Lolita
Vladimir
Nabokov
Review
by Zorena
Five
Stars
Summary
Nabokov's
most famous and controversial novel, which tells the story of the
aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for
the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita
is
also the story of a hyper civilized European colliding with the
cheerful barbarism of postwar America. Most of all, it is a
meditation on love. Love as outrage and hallucination, madness and
transformation.
My
Review
I
have recently been tackling Marcel Proust's In
Search of Lost Time
and
decided that if I really wanted to read about love's obsession I may
as well go to the pinnacle of this type of literature and read
Lolita.
I started this with a few preconceived notions but tried to keep an
open mind.
How can one so loathe a character and a subject matter yet love the book? It's the writing of course. Nabokov takes a sinister and contentious subject and let's you into the mind of a man completely obsessed with what he calls nymphets but never does Nabokov make it a judgement. He let's his main character, Humbert, slowly reveal himself as what civilized people would call a monster. The person that you initially found yourself relating to becomes abhorrent to you instead.
Humbert is rife with self delusion during a good majority of what he does. He sees his love reciprocated and even suggests that she had seduced him. He is relentless with his desires and while it is rape he sees it as love. So it surprised me that he did show remorse for how he had perverted his little Lolita in the end. Still, he is a monster and a murderous one at that.
If you can get past your revulsion for the main topic of this novel you will discover some very powerful and wonderful writing.
How can one so loathe a character and a subject matter yet love the book? It's the writing of course. Nabokov takes a sinister and contentious subject and let's you into the mind of a man completely obsessed with what he calls nymphets but never does Nabokov make it a judgement. He let's his main character, Humbert, slowly reveal himself as what civilized people would call a monster. The person that you initially found yourself relating to becomes abhorrent to you instead.
Humbert is rife with self delusion during a good majority of what he does. He sees his love reciprocated and even suggests that she had seduced him. He is relentless with his desires and while it is rape he sees it as love. So it surprised me that he did show remorse for how he had perverted his little Lolita in the end. Still, he is a monster and a murderous one at that.
If you can get past your revulsion for the main topic of this novel you will discover some very powerful and wonderful writing.
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