A Review: Lolita
Title of Work: Lolita
Author: Vladimir Nabokov
Format:
Published: 1955
Started:
Finished: 2022-12-11\
Posted: Goodreads
Rating: 5/5
Lolita and Shame
This story has long existed at the periphery of my literary awareness, always inexplicably important but subdued within a dark air of shame and perversion. I could acknowledge its existence only with sidelong glances, perhaps feeling if I looked at it directly, if I picked it up and turned to the first page, that I would be forced to stand before interrogations to which I did not yet know how to reply: why would you read that? In my immaturity and really without conscious decision I pre-perceived each social embarrassment, each time I would hide the cover behind others more appropriate to save my neck from the hot contempt of association with wickedness. So I did not look at Lolita and each time it passed again into the field of my awareness, through innumerable references in popular culture and by respectable writers, I redirected my attention, in effect avoiding the burden of this premeditated shame.
Of course, Lolita has been lauded for decades as a paragon of controversial subject matter, of the unreliable narrator, of beauty from monstrosity. Nabokov (VN) is an enduring titan of Russian and English literature and this work has been poured over academically and publicly for its layered, tantalizing prose and clever wordplay. I know now that it is even read in some highschool curricula. It stands apart because it challenges literary and social convention, not by justifying or normalizing any evil act but by inviting the reader to consider what art is allowed to be and who is allowed to make it. Which dark tones are permitted and which are condemned as abhorrent? Lolita challenges the reader by bringing into question social preconceptions and by seducing said reader into awe, admiration even, of a reprehensible protagonist.
Humbert Humbert’s (HH) narration of his own obsessive consumption of the young girl’s innocence is rife with intricate justification and misdirection. HH alone holds the brush and remains in sole control over which strokes the reader is permitted to see. The ornate and romantic hues with which he paints his infatuation for Delores are further renderings of his expert manipulation—of Delores, of parents and neighbors and teachers, and of the reader. By luring the observer into the beauty of his prose, deeper and more willingly with each successive passage, HH feeds his true obsession: control. The broader predation, yes broader than the sexual exploitation of Delores, is in the control of lives, of perception, and of narrative.
I’ll say now that despite my early evasion of this novel I presently consider it to be one of the most impressive I have ever read. I too was lost in the smooth and meandering turns of phrase, the cleverness and amusement of dark humor which I now shamelessly revel in. I no longer feel helpless to answer, why would you read Lolita? The true shame would be to ignore the art and the artist’s intention because of the objectionable subject matter alone. VN writes in a way that makes me cringe not out of disgust or embarrassment but out of sheer envy. I covet his mastery of language, the genius of his handiwork, in a vile and treacherous way. I wish to possess it though I have not earned it and my body protests the withholding of a prize my mind cannot make its own.