Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (Why Do We Value This Work?)
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- Опубликовано: 21 дек 2024
- My thought from reading Lolita. Feel feee to share why you love or loathe this book!
Recommended if you like:
Pale Fire by Nabokov
Speak, Memory by Nabokov
Ada, or Ardor by Nabokov
In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
Like Death by Guy de Maupassant
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Rabbit, Run and the Rabbit Angstrom novels by John Updike
London Fields by Martin Amis
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
The Inferno by Dante
Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, my discussion:
Stoner by John Williams
Other Men’s Daughters by Richard Stern
The Symposium and Phaedrus by Plato
#booktube
#vladimirnabokov
This was the book that got me into literature.
The way you view this book changes over time. I first read this as a teenager and was enthralled by it. Nabokov is a once in a century writer and he made 19 year old me root for Humbert. I think we value this book because
First, Nabokov is a genius. You mentioned the musical nature of his prose style and anyone who as read the first paragraph or so of Lolita won’t be able to disagree with his remarkable command of the English language. However, what stood out for me for years after reading this book for the first time was the last few sentences, “I’m thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge or art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita”. The theme of art is an integral part of the novel and all these years later, I still haven’t come across anything like this passage, connecting 40,000 years of tradition to a passion he feels for another person.
Second, Nabokov takes the great novels he grew up on and pushes their central, taboo themes to extreme positions. In his Lectures on Literature and Lectures on Russian Literature respectively, Nabokov discuss “Madam Beavery” and “Anna Karenina” in typical detail, and atypical reverence. I sometimes wonder if he read Poe’s “How I Wrote the Raven” and mechanically thought about the next step after breaking the taboo of adultery. Perhaps he did this again with Pale Fire (homosexuality) Ada (incest). These themes captivated readers in Nabokov’s parent’s and grandparent’s generation and captivate readers today.
Third, and I am repeating myself, he is skilled at making terrible people into sympathetic characters. You’ve recently read Paradise Lost so you’re familiar with this angle and I don’t need to go into detail about it. I will say Humbert Humber, for all his flaws is highly intelligent. The fact that we, the audience, find that compelling is an indictment on our value system.
Fourth, and I think most importantly, is the confusion over the nature of love. I think Americans, for along time, have had the view that true love looks like the destructive limerence of the unexamined and popular conceptions of Romeo and Juliet. Part of us can forgive Humbert’s crimes because he “loves” Lolita. Never mind her extreme youth, his relationship with her mother, the bizarre and dehumanizing “nymphet” categorizing he imposes on her, he feels special emotions to her and thus he has no choice but to act on them, we tell ourselves. I think this may be a function of, and a criticism of American movies where two movie stars look at one another in certain camera angles and we understand the director wants us to understand they have a special, almost sacred, connection.
Fifth, the Americana. As you mention the car culture, but also the “warn Levies and torn tee shirts”
Finaly, the enduring impact. As you say, it’s on all the lists. My favorite throw away line of all time was the TV “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmit “, where a character at a book club said “did you know Nabokov could be creepy in 3 languages?”
All in all, at 36. I think Lolita is a great book, but one that I don’t really want to read again. A few years ago, I asked my teenage niece what her favorite book was and she said “Lolita”. My initial reaction was disturbance, and then understanding. I agree with you that Pale Fire is better.
Enjoy Ada, there’s a lot more on the texture of time.
For me the achievement (value) of Lolita is the way Nabokov puts us in the head of a terrible person and creates sympathy (?) in the reader that forces you to constantly fight against the almost constant pressure to be charmed and drawn into HH’s pov. We spend so much time in his head (going through the mundanity of travel for instance) that we forget we should be rooting for him to get caught. We are encouraged to forget that he is a monster though Nabokov clearly shows us that he is. It is unsettling and subtle, awful and insidious. I can’t think of any other book that achieves that.
I agree with this - the way it knowingly makes the reader uncomfortable and doesn’t give an easy way out is so well done. But I also love the language: that line when he first tells us her name and has the tip of the tongue tripping through the mouth to the teeth is amazing - and it also means that while we are being introduced to her we are thinking about our tongue! That’s shocking without anything explicit being said.
I understand what you’re describing. I was more frustrated and outraged than seduced by HH this time. I think David Peace excels in that area of confounding a reader’s sensibilities, perhaps Eoin McNamee, though both are more haunting and violent.
Thanks for sharing.
@@ianp9086the way Nabokov verbalizes language is super interesting. I wonder if some of it draws on learning multiple languages when he was a child and really exploring the physical sounds.
Thanks for sharing.
@@ramblingraconteur1616 I read it as a much younger man and haven’t reread it since. I’m sure it would hit differently now.
As someone who values beauty and ingenuity of language most in assessing literary merit, it is the author's remarkable dexterity with language that makes this novel great and a personal favorite.
I remember Lolita primarily as a road novel, at least as far as the plot goes. But what attracts me to the book is the world building and the narrative technique. I love getting lost in what many might describe as pointless details. Hardly a sentence goes by that I don't find myself on Google referencing a novel mentioned or maybe a brand name, sentences far more detailed than those describing what many would assume was the main attraction of the novel. Definitely seeing comparisons to my limited experience with Proust. Looking forward to Pale Fire, Stoner, Sterne, and other comparable / contrastable works.
I’ve never read it in its entirety, but when I read the first chunk in college (I would often get distracted and fail to finish books as an undergraduate), I was STUNNED by the beauty and playfulness of the prose itself. Like you, I’m a sub-vocalizer, and so the sentences made an undeniable music in my head, which was intensely pleasurable.
Thanks for sharing, Jason. There is definitely a sense of discovery and possibility as Nabokov weaves with the English language. Virginia Woolf had that ability as well.
nabokov's manipulation of linguistics to evoke a sense of empathy for the unreliable narrator is unequivocally outstanding, his dreamy prose style with the most unique vocabulary mesmerised me to continue with the novel and acknowledge his greatness.
We have the same copy of the complete Plato
I have a weakness for road trip stories (On the Road is a massive gap for me), so that aspect of Lolita was something that fascinated me like it did you. The way the beauty of the language and HH’s charisma can almost make you forget that he’s a pedophile and start to relate to him was an interesting aspect of the novel as well. And then there is just the beautiful, musical writing. But like you, I also don’t find myself as wildly in love with the novel as some are.
Thanks for sharing, Lukas. I had completely forgotten how much travel there was, and that view of the highway USA was interesting. I can’t recall how charismatic I found HH on my first reading, but he definitely seemed more smug and arrogant this time. I’d be interested in learning what you make of On the Road if you ever get to it.
Mr Raconteur ive been waiting for this
To be honest I've been thinking about this in relation to more of nabokov (esp. ada and speak memory) and literature as a whole and I think I liked Lolita just because I was 14 and hadn't read much more than young adult so the writing blew my mind because in comparison to pale fire or even ada it's not as intellectually challenging (the content matter is trying and upsetting but it was harder to think this way as a precocious newly-minted teenager) or at least can be read without trying to engage with the referencing and wordplay, unlike pale fire. also i put much more value into the aesthetics of prose than the way a good book truly alters experience. also, i probably had lana del rey brainrot. I still far from hate lolita but i think it was very much of my early era. Don't even get me started on stoner you're so right he is suspect !!!! i trust that nasty little rat as far as i can throw him
@@sylvieyee6018Thanks for sharing, Sylvie. I think a number of us value that first “adult” book that we encounter and can read through. I love Pale Fire and am looking forward to rereading it this fall. Ada also seems incredible, so thanks for that recommendation. I’ll have to watch out for that Lana Del Rey-Lolita pipeline!
HH is a wicked man but he is also human. There is beauty of his language and the brutality of his behavior. The novel would lose its power if one of the two elements were removed.
Thanks for sharing, Greg. I’ll be curious to see how your reread goes.
I recall the language and mockery of clueless mid century america being first rate. Then spending most of the book feeling in on HH's scathing snobbery' looking down on everyone and everything' and then by the end of it realizing he was the worst of all. This is a stretch, but I think in a course the book might pair well with the autobio of malcom x. Similarly where most of the book is him expertly criticizing america and racism, only to watch him later realize and reckon with the disrepute of his own black Muslim mentors/leaders, see poor white muslims in mecca, etc. Spend most of the books sneering one direction, grappling with genuine problems with the US culture, only to have mirror flipped on the narrator (and reader) near the end.
I don’t think most people do value it. It’s highly suspect and ick.
Thanks for sharing.