Lolita

Rating:
Summary: Along with catch-22, the worst book I have ever read.
Review: Before you hate me, realize that hating me is analogous to me hating this book, because some people like me! What i'm trying to say is that some people like this book, but I do not. Which is okay.

I admit I have only read 30 something pages. But that is just testament to how bad this book is (in my opinion). Despite its reputation, and my entire summer's worth of free-time, i could only get 30 pages in. What do I remember from these 30 pages? NOTHING.

The language is INVENTIVE, but in the same way that it's INVENTIVE if I took ten bananas and duct tape and I tape all the bananas together in one big, random bundle. Actually, it is not in that same way. Because my banana-thing is kind of funny. Nobakov's inventiveness is NOT FUNNY. It is extremely academic and DULL. Someone once cited Nobakov's genius in his description of dog's pee in fresh snow as "XANTHIC HOLES". Do people not realize that this is just describing dog's pee in fresh snow as "YELLOWING HOLES?" To me, that is SO SO SO dull a description. It'd be better to just write "dog's pee in snow." Nobakov probably thinks he's some kind of genius. At one time, I thought maybe I was too dumb to UNDERSTAND Nobakov. But not anymore. Now I just think that readers are too PRETENTIOUS to admit that this is dull dull dull, UNFEELING, DISHONEST writing. (I know this mention of lack of emotion is just thrown in here at the end). Okay.

Rating:
Summary: Blah
Review: I thought I would like this book after reading the reviews, but I tried to start it and it went NOWHERE! Plus, it was really hard to read. And boring. Ugh. I don't recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Unabashed wordplay masterpiece
Review: Nabokov: the master of whatever.

I feel a bit like a sham writing a review for this, but 360 other readers can't be wrong, right? True, there is not much that I can add to the substantial literature available on Lolita, or the volumes of Vladdy in general. But I can say a few things about what I liked about the book, sprinkled here and there with some minor criticisms, mostly based on personal biases.

First, Nabokov is as much a master of the English language as anyone before or after, as far as I can tell. Lolita could be read at many different speeds. You could speed-read it, I suppose, if you have cultivated that ability, but you would only get the outline of the story, which is a good one, to be sure, but you'd miss some of the finer details - the nuances of word play (there must be fifty examples of themes based on the words "Dolores" and "Haze" - I became a bit obsessive-compulsive after finishing the book - no doubt because of the contagious neuroses of Humbert Humbert - and spent twenty minutes trying to decide if Nabokov, in the afterward (in my edition, there is a six or seven page note written by V.N. a year or two after publication), was teasing the reader with the use of the word "daze" - a final amalgamation of an ongoing thread?); references to Joyce, (thanks Adan) among others; allusions to cultural confrontations, including the confused traditionalism of Europe having to reconcile itself with the nothingness/everythingness of America; and examples of self-reflexivity that would make Brecht blush. You could spend a year reading this book (another type of Joycian reference - or homage, perhaps), analyzing it sentence by sentence, seeing if there is something within the microcosm of the page that reflects the universe of the book. But you don't need to get down to this level of detail to get a reward from this book - I think a steady, conscious reading can bring surprises on every page; this is how I read it, and it's what I'd recommend to most readers.

The question of whether H.H. truly loved Lolita - or whether he was simply in love with her ability to transport him to a nostalgic past - is an interesting one, but I don't know if there is a satisfying solution. It kinda depends on what your definition of "is" is. Is there any other kind of love than that which takes you somewhere happier?

Another obvious question is: Was H.H. a homosexual? There seems to be ample evidence of this, albeit mostly circumstantial. But his similarities to the undeniably gay Zemblan king in Pale Fire make me think that H.H. was a sort of prototype for Charles Kinbote. But, if this is the case, Kinbote's homosexuality could be just a variation on a theme of sexual deviancy.

As a contemporary reader, I find it difficult to create the character of Humbert Humbert in my mind. Or, better yet, I find it difficult to believe. He seems an impossible combination of old-world European (which has probably ceased to exist), ultra-literate intellectual, and pedophile, capable of superhuman acts of vice and destruction. One could argue that such a complex characterization makes him more real; but I think the better argument is that the surreal nature of Humbert Humbert makes a sharp and intentional literary contrast with the banal normalness of America. Lolita, the American girl, is the subject of a deranged and futile 19th-century European man's scrutiny.

Rating:
Summary: An astute critique of ideology
Review: Not only is "Lolita" one of the best-written novels you are likely to read, it provides a vivid, detailed journey into the mind of an ideologue. Humbert Humbert's personality reminds me of a Leftist zealot, and considering that Nabakov lived through the Russian revolution, I would not be surprised if he intended the similarities. Humbert is smugly intellectual. He describes America in terms of crass commercialism. He mocks the simple desires of those he meets - Charlotte Haze especially - as if they are dullards who lack his sophisticated insights. Like an east-coast intellectual visiting a NASCAR event, he invites us to laugh condescendingly at the banalities around him.

He writes his story as if addressing the jury, and like a defense lawyer, he tries to seduce his readers with his fluid prose and repeated literary references. (Of course, Nabakov is fully aware that Humbert is addressing a sympathetic audience since literary-minded people are the ones most likely to read a book like "Lolita".) Humbert professes a love for his Lolita much as a Leftist proclaims a love for the "people" or the "working man". He never sees Lolita as a subject in her world, but solely as an object in his. She is the reincarnation of his lost childhood lover, and, despite all his protestations of love, he knows nothing about her. He is uninterested in her own past, so we learn nothing about it. He is uninterested in her present, except to ensure that she does not meet other boys, does not form other relationships, does not leave him, and does not grow up. He treats her simply as the raw material from which to sculpt an ideal that he loves. And so he exhausts himself preventing her from reaching any independent conclusions of her own. He uses her for sex, isolates her from other children, destroys her childhood, and occasionally strikes her. Why? As Humbert writes, "because she has absolutely nowhere else to go." She cries herself to sleep at night and flees when the opportunity arises. Only in the solipsistic mind of Humbert could this be construed as a love story. Tellingly, toward the end, when he asks her whether he had ever made her feel special, she ignores the question as ridiculous.

In short, Lolita is an abstraction to Humbert, much as the proletariat was an abstraction to Lenin. Love in the abstract is useless, and it is all Humbert has to offer. However, Nabakov relates Humbert's self-absorbed rape of another's person's life so intellectually that many intelligent readers will finish the book genuinely unsure whether they had just finished an unusual but touching love story. Aesthetics and ethics have never been contrasted so beautifully. If you read this book, I urge you to ask yourself whether you found this exquisitely sensitive destroyer of lives sympathetic? Do Castro's oft-claimed concerns for the people resonate with you as well? They were both cut from the same cloth, lovers of concepts who destroy actual, living human beings.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful or Disturbing? Love or Rape?
Review: A man, desperately and passionately in love, struggles and tears himself apart. He is educated, scholarly, and handsome. Yet his love falls upon twelve year old Lolita. Pedophile? Perhaps, but Nabokav does a stupendous job of convincing you otherwise. Our narrator is not the horrific monstrous brute we see sex offenders to be; he can be unbelievably warm and loving. (Not a single foul word exists in this book). He is torn, he cries at his evil deeds, yet he loves his sweet nymphet with the utmost sincerity.

Is this story a beautiful love story? A man falling apart at Love's harsh grip? Or is it disturbing? Lolita, the fire of his loins, a mere child at the mercy of a pedophile. Is it love? Is it rape?

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul." The book opens with some of the most memorable sentences in literature. Nabokov writes beautifully. "Look at this tangle of thorns," he says, and proceeds with probably the only true love story out there.

Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Waterproof, said Charlotte softly
Review: I was a bit wary of reading this novel as I knew beforehand that it dealt with paedophilia. I had seen Kubrick's movie adaptation a few years ago (amazingly, on September 12, 2001 while stuck overseas in Caracas, Venezuela due to the attack) and found it to be a pretty good movie, but surely, I thought, Kubrick must have left out some of the more lascivious scenes (I was right). The novel is so well-known that it's even alluded to in the Police song "Don't Stand So Close To Me." However, after seeing that it was #4 on the Random House Modern Library 100 best novels of the 20th century, I decided to read it.

The stylish language in the book is pure opiate. Written in perfect, rich English by its Russian author, the novel tells the tale of a middle-aged paedophile on a self-destructive bent. Paedophilia is, of course, one of the most disgusting crimes imaginable, and most normal humans would never even give a nanosecond's worth of thought into it. This book provides us with a long look into the subject matter. Humbert's unapologetic self-analysis of his affliction was particularly memorable: "We are not sex fiends! We do not rape as good soldiers do. We are unhappy, mild, dog-eyed gentlemen, sufficiently well integrated to control our urge in the presence of adults, bur ready to give years and years of life for one chance to touch a nymphet." That is so sickly rational that it's scary.

It's written in flashback narration with clever foreshadowing that's dropped from time to time. (The description on p. 31 is particularly subtle: The Little Nymph, Vivian Darkbloom, photography.) The discussion at the end of this edition by Nabokov himself is worth reading as well, including his enlightening discussion of the "subliminal co-ordinates" laid out.

This is a beautifully-written book. If you're not too turned off by the subject matter, it's well worth your time.

Rating:
Summary: Albee play separate from Nabokov's novel
Review: For some reason, on the Amazon site section devoted to the Edward Albee stage adaptation of Lolita, there are only the same customer reviews and editorial reviews that are found on the site section devoted to Nabokov's novel. Someone at Amazon needs to notice that the Albee play and the Nabokov novel are separate works, and that they should not be mixed up in this way.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliantly written dirty joke?
Review: So much talent expended on such a filthy fetish! Nabokov writes better than almost anyone of the last century and what does he write about? The slobbering Humbert, middle aged seeker of female children, lusting and plotting to have the child Lolita. It is written with genius. Sentences flow like honey. Comical lines abound. It is amazingly fresh - I checked the copyright as I could barely believe it was written in 1954! But what is the purpose of all this carefully crafted writing? Some will have you believe it is a metaphor for the clashing of European and American cultures. That is utter nonsense. Much of this is a bit too real to be mere literary invention. The fact that Nabokov wrote another novel, "The Enchanter," on the same subject, suggests that this is auto-porn and has no other purpose than tittilation - of the author and anyone else who is a slave to this fetish. It is not a meditation on love. It is a well crafted dirty story for pedophiles.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely criminal
Review: This book is criminal. It is amazing to me that someone born in Russia can write in a foreign language better than most for whom it is their primary tongue. Nabokov is the greatest linguist of all time. Perhaps Hemingway was a more important author, perhaps Steinbeck was a better author, but Nabokov is simply the most entertaining author of the last century. If you have ever read John Grisham or Patricia Cornwell and consider them great writers, don't waste your time. To compare their 'modern' brand of fiction to Lolita is like comparing the Hardy Boys to Huckleberry Finn. There are good modern authors, I am not generalizing my dissatisfaction to a specific time period, but a quality. Stephen Hunter is one of the 'modern' authors whose fiction is both thrilling and beautiful. But noone, except perhaps Cormac McCarthy, even comes close to achieving the excellence Nabokov seemed to just give away to the world, in many languages. And Lolita is his crown jewel, as far as I'm concerned.

Rating:
Summary: Nabokov's Masterpiece of Love and Memory
Review: The most bold and poignant art may prove controversial at first. Controversy aside, this is art.
Nabokov became quite a successful writer due to this novel, and once you read it there should be no question why.

Here Nabokov has created one of the most timeless, often times enigmatic, characters in literature - known to us humbly as Humbert Humbert. What the author accomplished so well was not so much in the exploration of a pathological obsession, but the firm establishment of a logical, thinking, reasonable person in love. Mr. Humbert takes the reader along a reminiscent journey of passion and fixation, of love and lust, of control and vulnerability. Without giving way to crude engagements, it becomes a lucid, fascinating memoir of a man who loved a girl named Dolores - whose age the reader can easily forget in the tangle of emotion, psychology and memory.
But Humbert does not let himself off easily, either. And once he has adeptly, though untriumphantly, captured the sympathy of his reader, he reminds us why he is a monster.

This is a most convincing and intriguing narrative, wrought with erudite references and lots of humor. The exacting detail with which it is executed proves why the artist at work here was no less than a genius. Nabokov showcased his talent in this novel and became for posterity a master of--at the very least--20th century FICTION.