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.
At first, Humbert’s power of the English language entrances the reader. He is intelligent, charming, and incredibly evocative and I found myself drawn to him much like Clarice Starling is drawn to Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. Humbert’s overwrought, dramatic prose filled with bits of French wears on the reader, however, as we see that he is a megalomaniac and a most unreliable narrator. It should be noted that Humbert rarely, if ever, calls Dolores by her given name or her preferred nickname of Dolly. Instead, she is Lo, Lolita, Lola. She is not a human being to him, but as a nymphet, she is only an object. When he can see past the fog of his lust, Humbert grows impatient with Dolly as she behaves as any normal twelve-year-old would — she has more interest in gossip magazines than great literature or would rather spend time with peers than with her lecherous step-father. She also acts as we would imagine a sex slave would in trying to protect herself as much as possible. Dolly does not let her guard down until after she believes Humbert falls asleep and her nightly crying annoys him.
Lolita is a book about a pedophile, but it isn’t about pedophilia. This is not an expose on the sources and results of that disorder and its crimes. Rather, Humbert’s pedophilia opens a larger discussion of lust, jealousy, madness, perversion, and immorality. I read the fiftieth anniversary edition that contains an essay from Nabokov regarding the work and its reception. He says that the germination of the story came to him when he read of an ape in a Paris zoo whose trainers taught it to draw. Its first drawing was of the bars on its cage. This detail proves very insightful as Lolita is a book about cages; the question is whose bars do we see? Humbert imprisons Dolly when he believes he is doing his best to love her — Humbert tells the reader that by having sex with her he is actually protecting her from all those bawdy teenage boys who would only want one thing from her. We learn from a school counselor that Humbert’s confinement actually retards Dolly’s development. Humbert, however, is just as trapped. He narrates from jail, but he was imprisoned long before his arrest. All his mental illnesses and evil keep him from ever being a truly fruitful member of society. He is charming, but he has no friends. His desire for Lolita drives him down a path of destruction. And even though he narrates well after Dolly has past her nymphet age, Humbert still longs for that unattainable and unrealistic fantasy. His lust and stunted development have trapped him in madness.
Despite its engrossing depiction of a person falling further into sin and insanity, I’m not sure what the point of Lolita is, but I’m not sure it needs a point. Lolita presents a fascinating hermeneutical experiment. In the essay mentioned above, Nabokov admits his distaste for allegories or of readers trying to tease out the author’s intentions. While I believe that a certain amount of reader response criticism is always called for, at some point the reader’s response reveals more about the reader than the text itself. Because the novel is so rich and Nabokov so aloof as to any larger meaning to glean from it, Lolita will continue bearing endless fruit for literature students wanting to offer psychological or sociological interpretations. Nabokov mentions in his essay that some people were quick to dismiss the novel as pornographic filth whereas others were upset once they realized it is not pornography. A cursory search of the internet shows all sorts of debate regarding who was the victim — Dolly or Humbert, or, allegorically, America or Europe. Some believe Humbert and see Dolly as a temptress ensnaring a hapless mental patient. Others, like myself, see Humbert as completely unreliable and do not trust a thing he says about Dolly’s interactions with him. So what is the novel about? I’m not sure, but I know that at once Lolita‘s subject matter is both shocking and enlightening, and it contains great characters, has some of the best writing I’ve ever read, and is endlessly fascinating. I cannot recommend this book highly enough, but understand it is a difficult read given Humbert’s powers of description and there will be times you’ll likely want to take a shower to wash off Humbert’s filth.
The Space Between the Arts 
Great post, T. I do think I’ll give it a try when I can. Could I borrow your copy sometime?
Nice review. And a good example of the kind of ‘suspension’ of moral and theological judgment re art we were discussing in the last thread. I think Nabakov, like a lot of great artists, was trying to create a character that was deeply true to life without worrying about making moral judgments of that character. Readers can make those judgments or not, but as you say, it’s hard not to admire the sheer aesthetic beauty of the writing.
But from a Christian point of view Humbert is sickening. Makes it hard to do the ‘suspension’ and creates a literary cross-cultural experience.
I don’t think Nabakov had this in mind, but as I read it I was struck by how most all of us, particularly when dealing with depression, can easily move down the path Humbert takes. Probably not to the extreme he does, but ‘lust’ can take lots of forms.
Great review, I enjoyed reading your opinions on this novel.
I also read and did a review of Lolita. It is one of those books that, for me, has grown in fascination since finishing it. I think that when I read it again, it will be even better than the first time.