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Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita


pontalba

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It's been a few years since I've read Lolita, but for me this book is a very clear example of the unreliable narrator technique. Humbert portrays Lolita as a seductress in his own mind, while for the most part she's oblivious to this, her 'seductive' behaviour largely filtered through and inventive by Humbert's paedophile mind. It's a more extreme version of how men often perceive flirtatious or sexualised behaviour in women who themselves only intend to be friendly or social, and a great exploration of the psychology of self-justifying criminal behaviour. 

 

That said, does anyone else see similarities between this book's treatment of Lolita and the treatment of Alice in Patrick Marber's play (and later film) Closer? Both are seen through the exploitative lens of male admiration, and both suffer for it. I would not be surprised if Marber took some direct inspiration from Nabokov's opus.  

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Try reading this directly after Kierkegaards' "Seducers Diary"... its an interesting group of comparisons.

A lot of modern examples of hyper intensified sexualisation and misogyny seem to have been borne out of this Humbertian example.

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Try reading this directly after Kierkegaards' "Seducers Diary"... its an interesting group of comparisons.

A lot of modern examples of hyper intensified sexualisation and misogyny seem to have been borne out of this Humbertian example.

 

I'm not familiar with the Seducer's Diary but I would definitely agree with your second statement. But the worst part isn't necessarily that the book inspired such offspring, but that the modern examples seem largely ignorant to the irony of Nabokov. Reminds me very much of the famous ending to the film The Graduate,  in which a bride leaves her intended at the altar to run off with the main character. A lot of movies after have partially copied this, but seem to completely forget the deep ambiguity that followed that scene. After jubilantly jumping on a bus together, the two characters sit in awkward silence, the sudden awareness of the profound social transgression they committed seeming to dawn on them along with a complete inability to determine what happens now, what happens next.

 

Like the movies that copies this scene in a far less ironic and self-aware fashion, the successors to Lolita seem to largely take the story at face value. In fact, I would posit that the entire 'Manic Pixie Dream Girl' genre (you're probably familiar with the term, but if not it refers to that quirky, flighty, sort of larger than life girl character who comes along in so many films to 'save' the male main from his own ennui) is predicated on a completely unironic view of the Nabokovian girl seductress (though usually lacking the overt manipulative element that Humbert imagines). 

 

The play/movie I mentioned before, Closer, breaks with this trend in the character of Alice, because while she seems to fit the mould, we can actually see how completely she's taken advantage of by her partner, who uses her as inspiration and saviour until someone more "serious" comes along, only to return to her again and repeat the initial behaviours. Additionally, despite the abusive sexuality most of the characters display in this story, Alice, though interpreted by the men around her as a flighty ingenue, is the only character in an immoral universe to practice sexual honesty. 

Edited by Kolinahr
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What other novels by Nabokov would you all recommend? I admit I gave up on Lolita. I found it very mannered and had little sympathy with the characters. Always a big turn off for me.

Have you tried reading his short story, Symbols and Signs?

 

It's available online here:

 

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1948/05/15/symbols-and-signs

 

Also, I didn't want to create a new thread but was wondering whether anyone had read Pale Fire or Ada or Ardor?

 

I am thinking of reading Ada as I bought a copy ages ago and love Nabokov's writing style. Pale Fire has also been on my TBR list for a while, but I've always been put off as I assumed it would go over my head.

 

Would love to hear peoples thoughts on his other works.

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Have you tried reading his short story, Symbols and Signs?

 

It's available online here:

 

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1948/05/15/symbols-and-signs

 

Also, I didn't want to create a new thread but was wondering whether anyone had read Pale Fire or Ada or Ardor?

 

I am thinking of reading Ada as I bought a copy ages ago and love Nabokov's writing style. Pale Fire has also been on my TBR list for a while, but I've always been put off as I assumed it would go over my head.

 

Would love to hear peoples thoughts on his other works.

 

 

No, neither as of yet.  Even though I have them on the shelf.  My husband has read Pale Fire and enjoyed it, I can't remember if he's read Ada or Ardor yet though. 

 

I've only read 12 or 13 of Nabokov's books, I'd decided to begin at the beginning and read through in order after I'd read Lolita.  It's interesting to do it in that manner, it shows the progression of his art beautifully.  I can also recommend Brian Boyd's books on Nabokov, Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years, and Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years.  Absolutely fascinating, covers all of VN's books, and his life.  Boyd is probably THE expert on Nabokov.  Well worth the reading.

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I read Lolita a few years ago. Humbert Humbert was a bad man, and why did his parents call him Humbert? It is not an easy read. The sentences were convoluted: all those bracketing commas and subordinate clauses! I enjoyed the first and second parts, but l lost the thread in the third part. I think this was the least good part of the book anyway and a bit implausible.

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On 4/12/2017 at 0:03 AM, KEV67 said:

Humbert Humbert was a bad man, 

 

What do you mean by being 'bad'? I am curious as I often hear people use the word 'evil' in relation to this character and I am never sure what they mean, because in my mind there is no such thing as someone being 'good' or 'bad'.

 

On 4/12/2017 at 0:03 AM, KEV67 said:

 I think this was the least good part of the book anyway and a bit implausible.

 

Again, not sure what you mean by implausible - there are certainly people like Humbert out there.

 

 

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It has been a while since I read it, and I was a bit confused by the final third, but didn't Humbert Humbert eventually track down the fellow paedophile who took Lolita away from him, after months of searching, and shoot him dead? I thought that was rather unlikely. It was very much not in his self interest. Humbert Humbert was very cynical. Although it was no doubt very annoying to him to have had Lolita lured away from him, she maybe only had one good year left. I would have thought he would start looking for another twelve-year-old.

 

I thought Humbert Humbert was bad because he appeared to have no conscience. He never struggles with his conscience although he sometimes justifies himself. I seem to remember near the beginning of the book that Humbert Humbert was married. He beat his wife if that was the easiest way to control her. He is prepared to use violence if that is the easiest way to get what he wants, but if not, he uses other methods. He is in control of himself. There was an entertaining passage where he says neither shy boys nor self-sufficient rapists with hotrods held any interest for Lolita because she was so sexually experienced already. Timid boys and self-sufficient rapists are morally equivalent to him. It does not bother him that Lolita felt like she did.

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@KEV67: "why did his parents call him Humbert?" (Posted on May 4)

 

1/ None of the names in "Lolita" are the real "names" (with one exception IIRC) - see the fictional forewords in the novel.

 

2/ Humbert Humbert is a fictional character so the question is more "why did Nabokov call him Humbert?"

 

Humbert etymologically means “famous warrior”. At least three times in the novel it is made reference to his Celtic looks. Nabokov associates him to Tristram, a Celtic Knight of the (Celtic) Arthurian Legend who is a symbol of eternal and fatal love (remember "Tristram and Iseult"?). Notice how Tristram is referenced several times in this novel, directly (e.g. Ilse Tristramson) and indirectly.

 

 

There is a chain of Arthurian legend references throughout the novel (e.g. the town of Wace (Robert Wace was a middle-ages author who was the first to mention the King Arthur's legend and to name Excalibur, the sword of the king), Cavall (a hound of King Arthur), Briceland (for Brocéliande, an enchanted forest in the Celtic land of Brittany mentionned by Wace as the location of the tomb of Merlin), etc...).

 

The names of the friends of Quilty (B. Mead, Fay Page and Vivian Darkbloom) also all points to a major character of the Arthurian Legend, the Lady of the Lake.

 

As Nabokov said in interviews in the 60s, he devised Lolita as a riddle and of course Humbert Humbert is part of it. A major part of it.

In an interview in 1962 for the BBC when asked on why he wrote “Lolita” he said "I’ve no general ideas to exploit, I just like composing riddles with elegant solutions.

In anotyher one he said:

"(Lolita) was like the composition of a beautiful puzzle - its composition and its solution at the same time, since one is mirror view of the other, depending on the way you look" .

And indeed, there are phenomenons of reflexion in the novel (e.g. Trapp / Pratt; widow Haze / widow Hays; Blanche Schwarzman / Melanie Weiss (*)).

 

(*) Blanche (="white" in French), Schwarz (="black" in German) and Melanie (="black", "dark", from "melanos" in ancient Greek), Weiss (= "white" in German).

The diverse recurrent keywords (e.g. "rose, "chestnuts", etc...) and numbers (342, 52, etc...) in the novel are also hinting to this.

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One of those books you feel like you've read before you have.

 

I finally got round to it and must say the prose is magnificent (in book one especially). I found it lost it's way in part two when the book goes from his detailed and beautifully described obsession to a more straight-forward narrative about 'what happened next.' Listening to Humbert explain his perversions, justify them, make sense of them, was very enjoyable and despite the content and subject matter, the language used was so lyrical and fluid that it was a joy to read. In part two, however, it becomes a little dense and stolid given that he's now on the run with Dolly and detailing their day-to-day existence. I found myself losing interest. 

 

Then we have a kind of plot twist with a character (Quilty) that was so forgettable to me that when he was returned as Humbert's great enemy, I honestly wondered who the hell he was (I thought I'd missed some pages). Then the book descends into melodrama and murder and blah blah blah. 

 

I adored the first half of this book when it was... 'I would walk along the lake,' but struggled with the second half when it was... 'I walked along the lake.'

 

Very Good though. 

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