Lolita. Lolita. “Lo. Lee. Ta” (9). I really don’t know what to talk about when it comes to Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. I could tell you how much I have wanted to read this book, because I had heard that it was such a spectacular book. I can now understand why people were calling spectacular and other things, because it is. It’s witty, smart, and perverted, all at one. And if I was not this messed up on cold medicine I could tell you more, and make sense. So excuse me if I don’t make sense or ramble a bit. But the point is because it is those three things it is memorable and oddly likable. Since it’s weird to like a character who wants to touch little girls, but I somehow love Humbert Humbert (and his name). This is probably one of main things about Lolita, you somehow love it.
Then again the novel is not about pedophilia, but people seem to forget that. This story is more about innocence and trying to withhold something you once had. Humberts obsession with nymphets began because of his first love Annabel. Her memory haunted him “until at last, twenty years later, [He] broke her spell by incarnating her in another” (15). That other being Lolita, and he wanted her so badly that he ended up marrying her mother. The thing is, Humbert did not want to taint her innocence. Her innocence was one of the things he loved so much about her, and it what he was sure to keep with him forever. “Pathetic--- because despite the insatiable fire of my venereal appetite, I intended, with the most fervent force and foresight, to protect the purity of that twelve-year-old child” (63)
On the other hand, should we even trust Humbert at all? He is an incredibly smart, educated, and witty man who is jail for murder. We are reminded this time and time again when he keeps talking to the reader as though we are the “[g]entlemen of the jury” (69). So Humbert is not a very reliable narrator at all. Through out the first half of the story he is just trying to prove that he did not mean harm out of any of this, and if he did, he is no longer the same man. He is just “a very conscientious recorder” (72). This is probably one the spectacular things about this book: it is incredibly well rounded and smart. If it were not for the little things I would believe Humbert, and think that perfect man he described himself as.
Some good stuff in here, Erika (even despite the cold medicine). The response really gets interesting in the final paragraph when you start to question HH a bit more. I would like to see this expanded. Obviously from within the story, HH has a vested interest in convincing us of his good intentions (if not, necessarily, his innocence). However, he is constantly manipulating us in many ways. The most important question here is not why HH would want to do this, but why Nabokov would.
ReplyDeleteIn the second half of the book, pay close attention to how outrageous and coincidental the plot becomes, how it mimics the detective noir genre, how things just don't quite add up.
Keep pushing for more interpretations of the text here. Remember, we have two people speaking to us in this book--HH AND Nabokov.
keep going=8
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