Lolita

By Vladimir Nabokov

How do I begin THIS? To come out and say that I really enjoyed this book brings a smack of disgust to my face. I did really enjoy this book and yet the subject matter was dark and thoroughly disturbing. My choice in reading this book came from my dive into reading, diving as I do with most of what I do. I decided that I was going to read those books I had always heard about, with titles simply familiar, not unlike the face of the Mona Lisa or the twist of Michealangelo's David's wrist (his face, it must be noted, looks completely different viewed in real life. The shots we see in the media are straight on, but David was designed to be viewed by looking up from the ground. This view made me believe that God works in the hand of a true artist because David in life was spectacularly beautiful and infinitely more perfect than any picture I had seen of him. I tell you honestly, that I had tears in my eyes seeing David).

So, I decided upon Lolita in much the same manor- I had heard about it for years and knew loosely what it was about- a sick obsession of a middle-aged man lusting after a young girl. Since I had dipped my toe into adult matters with Indiana Gothic (forbidden love affair within a family) and Slaughterhouse-Five (war and the ugliness surrounding, my forbidden Footloose book), I decided to just plunge into the MOST forbidden of the classics... And I sure do understand the infamy.

So what left the biggest impressions with me in reading this book? First, the prose was akin to the perfection of butter sliding into a hot slice of toast. It soaked and flowed with an ease and beauty that couldn't help but wrap you up in it (and yes, dear reader- style borrowed from Lolita, indulging in a piece of hot toast with butter such as this I find almost as inspiring on certain days). In fact, it is the salvation of the subject matter, Nabokov's language. "...but such suffusions of swimming colors are not to be disdained by the artist in recollection." Like buddah!

The obsession in Lolita was overpowering at times and yet, it felt so real and was pivotal to the entire plot. Without Humbert's level of obsession, there is no book. We would never have gone anywhere. What struck me as a necessary companion to the obsession was Humbert's rationalization to find a comfort in what he was ruminating about and then what he was actually doing. Why I could tolerate this odious character was because he did at least strive to rationalize- he KNEW he was wrong and I found it deeply moving when, towards the end, he allowed himself the gravity of what he had done to this young girl. He damaged her and destroyed her and for all of the obsessing he had done over her, Humbert acknowledged that he did not KNOW her. As a person. He knew her as an object, which was what he focused on during his obsession- Lolita as pleasure. The hints at her pain, which he occasionally glanced upon during the awfulness, were alway whisked away through rationalization, until the end. I am glad for that end, in a very personal way, I am glad for it.

A master of teasing us with his eventual jailing (for what offense, when?) was a teasing hope that was necessary. This monster, though polished in ways and oh how he attempted to NOT be monster when he wasn't indulging his disgusting obsession, was going to get his. Thanks Nabokov, genius, knowing that we readers needed to know, through this vileness, that Humbert would be punished...

Once again, so much more that could be said. So much more to examine, but again, I feel this enough. I invite comments (just click that little "comment" button below this post), questions, observations. I am glad I have read Lolita and I hear there is a movie... nothing in the world could move me to see it.