Not that I’m all too excited about the internet traffic this post will generate, given the subject matter of the work discussed, but I wanted to review Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel, Lolita. Digesting this strange masterpiece was truly one of the most unique experiences I’ve had as a reader. Because of the grotesque setting of the novel — a pedophile’s first-hand account of his desires and ultimate crimes against a twelve-year-old — I found myself fighting through the first one hundred fifty pages or so. What kept me going was the fact that Lolita is considered such an important work and I imagined its lasting influence had to be more than its taboo subject matter.
Lolita comes to the reader as an extended narrative from Humbert Humbert, an anomalous European intellectual expatriate with a questionable past who moves to America. Humbert remains stunted from the death of his childhood love, Annabel Leigh. From that point on, he finds himself only sexually attracted to nymphets, a term he employs to describe girls aged 9 to 14 whom he believes possess a certain type of precociousness. Humbert has fought his desires in the past by spending time in and out of mental institutions, enduring one failed marriage, and satiating himself in bordellos. The interesting thing about Humbert is that he is an immoral character — that is, he knows full well that his desires are illegal and that there are good reasons for that illegality, though he does try to defend his proclivities at various points. Once in America, Humbert rents a room from Charlotte Haze and immediately sees in her twelve year-old-daughter, Dolores, the embodiment of all his lifelong desires. Humbert agrees to marry Charlotte so that he can remain close to Dolores. When Charlotte dies in an accident, Humbert seizes on his chance to indulge all his vile desires and kidnaps Dolores, taking her on an extended road trip, buying her off with lavish gifts, but all the while raping her on a regular basis. Because Humbert is our narrator, we are told that it is actually Dolores who initiates the sexual encounter. On the road, we see his jealousy emerge and that jealousy eventually leads the reader to wonder if Humbert has mental problems beyond his perversion. Humbert’s decline rivals that of Raskolnikov’s in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, though it occurs in the opposite direction. Whereas Raskolnikov’s conscience returns with vengeance and ultimately leads him back into society, Humbert’s conscience loses its mooring and he descends beyond the point of keeping any law, human or traffic.
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Tyler
