. Does anybody out there who has read it have a different opinion?

Comments

[drl909.livejournal.com]

I've not read the novel.

From what I know of the behind-the-scenes aspect of the Kubrick version, Nabakov wrote the screenplay, but Kubrick's direction of it was very loose. The character of Clare Quilty was expanded from the novel, and Peter Sellers's performance in the role has been criticized for being too over-the-top.

There's a second film version, made in 1997, directed by Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction) and starring Jeremy Irons as Humbert. From what I've heard, it's more faithful to the sequence of incidents of the original novel, but doesn't get the "unreliable narrator" quality of the novel across as well. I've seen bits of this, but not all.

[ordinary.livejournal.com]

I do.

While I don't disagree that Humbert and Lolita's relationship was dysfunctional I don't believe that this dysfunction falls squarely on his shoulders. I think his really is shown in the end, where they are able to see each other without massive amounts of anger and drama.

I think Lolita reached out in an inappropriate way, possibly because she KNEW how she would be received. Her home life was a mess and that made her a target. Humbert is the adult and should have behaved but that's really what makes this novel.