Not too long ago I finished reading Lolita (a combination of the paperback and the audiobook narrated by Jeremy Irons). Due to the subject matter, it’s a hard book to recommend, but in truth, it’s also some of the best writing I’ve read in a novel possibly ever. The epistolary framing narrative of HH’s memoirs should *instantly* key the reader into the fact that for all his seeming sincerity and self-deprecation, we are being told the narrative HH *wants* us to read. The lacunae and parts in which he glosses over are just as informative as what he *does* disclose, and *how* he does it. This made the text incredibly layered.
Naturally, HH is an utterly deplorable, loathsome, and at times almost comically evil character – but he is engaging. It’s honestly pretty incredible that Nabokov is able to write a novel from the perspective of a sociopathic child-molester not become overwhelmingly depressing or so continually bleak that the reader becomes desensitized to the subject matter. A part of this comes from HH’s narrative voice. He’s linguistically playful: wordplay and puns abound, his brief asides to the reader, even the way he describes certain events and characters can evolve a wry, guilty chuckle.
And this makes for an absolutely gripping novel. That being said, the fact that so many people and critics seem to view the book as titillating or pornographic is just *incorrect*. Not in the sense of being a bad opinion, but is just factually incorrect. It’d be like saying Moby-Dick is pornographic. At no time does Nabokov (key distinction here) *ever* portray Dolores Haze as anything other than a pubescent girl being horrifically and systematically abused. At times precocious, mercurial, others recalcitrant and moody – y’know, like a teenager. The onus of her fetishization is entirely on Humbert, and again, this is masterful writing.
That said, I can understand how if you take HH’s account as gospel, and read it uncritically, then I can understand how you *could* arrive at the conclusion of it being a slightly twisted love-story. But that just means that you’ve been duped by a preening narcissist trying to minimise the fact that he *kidnapped and raped a teenage girl for years*.
I had so much fun reading this novel, that I’m honestly kind of stumped for what to read next. Very little seems quite up to par. I might try Pale Fire, maybe?
by jaythejayjay
1 Comment
I love the writing too. I also never had a problem with the framing narrative of HH because as you said I never took his opinions as gospel and he always was a problematic human being to me anyway. But I can understand that some people are triggered by it after reading some reviews.