Lolita

[98hime]

Has anyone else read Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov? If not, I highly suggest the book, it's very excellent. The book in summary is about a forty something year old man, named Humbert Humbert. He falls in love with the 12 year old Lolita. They soon begin a very "intimate" relationship ( if you get what I'm getting at). But Lolita soon becomes unhappy with it.

 

It's an extremely beautifully written book, the prose style is elaborate and very flowery.

 

The opening lines, for example, are...

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.

 

One of the most beautiful openings to a book that I've ever read.

Of course, because of the...nature of the book I wouldn't recommend anyone under the age of 16 reading it.

 

( And Mods, if this book is deemed to risque for the forum, I'm sorry. )

[St. Jimmy]

Never read it, but I've heard of it. I'd love to read it when I get a chance to.

[Zovesta]

I'll be honest, I've read part of it before, and the writing style annoyed me. =| I didn't like it.

[Rosedamai]

It's written like that to basically mask what the old guy's done. Nabokov himself said that he doesn't approve of Humbert Humbert's actions and that all the flowery prose and whatnot's only there to win over the reader to his side. Not to mention that it somehow justifies his actions. It's not that Lolita has a choice or ever liked the relationship-what she's feeling is never described by Humbert, and her "voice" essentially, is never heard throughout the story.

 

In short, one of the most disgusting books I've ever read, not because of the subject matter or the prose, which I agree is beautiful, but because I got thoroughly sick of how the speaker (Humbert, not Nabokov) was justifying his actions CONSTANTLY.

[98hime]

I do agree with you, ylangylang. Humbert was a twisted man who was just always in denial of how horrendously he was throughout the book.

 

Of course, I read the book only a chapter or two at a time. At times the writing style just became very overwhelming.

[Zovesta]

Mmm, it was the only book I had on hand at the time (and that would continue for six more hours), so I guess how overwhelming it was got to me. I should try it again, in that case.

[applegirl]

The title caught my eye when I was a teenager, but reading just the first chapter at the time ... I was a little freaked out. This was a man that tried to be find reasoning in his sick obsession with young girl-children, and it creeped me out that he never outright spoke sex but danced around the edges of it through his weird speech and writing. Like he was trying to make it seem his fascination was "okay" or something.

[Gsea]

The title caught my eye when I was a teenager, but reading just the first chapter at the time ... I was a little freaked out. This was a man that tried to be find reasoning in his sick obsession with young girl-children, and it creeped me out that he never outright spoke sex but danced around the edges of it through his weird speech and writing. Like he was trying to make it seem his fascination was "okay" or something.

-casually resurrects this thread 3 years later because i adore this book-

 

In regards to the quote above: that is exactly why I love Lolita so much. I have never encountered anything like it. The narrator manipulates the reader quite a lot. Every time I re-read it, I catch something new - another phrase that he has worded so as to sound like less of a horrible person, another sick way of justifying the things he does.

 

And I love Nabokov's writing style. I love love love it - Nabokov was synesthetic and it shows in his writing. Again, I've never read anything like it. His imagery & use of details is very unique, very peculiar. I've seen the writing described as "clinical" in style and I think that makes it all the more unusual.

 

Also I love verbally smacking people down whenever they refer to it as a love story or some sort of beautiful tragedy. These people obviously fell for the twisted version of the truth presented by Humbert. Also, it could not possibly be a love story between Humbert and Lolita because Lolita was pretty much a figment of his imagination; Dolores was a real girl but Humbert projected his fantasies onto her so severely that he forgot she was her own person. And anyway, she was a child. Children cannot consent. She was incapable of reciprocating his feelings and incapable of consenting to the way he treated her.

 

I do think this whole "nymphet" thing Humbert created could be applied, in a way, to the modern "manic pixie dream girl" trope hmmmm

 

...I really enjoy discussing this book.

[Lady Artemis]

One of my favorite books of all time, I'm planning on getting a quote tattooed on me.