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Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita

abecedarian said:
May I ask why you couldn't get past the first five pages? Was it the language or the content? As a mom, the content of Lolita was tough to deal with emotionally, but I think it's a topic we must force ourselves to confront in order to better protect our children and those around us.
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I had trouble reading this book as well. I checked it out in honor of this forum, actually (and the trillion Lolita posts), just a couple weeks ago and sat down to read it. The style was good, it was well written and interesting, but I just couldn't stomach the subject matter. All his descriptions of Lolita made me want to vomit. I read around 15 chapters and then skimmed the rest. Shudder.
 
I read the book. I was impressed. When I read a good book, the writer manages to read me into it ( a reader of Jasper Fforde would know what I mean :)

So at times I felt Lolita. I felt desperate little girl, with nobody around me, with dirt all over, with no-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel. I cried.

At times I felt like HH. I looked at little girls in a public transport and I knew what he felt. I knew what he was talking about when he laughed at psychiatrists. I found it extremely funny and I felt wiser than they were. I know what HH was like.

And because I know HH (I was him when I was reading) and because at times I felt also like Lola- if I would ever have a daugher, no man will NEVER EVER get closer than hundreds of kilometers to her. One who dares would be castrated without any possibility to explain himself. What else can a parent do to protect his/her child? - may be the answer is not to have any - it would solve the whole problem, would not it?
 
Dork said:
I could not get past the first 5 pages in this book and brought it back to the library. LOL.
Sorry I couldn't help. :rolleyes:
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I'm a little late to this response, but here it goes. I too, didn't like the beginning about his fateful marriage. I found that part to be rather dry. Fortunately, I ventured on.:D
 
Lolita

I started this book because a (female) friend told me it was the best book she'd ever read.

I expected to find it titillating. Just because the subject matter was taboo.

I came away feeling that Nabokov, writing in his third (?) language, was the greatest master of English that I'd met. Titillating? No, not really. Erotic? No, not really. But stunning for the language and the evocation of small-town American in the fifties. Stunning for its portrait of obsession.

Adrian Lyne's movie captures it. Kubrick's doesn't.

Jim
 
warm_enema said:
I've tried to watch both movies and failed. They don't have the emotion of the book.
"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks, She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the doted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita."

The movies miss that.
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No, I don't agree. Jeremy Irons in Adrian's Lyne's version catches the spirit of the book exactly. Kubrick doesn't. But your quote brings exactly to mind the parts of the book that Irons/Lyne _do_ capture. The wistfulness, the longing. Watch it again. The book is unmatchable, but Lyne's film version is a truly brilliant evocation.

Jim
 
One of the first things I stumble across in my re-read of Crime and Punishment is this.

Vladimir Nabokov, 1955: setting up the scene where Lolita learns she has lost everything and (at least according to Humbert) voluntarily surrenders to her rapist captor:
At the hotel we had separate rooms, but in the middle of the night she came sobbing into mine, and we made it up very gently. You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go.
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Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1866. Marmeladov telling of how his wife had lost everything and had to re-marry a drunken useless widower (ie himself):
You can judge the extremity of her calamities, that she, a woman of education and culture and distinguished family, should have consented to be my wife. But she did! Weeping and sobbing and wringing her hands, she married me! For she had nowhere to turn!
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Hmmmm...?
 
What a catch beer!. Holy cow, now that's observant.:eek: I could see how perhaps he read Crime and Punishment and perhaps later on, accidentally "remember" it, but not the real soruce it was from. Of course, that doesn't excuse it, but I think it would be the most logical explanation. Then again, it isn't the first time he was accused of not being so *original*

Scholar says Nabokov lifted Lolita from German author.
 
I'm not so sure it's as much a case of Nabokov being unoriginal, rather another of quite a few very deliberate references to other works; there's tons of references to Poe and Flaubert as well, for instance - I guess much of that has been covered before in this thread. After all, Humbert is not only a liar but a well-read liar.

And that "Ur-Lolita" has been discussed at length in Nabokov circles, I think. I think I saw a link a while back... I'll try to remember where.
 
beer good said:
I'm not so sure it's as much a case of Nabokov being unoriginal, rather another of quite a few very deliberate references to other works; there's tons of references to Poe and Flaubert as well, for instance - I guess much of that has been covered before in this thread. After all, Humbert is not only a liar but a well-read liar.

And that "Ur-Lolita" has been discussed at length in Nabokov circles, I think. I think I saw a link a while back... I'll try to remember where.
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I was convinced that Nabokov cheated when Lolita constantly held a stine, wore long-stockings, took off with Humbert in a VW, not to mention when she looked longingly over maps of France.
 
I was wanting to read Ada or Ardor and I was wondering if it is worth the time. I love Nabokov so it wouldn't take to much to convince me. But a comparison to Lolita would be interesting.
 
I'm planning to read Lolita soon. Are there any other books by the author (or any other for that matter) that anyone recommends I read before it?
:)
 
I hesitated to read this book because I was a little disappointed in the last book I read by Nabokov (King, Queen, Knave). I finally picked up a copy at the library and I can honestly say that I’m glad I did.

Reading the book, I was struck by the beauty of the writing and the tender feelings expressed by HH. At the same time, I was angered with HH because these feeling, at least early on, were nothing more then lust for a twelve-year-old girl.

I was reading comments from others that have read this wonderful book and I was a little surprised that people could feel sympathy for HH and the question that I have to ask myself is why? Is this an example of Stockholm syndrome?

HH is intelligent and charming and he is a monster. He tries to lessen his crimes by citing historical precedence. He tries to convince his reader that he would never have not have harmed Lolita (he would have left her purity intact), and that she seduced him (like he, the adult, could not say no to a child). Then of course he uses threats to keep his sex slave until she escapes with another pedophile.

My heart bled for Lolita, a precocious 12-year-old girl badly in need of the kind of direction that her mother and later HH were either unable or unwilling to give her. I wonder why Nabokov choose death for her when it finally seemed she was forever free of HH?
 
Robert,
I for one was convinced that HH showed repentance, so had to...maybe not forgive, but at least attempt to understand how this came about. He was a victim himself to some extent and while there was no excuse for what he did, I must at least acknowledge how it came about.

Not Stockholm Syndrome as I understand it. You are referring to Lolita herself? Or the reader?

Lolita had to be dead for the story to be published, part of the structure Nabokov used. HH wrote the story with the stipulation [noted in the Foreword] it would not be published if she was living.
 
pontalba said:
Robert,
I for one was convinced that HH showed repentance, so had to...maybe not forgive, but at least attempt to understand how this came about. He was a victim himself to some extent and while there was no excuse for what he did, I must at least acknowledge how it came about.

Not Stockholm Syndrome as I understand it. You are referring to Lolita herself? Or the reader?

Lolita had to be dead for the story to be published, part of the structure Nabokov used. HH wrote the story with the stipulation [noted in the Foreword] it would not be published if she was living.
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The comment about Stockholm Syndrome was due to comments some of the readers wrote about HH.
 
I suppose that I should add that I understand that Stockholm Syndrome usually refers to the victums of a crime, but I believe it fits since HH's arguments are good enough to convince the readers that he is not a monster.
 
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