Lolita

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Originally Posted by PeterL

I partly agree with you, but I see the characters (Lolita, Humbert, and Quilty, at least) as mostly symbolic. Humbert wishes to regain his youth through contact with the essence of youth. Lolita, the Cup of Hebe, is young, immature womanhood. Because she is an immature woman, she couldn't bear children, because that would show that she was a mature woman; she would die as that symbolic type, if she hadn't physically died.. The story is somewhat like the myth of Tithonus with twists. I think that Lolita's death is the most important event in the novel.

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But I don't think it was with any "essence of youth". He saw Lolita almost as a reincarnation of Annabel, and yes wanted to regain that youth. Remember he'd had many liaisons in his past. None satisfied him. Part of his first description of Lolita:

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It was the same child--the same frail, honey-hued shoulders, the same silky supple bare back, the same chestnut head of hair......I recognized the tiny dark-brown mole on her side.

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Later he mentions that Lolita was to eclipse her prototype [Annabel].
What you mention about her death in child birth though I find most interesting.

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Originally Posted by tudwell

I didn't do much analysis, and nothing particularly jumped up screaming for hours of deep thought. I just sat back and enjoyed the ride. Lolita contains some of the best prose I've ever read. Nabokov is a master. I mean, just read the first chapter!

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The prose alone is wonderful, I so agree!
I do believe though one could read Lolita every year or so and get something new out of the reading, the levels are practically endless.

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Originally Posted by plainjane

But I don't think it was with any "essence of youth". He saw Lolita almost as a reincarnation of Annabel, and yes wanted to regain that youth. Remember he'd had many liaisons in his past. None satisfied him. Part of his first description of Lolita:
Later he mentions that Lolita was to eclipse her prototype [Annabel].

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To Humbert she was the essence of youth, a way for him to become the child playing with Annabel again. In Humbert's World of Forms Lolita equalled Annabel, who equalled youth. Of course no others satisfied; he was looking for the ideal.

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Originally Posted by PeterL

To Humbert she was the essence of youth, a way for him to become the child playing with Annabel again. In Humbert's World of Forms Lolita equalled Annabel, who equalled youth. Of course no others satisfied; he was looking for the ideal.

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Plus following that line of logic perhaps there was a bit of looking for forgiveness from Lolita/Annabel as well.
Humbert lost his mother early..."picnic, lightening", His aunt as she prophetically told.....the women in his life dropped like flies. No matter how lightly these deaths are told of, the trauma of them had to affect him terribly.
And Annabel. Did Humbert blame himself? Possible, children will unreasonably do so.

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Originally Posted by plainjane

Plus following that line of logic perhaps there was a bit of looking for forgiveness from Lolita/Annabel as well.
Humbert lost his mother early..."picnic, lightening", His aunt as she prophetically told.....the women in his life dropped like flies. No matter how lightly these deaths are told of, the trauma of them had to affect him terribly.
And Annabel. Did Humbert blame himself? Possible, children will unreasonably do so.

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There is a lot of room for interpretation in Lolita, and I tink that was what VN intended.

Won't make a new thread for this, but I'm currently thinking of buying both Lolita and Pnin. So, help me on my way!

I really like Lolita and am always awestruck by the way Nabakov writes. He is a master wordsmith and a smile surely remains on your face throughout the entire experience of reading his works. One thing about Lolita in particular though, while written in breathtakingly wonderful prose, it lacks the substance of truly great novels. Humbert Humbert is not a character from whom you can take something with you. I would compare this novel to the most beautiful woman you've ever seen. Her stunning beauty will surely take your breath away, but alas, beauty alone does not a great woman make.

Adam

I think it's very good, but what are your thoughts?

One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, Nabokov creates a tragic comedy, fused by an absolutely brilliant narrator, to poke fun at the very foundations and biases that we have created about society. Personally, I feel Nabokov, through his narrator is laughing at us, saying "You sick perverts, you fell into the trap of my narrator, and I should you how sick and twisted your perverse lives are."

I reckon that the two are both victims, although they clash. Vivian Darkbloom, Clare Quilty's assistant, is the anagram of Vladimir Nabokov.

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I actually see Lolita as more predatory than Humbert Humbert. She used Humbert more than he used her, in my opinion. Of course, he's usually seen as the "user" and she the "victim" in part because he was the adult and she the child.

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I think that this is one of the worst (which is to say easiest) ways to misread Lolita. If you read Nabokov's afterword to Lolita, then you would find out that the 'first gleams' of Lolita lay in a story which Nabokov read in a newspaper, in which a monkey which was trained to draw, drew the bars on it's cage. I think that Nabokov's example encapsulates Lolita's situation throughout her tenure with Humbert. Humbert is a very intelligent, articulate, erudite and sometimes funny narrator ('frigid gentlewomen of the jury!, 'I have noticed a drop in Lolita's morals' etc.), yet, for all his erudition, he is essentially a narcissist-he is completely disinterested in the lives and opinions of other people, he has little or no empathy and, until the end of the novel, little or no regret over his rape and abduction of a young girl. A lot of people forget that Lolita is a young girl; she is forced to grow up quickly and yet too few people recognise this as they are held under the spell woven by a witty and intelligent narcissist. He doesn’t allow Lolita to grow up, or to be herself, simply because he wants her to remain the same forever, he wants Lolita to remain a slave to his will, an echo of his insensitivity.

Another important passage in the novel which illustrates this the passage when Lolita repels Humbert's advances following his revelation that her mother has died-she goes back to Humbert because she had nowhere else to go. Nabokov notes that in Kafka's The Metamorphoses Gregor's family are insects masquerading as human beings-the same could be said of Humbert Humbert.

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Originally Posted by Bysshe

I'm fifteen years old, and I was wondering if I should try reading it now, or if I should wait until I'm older. I know that there are some books that you probably can't properly appreciate till you're slightly older. I'm looking for something new to read, and it's one of those books that keeps appearing on lists of "classic books". Apart from anything else, I've read short extracts from the book and I'm intrigued by Nabokov's style of writing. I'm trying to write a book myself - I know that sounds horribly pretentious coming from a teenager - and I want to read a variety of books by different authors to gain ideas and inspiration.

So, two questions, really. Firstly, am I too young to appreciate Lolita, and secondly, will I get funny looks from the school librarian if I try to take it out?

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i read it when i was your age and was fine. things aren't step-by-step graphically explained but the horror comes out of what is implied and a few shocking sentences, because of the thoughts behind them.
the librarian didn't give me funny looks but my english teacher looked suitably shocked. he kept going on about how horrible it was because the paedophile was the narrator but i don't think he properly appreciated it. because it's a book you'd naturally make assumptions about, i suggest you read it twice.

which film of lolita do you think was truer to the book/better?

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Humbert Humbert is, to me, his own victim. I'm not saying he's Lolita's victim, but his own. Most of us can control our impulses - anger, desire, jealousy - and we don't fall victim to them, but Humbert Humbert did. Lolita didn't fall victim to her impulses or even to Humbert's. She made of her life what she wanted. She did the choosing. She didn't choose wisely, but she did have the luxury of choosing. Of course, her choosing was constrained, but who's isn't? We all have constraints placed on our lives and choices. Humbert didn't have that luxury of choice. Not that he wasn't a predatory character. Of course he was. Of course he tried to control and seduce Lolita. He used her poor unwitting mother, who was much more of a victim than Lolita.

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I agree, in part, with the assesment of Humbert as being, in a sense, enslaved to his own desires-he could not help being what he was. But he was a cruel and malicious individual in other ways-notice his treatment of his sily and stupid first wife, his treatment of Lolita's utterly phillistine mother-note the way in which he describes them, as being idiotic creatures who deserved what they got-remember it is Humbert who is narrarating the events, Humbert who is describing the characters, Humbert who is describing the actions of various characters, it is Humbert who traps us into thinking that his wives were idiots, that Lolita was manipulating him, that he was a victim of his own perversity.

Humbert does not allow Lolita to grow up-he wants her to reflect his ideal image, his Annabel Lee, it is Humbert who drugs and rapes Lolita. Humbert fails to see Lolita outside of his own narrow and arbitary prism of what Lolita should be, he only loves and desires Lolita insofar that she reflects his own personality and tastes. Humbert is a true despot. Lolita's 'freedom' is not too dissimilair to the 'freedom' of citizens who live under a autocratic regime.

You say that Lolita has a degree of choice-but what choice does she have? Both of her parents are dead and she is kidnapped by a perverted lunatic and taken on a long road trip, followed by a stint at a place where she knows nobody-Humbert withdraws her from the place as soon as she begins to show the slightest semblance of recalcitrance, of independence, of wanting to be a 'normal' teenager. She could have gone to somebody for help, but she was just a young girl, and I as I mentioned before, a lot of people tend to forget that and think that she is a lot older simply because she was raped by an older man. As Lolita's mother notes, deep down she is just a 'normal girl' however bourgeoisie that may sound to Humbert's tendentious ears.

People also tend to forget how Lolita was often treated like an unwanted child by her 'victim' mother (Or as Humbert may describe her; car crash, dead.)

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which film of lolita do you think was truer to the book/better?

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For what it is worth, Nabokov collaborated and helped write the Kubrick version, and thought it was a masterpiece, or something along those lines, and this coming from someone who rarely watched movies! I guess Kubrick's film would be less 'steamy' or sexually explicit because of film censorship of the time, but that is not what Lolita is about. Plus Kubrick is one of the greatest directors of all time, and the film boasts a great cast. (Peter Sellers, James Mason.) I have not seen the newer version with Jeremy Irons in it.

In response to Inderjit Sanghe, I also agree- HH is a manipulator, he admits that
himself. Apart from Lolita, he describes the rest of the characters as being silly and open to manipulation but ironically he is manipulated by a child. Lolita's mother really is selfish. I think HH and Lolita, for all their clashes, are very alike- both are lonely and both are clever.
At the end, when she is older, I think that he is really and truly in love with her at that point- she is no longer like a 'nymphet' but he finally realises.

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Originally Posted by Inderjit Sanghe

For what it is worth, Nabokov collaborated and helped write the Kubrick version, and thought it was a masterpiece, or something along those lines, and this coming from someone who rarely watched movies! I guess Kubrick's film would be less 'steamy' or sexually explicit because of film censorship of the time, but that is not what Lolita is about. Plus Kubrick is one of the greatest directors of all time, and the film boasts a great cast. (Peter Sellers, James Mason.) I have not seen the newer version with Jeremy Irons in it.

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Nabokov almost collaborated on the screenplay. Kubrick hired him, and he wrote a screenplay, but that wasn't what was used. If you look around, you should be able to find a copy of his screenplay with notes. There was one scene in the movie that had some relationship with Nabokov's screenplay, but I con't remember which one.

i have not read lolita yet (i plan to) but ive recently been through anne rice's belinda and i enjoyed large parts of that very much...

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Nabokov almost collaborated on the screenplay. Kubrick hired him, and he wrote a screenplay, but that wasn't what was used. If you look around, you should be able to find a copy of his screenplay with notes. There was one scene in the movie that had some relationship with Nabokov's screenplay, but I con't remember which one

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Really? I always thought Nabokov helped write the screenplay, guess I am wrong.

[QUOTE][Oh, Humbert was a manipulator and a nasty man, but he wasn't a very good manipulator, whereas Lolita was much better at it/QUOTE]

Not too sure about Humbert not being a good manipulator-he is, after all, the narrator of the story, he tells us what he wants us to hear and in a way (somewhat brilliantly) manipulates the readers. He also manipulates his wife into thinking he loves her and many of his neighbours and colleagues into thinking he was a normal, healthy stepfather-to say that Lolita is somehow more manipulative than Lolita simply because she does her best to (rightfully) get away from his tyranny is a rather weak argument given that Humbert himself manipulates a lot of the characters in the novel-notice that the one character who is unable to manipulate is his 'fellow pervert', Quilty.

Nabokov better developed the concept of 'unreliable narrators in the form of Kinbote in Pale Fire, another (possible) sociopath who fits the story and the actions of other people into the narrow prism of his own imagination. Yes, Humbert had his "good points", he was not a complete monster after all, and yes Lolita could be manipulative too, everybody is and can be manipulative to an extent, and everybody sees only what they want to see-like in In Search of Lost Time, when the narrator complains that one of the characters, Bloch, only views the actions of others in relation to himself, that Bloch thought that if a friend didn't send a letter to him for a week then it was because that friend disliked Bloch, rather than because the said friend was sick or busy. Humbert is kind of like a more neurotic, obsequious and perverse Bloch. We rarely see the more positive sides of the characters who Humbert despises (namely most of the characters in the novel)-they are all idiots or frauds.

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There are a lot of unwanted children and a lot of orphaned children as well, however, most of them aren't manipulators, most don't end up loving a pedophile, and most turn out okay. No child really has "freedom." All children under the age of eighteen have some lack of freedom

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Really? Lolita "loved" Humbert? Did she? Yes, she flirted with him, even prior to her mother’s death, but love is too strong a word for what Lolita may or may not have felt for Humbert-as I have already mentioned Humbert is a highly unreliable narrator, he only sees what he wants to see and so he is able to con himself into believing that Lolita is somehow in love with him, thus alleviating his guilt. He doesn't really talk about Lolita's desire to be a normal teenager with a normal boyfriend (he derides teenage boys as being all "muscles and gonnera(sp?)" and fails to dwell upon Lolita’s sobbing in the night-even when he does he tends to dismiss it. It is kind of like his 'trick' of using the actions of other men (Poe, Dante) to justify his actions-hey Dante loved a 12 year old, so why the hell can't I? In a sense he is right, societal norms and vales are entirely arbitrary, but it is a sign of severe moral immaturity and apathy to use the actions of others to justify your own.

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In an autocratic society, Lolita wouldn't have been allowed to receive mail from Quilty, which she did, or leave with him, which she did.

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I agree-she could have and should have gone to someone else (i.e. the police), and I was wrong on the 'autocratic' point.

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I don't really judge any character in the book and don't feel Nabokov was doing so, either. He has written that he believed art should be aesthetic only, never moralistic, so I don't feel Lolita is truly a tale of a child molester. Nabokov always said that literature should plunge its reader into "aesthetic bliss." He wasn't concerned with making a moral statement of any kind. I see Lolita as much more about verbal eroticism than physical eroticism.

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Yes, Nabokov favoured the 'aesthetic' reading of the novel to the political (which he found banal) and the moral. But if we were to judge Lolita purely from Nabokov's perspective then we would have little to talk about-apart from the fact that it is a beautifully written novel.

Nabokov, in his literary criticism, also 'criticised' or commented on the 'morals' of the characters. Dostoevskii's heroes are sociopathic 'sinning their way to Jesus', the Samsa family are insects, Chichikov works for the devil etc. In Madame Bovary, Homais was a 'philistine', Emma and Léon are terrible readers-in many ways Nabokov's thoughts are echoes of what Flaubert, who also wrote for aesthetic bliss (until he was corrupted by George Sand), wanted to say about his characters-no novelist, no matter how strongly her or she propagates the idea of 'art for arts sake' wants his characters to be one dimensional and entirely free of moral judgement, and in many ways Nabokov is a reflection of his own aesthetic and to a certain point moral views. He thought that nature was a great deceiver, and that books, or fairy tales (as he called them) were extension of this-they frequently deceive and manipulate readers, and the prevalence of unreliable narrators in Nabokov's novels reflects this-unreliable narrators are choc-a-bloc in Nabokov's novels.

Nabokov's favourite characters in his novels were (I think) Lolita and Cincinnatus C-both characters have certain things in common, for example Cincinnatus's imprisonment is a reflection of Lolita's (perhaps less tangible) imprisonment and our own (partial) imprisonment to Humbert's narration. Cincinnatus is imprisoned for no reason (or for having his own opinion) and is told that he can not dream, that he cannot think sexually about other people, and that is he does, it could be considered as construing rape. Like Cincinnatus, Lolita is subject to the depravities of her jailer(s).

[QUOTE][Whatever one takes from the book, I think Lolita is a brilliant masterpiece./QUOTE]

I agree-it has been nice talking about Lolita with you. :)

Lolita is next on my reading list. I have read Granita, a story by Umberto Eco which depicts a young man who falls in love with old and decrepit grannies! It is in the collection titled Misreadings. Good laugh:

http://everything2.com/title/Misreadings

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Originally Posted by Kafka's Crow

Lolita is next on my reading list. I have read Granita, a story by Umberto Eco which depicts a young man who falls in love with old and decrepit grannies! It is in the collection titled Misreadings. Good laugh:

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One should read Lolita before reading "Granita", because "Granita" was a parody of Lolita.

Humbert was a master manipulator, right from the word go-

Humbert's narcissism is apparent from the start, note for example his hilarious statement that the McCoo's house burned down due to the "the synchronous conflagration that had been raging all night in my veins"-ironic, perhaps, interesting nonetheless. Also note his description of the dog which is nearly run over by the car he is travelling in, the kind of dog that will always be at risk from being run over my cars, in any case he is tempting fate as his conclusion is an oddly prophetic summarisation of his own relationship with Lolita. (And ironic, considering the fact that the car that runs over Dolores tries to avoid a dog and thus hits her.)

He immediately sets upon Dolores-best get the description out of the way as quickly as possible-accusing her of philistine vulgarity, all American pretension and drabness a book-club bourgeoisie if ever there was one. Perhaps he was right, but he fails to notice the fakeness behind his own "old world politeness" how is equally constrained by the image of him as a old world intellectual and how he needs to keep this image up in order to hide his inner, perverse nature. Baudelaire once claimed that the devil's greatest trick was to convince the world he didn't exist and Humbert's trick echoes the devil's deceit.

He deceives Dolores into thinking he is in love with her-that is coldness is a old world idiosyncrasy, rather than being a manipulation of Dolores, supposed instantaneous, attraction to him. When she threatens to send Lolita to boarding school he knows that he cannot beat her into submission like he did to Valeria, twisting the wrist she once broke, he had to manipulate her, and make it out as if it was she who always made the decisions, that Dolores wore the trousers in the house and that Humbert lived in a state of perpetual acquiescence, poor, vulnerable Humbert! He tricks his rather bland next-door-neighbours, Jane and John (even their names are a reflection of bland, dour Americana!) into thinking that he had an affair with Dolores year before and that he was in fact Lolita's real father-not that he lets us see this in a negative light, it was an act of cleverness, rather than a string in the web of Humbert's deceit. But even the subtlest spiders have weak points!

He fails to differentiate the difference between a moth and a butterfly when he picks up Lolita and he convinces her that if she leaves him she will only end up in a cold, loveless home, where she will rot amongst the drudgery. He fails to see how much Lolita desires normality, how she wants a father figure in her life-instead he deceives us with his nebulous neologisms, he sexually manipulates Lolita when she is sick and constantly tricks a wide range of people-priests, psychoanalysts and naive neighbours and teachers-as well as Lolita herself in delaying the news of her mothers death.

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Originally Posted by Antiquarian

Oh, I agree! :) "Granita" was a terrific story, but made all the better if one has read Lolita first. It only makes sense, right? In order to understand the parody, one needs to be familiar with what's being parodied.

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Yes, I think that you are right. Parodies are only really funny when the reader knows the original work. I don't think that "Granita" would even make sense to someone who hadn't read Lolita.

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Originally Posted by PeterL

One should read Lolita before reading "Granita", because "Granita" was a parody of Lolita.

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I read Granita around 9 years ago but was quite familiar with Nabokov's work by that time. It did make sense and will, surely, make more sense when I go back to it after finishing reading Lolita. Started reading the book today and am already blown away by the style of it. Strange but today my sister-in-law told me that my long-time favorite song, Radiohead's 'Creep,' is about pedophilia! Never thought of it that way but then my liking of the song started after watching Yvan Attal's Ils se marièrent et eurent beaucoup d'enfants which featured it and had nothing to do with little girls:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxpblnsJEWM

The victims are the the constituents of the censors who really believed that by censoring the book they'd achieve their objective.

? Not sure what you mean

LOLITA was censored, deemed a menace to public morals, etcetera etcetera. Now if the censors had just shut up...who knows maybe they might've gotten what they really wanted.

I LOVE Lolita! Amazing, incredible, genius work of literary merit. I read the book and then saw the Kubrick movie, and I cried both times at the end...I felt so bad for Humbert. I mean, yes, he was a very sick man, but he was in love and Lolita just used him like that. Nabokov did his job of making me sympathsize with Humbert.

One of my favorite parts in the book was the scene of Humbert in the park and he's twitching from the pleasure of all the little girls around him and this lady comes up to him and says, "Are you all right?" Hahahaha. Oh man. It was an "ew" moment but a very funny one. I love black comedy.

Also I thought it was unfathomable that Nabokov wrote it that well in English when he wasn't even a native speaker. Absolute genius. Such imagery. It totally twisted my mind and made me look at things differently.

Granita by Eco is indeed quite funny, though I prefer his 'editorial criticsms' of Dante, Kafka and Proust in the same book.

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LOLITA was censored, deemed a menace to public morals, etcetera etcetera. Now if the censors had just shut up...who knows maybe they might've gotten what they really wanted

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Nabokov, I believe, was able to get the book first published via a French Erotica publisher, which could also boast of Henry Miller and Jean Genet! I also remember reading about how Graham Greene was one of the first people to recognise Lolita's genius-most people at the time thought that it was a pornographic book and ridiculed Greene when he named is in his lost of the three best books of the year. If it wasn't for Greene, Lolita may not have been recognised as a masterpiece.

Another point on the movie-I can't help but think that James Mason, talented actor that he was, was the wrong person to play Humbert. I think that somebody like Marlon Brando would have been a better choice, or maybe Montgomery Clift, though he may have looked a little bit too 'boyish'. Mason, for me, just didn't have that rugged, European handsomeness which Humbert claims he has.

I agree that Mason was the wrong choice. I don't know whether Humbert is actually good-looking but the other characters seem to think it. Jeromy Irons was aesthetically better, although still wasn't quite there.

Inderjit Sanghe, one would think someone as knowledgeable as yourself would get the character's names right. Surely you're not that careless?

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Originally Posted by Inderjit Sanghe

Granita
Another point on the movie-I can't help but think that James Mason, talented actor that he was, was the wrong person to play Humbert. I think that somebody like Marlon Brando would have been a better choice, or maybe Montgomery Clift, though he may have looked a little bit too 'boyish'. Mason, for me, just didn't have that rugged, European handsomeness which Humbert claims he has.

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I thought that Mason was perfect for Humbert, as were all of the rest of the cast. Brando would have been a disaster, as per his performance in Last Tango in Paris 11 years later,.How could the all-American Brando have had the European handsomness necessary for the part?

Portions of the novel have extremely well crafted prose; however, I thought a fair amount of it was boring and forgettable.

For those of you who voted that both Humbert and Dolores are victims, do you mean that Humbert was victimized by Dolores?

I personally find it hard to believe Humbert is a victim of Dolores. If he argues that she seduced him, I'd argue that he's not exactly the most reliable of narrators. Or do you mean Humbert is victimized by Dolores' unfaithfulness? Sleeping with another boy at summer camp and later running away with Quilty?

Or perhaps do you mean that Humbert is victimized by something else?

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Originally Posted by Wilde woman

For those of you who voted that both Humbert and Dolores are victims, do you mean that Humbert was victimized by Dolores?

I personally find it hard to believe Humbert is a victim of Dolores. If he argues that she seduced him, I'd argue that he's not exactly the most reliable of narrators. Or do you mean Humbert is victimized by Dolores' unfaithfulness? Sleeping with another boy at summer camp and later running away with Quilty?

Or perhaps do you mean that Humbert is victimized by something else?

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Humbert was victim because he was in love with her and it was inevitable that he would lose her.