Title: LolitaAuthor: Vladimir Nabokov
Since I like to think of myself as a pretty well-read person, Lolita is one of those books that I theoretically should have read a couple of decades ago. I don't know if it was my innate Mormon prudishness or something else that kept me from picking up the book at fifteen or twenty, but I was embarrassed that at 35, I still hadn't read anything by Nabokov. So I bought the book on my Kindle six months ago, and then didn't read it. I finally decided I couldn't put it off any longer and dispatched the book on Saturday.
You all know what Lolita is about. Even if you haven't read it, you know that pedophile Humbert Humbert embarks on a cross-country journey with Lolita, the preteen object of his affections (who also happens to be the daughter of his recently-deceased bride of just a few months). I expected Humbert to be repulsive, but I also expected him to be a little bit less intelligent, less self-aware about his unnatural proclivities. Furthermore, I expected Lolita to be less of an innocent, less complicit (at least in Humbert's eyes) in the relationship. It was an uncomfortable book to read, but I'm glad that I can cross it off the list.
4 comments:
Prior to my BYU days, I sat through a dramatic reading class in which a group of students prepared a project featuring key passages from this novel. It was obvious that another female student in the class likely had some awful first hand experiences with this subject matter. She lost control and stormed out of the room sobbing. The whole thing went from a detached, discomfited academic exercise to real-life tragedy very fast. Some of the students in the class asked the professor to stop, but he and the girl doing the reading were bent on pressing forward, which I thought was pretty insensitive. I tend to throw out the whole "art as a mirror of life" chestnut pretty regularly, but that day I saw little utility for it.
Pale Fire was a favorite of mine during college. But I think I'll read Lolita on the shelf and listen to The Police sing Don't Stand so Close to Me instead.
Don't you wish you could edit your typos in comments? That last "read" meant to say "leave." Apologies.
I really love Nabokov. I read Lolita in college and adored it. I need to reread it and see if it stands up or if I was just in a really happy place in my life when I read it.
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