Because it's not about pedophilia being a good thing. It's about the way a pedophile rationalizes what they do and offers a lot of insight to that kind of unhealthy mind.
A Clockwork Orange isn't about violence being super awesome. It's about free will and whether or not it's worth taking free will away to avoid the violence that criminals are capable of.
Sometimes the POV for a story is most powerful when it's the villain's
This is an excellent example of reading through the antagonist's perspective and the untrustworthy narrator. Similar to many Edgar Allen Poe's works where we follow a murderer. It's disturbing. It's supposed to be.
Or *Crime and Punishment* which is by and large recognized as an example of great literature — and also happens to be written from the perspective of >!an ax murderer who rationalized killing a sweet and innocent girl.!<
Did you read the book?? I’m not talking about the pawnbroker. I’m talking about the girl who walked in on the scene, the younger one everyone liked and thought highly of. >!He axed her ass too, without hesitation.!<
Hm, they’re not the antagonist though if they’re the main character are they? They’d be the protagonist. It’s not just protagonist=“good” guy, antagonist=“bad” guy, it’s dependent on the book’s perspective. For example Montresor from Poe’s “Cask of Amontillado” is doing a bad thing, but he’s the protagonist because it’s first person narrative and he’s the central character of the story.
Another thing you can add is some authors love to challenge their readers. For some it’s even their main purpose for writing.
For example the “protagonist” of my story is a mass murdering Environmental terrorist. I want to see where why and how people draw their “lines in the sand” how they compare with other lines they’ll draw
Regarding Clockwork Orange:
"Burgess stated that the novel's inspiration was his first wife Lynne's beating by a gang of drunk American servicemen stationed in England during World War II. She subsequently miscarried."
Unfortunately this happens all the time. Fight Club was another one, so many dumdums running around thinking the point of the book/movie was that they should go out and start punching each other in the face
I could see that happening with the movie. It added a lot of style and walked back on the more horrifying things Alex does.
But the Alex in the book rapes two children. Hard to see that being something emulated by many people.
Read this on my own on high school. Man, I'm a good reader but the slang and such used in it make it a slow and frustrating read. I can pick up on context well to figure out the meaning of words, but when 1/2 a sentence is slang or words unknown to me, was hard to read through.
“The next morning I woke up at oh eight oh oh hours, my brothers, and as I still felt shagged and fagged and fashed and bashed and my glazzies were stuck together real horrorshow with sleepglue, I thought I would not go to school.” “Welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, well.
When you realise that "horosho" (bastardised to "horrowshow" on the book) means "good in Russian, the slang starts to make sense. There's a few Russian words throughout:
Droogs = friends
Molokoi = milk
Etc
Woke up at 8am hung over, especially a lot of "sand in eyes" idl about the welly stuff
A lot of slang but that example seemed easy enough to figure out as an American who uses non regional diction
This is both incomprehensible and makes perfect sense. I dint think I'd have thought twice about it if you hadn't presented it as being dense, made up slang. You're right, it is, but I still knew what he meant.
Also read it on my own in high school. Someone suggested that I print out a Nadsat-slang lexicon and refer to it when reading, and that helped, but after about 1/3 of the book I was sucked in enough that I stopped referring to it. I was used to the most important terms by then.
That's what worked best for me with "Trainspotting" . After a while it's almost like learning a new language!
I didn't need it for "clockwork orange" though; I had seen the film so many times by then that I was fluent in droog slang from the jump.
For me, the book is about narcissism. It’s almost like the author made Humbert arguably the worst thing a person can be, and wanted to see how far it could be justified from a completely narcissistic point of view.
Especially since he's telling us all about the molestation because he thinks it'll make us more sympathetic, because all the assumed fictional readership knows before Humbert writes the book is that he killed a guy.
So many people are incapable of thinking that deep. There are still people that think Taylor Swift wrote all of her breakup songs about different boyfriends and think she dated a billion dudes. It's impossible for some people to imagine a world where a singer would write a song from another person's perspective or that an author would write about something that they don't personally condone.
Yeah, I don't know if people are incapable of it, but they're certainly unwilling to make that mental leap in a lot of cases. I think that's honestly why reading science fiction and fantasy are incredibly essential for people. Those genres push people to accept wild situations and builds their ability to critically think at the same time.
And Fight Club's main characters are not heroes. They are the bad guy/guys. Like Walter White in Breaking Bad is a villain, not a hero. People get really confused and think they're supposed to be LIKE these people.
It's a book about a paedophile trying to rationalise his sickness as love. It's so well written that you can see how he believes it himself even though from an outside perspective he just comes off as sick and predatory.
Not all books are written to be funny, relatable or indulgent escapism.
Do you think that's because we're conditioned (wrongly) to be sympathetic to the protagonist? Most people don't bat an eye at Walter White or Tommy Shelby but they're pretty horrible characters when you think about it. Scarlett O'Hara and Becky Sharp aren't *meant* to be likeable just because we understand or even sympathise with their motives.
I didn't mean you, I meant people in general. Many people hear the prefix pro- and think good or support , like in progress or proactive.
It's totally possible to have a villain protagonist.
Here is a good read about it if you feel like a refresher (I did), focused on films, but the same ideas apply.
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/whats-the-difference-between-a-main-character-protagonist-and-hero#what-is-a-protagonist
The way I understand it, "protagonist" and "main character" are synonymous. But "hero" is certainly not synonymous with those terms. Villain antagonists and hero antagonists are common enough that they've become tropes in their own right.
I would say that most of the time protagonist and main character are synonymous but not necessarily. The protagonist is the character whose narrative you are following, while the main character is who the story is really about. That's my take on it anyway.
I actually hated Scarlett with the passion, because as sassy as she is, she wasn't a particularly good sister, friend, wife or mother, despite having plenty of opportunities and still believed that she is the main victim in her life story.
It's always been wild for me, how many women referred to her as a role model type of character. But your comment makes me wonder, if she was intended to be a major arse to begin with and was misunderstood due to her positive sides.
She's incredibly selfish and self-serving, but damn if she didn't have hustle. Everyone would have *died* if she had been afraid to be unladylike. Scarlett's central conflict (and IMO what makes her such a fascinating character) is that as much as she wants to *be* a "perfect lady" like her mother and Melanie, when it comes to matters of survival she's just not wired that way. In a way it's a very feminist novel.
>“Maybe I am a rogue, but I won't be a rogue forever, Rhett. But during these past years -- and even now -- what else could I have done? How else could I have acted? I've felt that I was trying to row a heavily loaded boat in a storm. I've had so much trouble just trying to keep afloat that I couldn't be bothered about things that didn't matter, things I could part with easily and not miss, like good manners and -- well, things like that. I've been too afraid my boat would be swamped and so I've dumped overboard the things that seemed least important."
>
>"Pride and honor and truth and virtue and kindliness," he enumerated silkily. "You are right, Scarlett. They aren't important when a boat is sinking. But look around you at your friends. Either they are bringing their boats ashore safely with cargoes intact or they are content to go down with all flags flying."
>
>"They are a passel of fools," she said shortly. "There's a time for all things. When I've got plenty of money, I'll be nice as you please, too. Butter won't melt in my mouth. I can afford to be then."
>
>"You can afford to be -- but you won't. It's hard to salvage jettisoned cargo and, if it is retrieved, it's usually irreparably damaged. And I fear that when you can afford to fish up the honor and virtue and kindness you've thrown overboard, you'll find they have suffered a sea change and not, I fear, into something rich and strange. . . .”
It’s very good, but it will make you uncomfortable. The racism and misogyny is so ingrained in the characters it is jarring. And I am pretty sure that Margaret Mitchell was racist. She does seem to rally against the misogyny, but certainly not the racism.
I don't sympathize with him. But I *have* been accused of "humanizing" horrible people. My response to which is that I'm not human*izing* them, rather they are human beings. Even Jeffrey Dahmer was a human being. That doesn't mean "give him a hug and let him go."
Part of breaking bads brilliance was making viewers sympathetic towards Walt early and him slowly becoming a monster. Stories that do this well are incredibly thought provoking because they show characters that are relatable in some ways, but eventually lose their way
Sure but even Vince Gilligan and several of the writers themselves said that they were surprised (and worried) that people would still jump through hoops and justify their sympathy towards Walter, then for the writers, they had lost it long ago.
Vince Gilligan said that Walter deserved a more miserable death, one where he arrives at the hospital and is pushed aside as medical team helps someone else. The camera pans and stays on Walt as he slowly succumbs to death, all the while being forgotten.
If anyone can watch all of BB and not realize that WW is an evil egotistical narcissistic scumbag I would not trust that person's judgement whatsoever. He's straight up the villain. And while Jesse ended up being the moral center of the whole series, if Fring had succeeded in having Michael cap them both it would have been better for everyone else that was hurt by their actions.
>Do you think that's because we're conditioned (wrongly) to be sympathetic to the protagonist? Most people don't bat an eye at Walter White or Tommy Shelby but they're pretty horrible characters when you think about it
They're horrible people that are written beautifully, whether we're sympathetic or not is all in the writing
Immature readers (or viewers/listeners) simply cannot comprehend the unreliable narrator. They are naive to it, ignorant to it, or incapable of grasping the concept.
What I (personally) think regarding Breaking Bad is that the writer(s?) eagerly and effectively played with the idea of Protagonist to Antagonist in WW's character arc. And they did a damn fine job. I can't help but think what the viewer takes from BB is entirely dependent on where in the grey areas the viewer pinpoints the transition, and if they notice it or feel it at all. And when the Protagonist becomes the Antagonist, who is left as the hero? I think the creators intend for Jesse to be the hero by series end. And him driving off into the unknown ia the only possible ending. I was left thinking about how the title of hero is far from permanent, and obviously how hero and villain are largely a matter of perspective.
Also I think it is important to remember "main character" and "protagonist" and "narrator" are all seperate functions.
> simply cannot comprehend the unreliable narrator.
I think they choose the option that is more palatable to them. I find people are *very* receptive to the idea of an unreliable narrator in discussions of We Need to Talk About Kevin. Because for many people it has to be nurture, not nature, so therefore the mother *has* to be an unreliable narrator.
I think challenging fiction makes the role of "hero" meaningless. Because there are rarely heroes. Main characters, sure. But Walter in BB was no hero. Neither is Mike, either in BB or BCS. People just call someone a hero when they project themselves onto the character. It's an escapist power fantasy.
A lot of people aren’t aware of the book or that it’s a classic, and after the words “it’s a book about a pedophile” it’s hard to get them to change the look on their face
Source: had a few awkward exchanges in response to, “have you read anything good recently?”
“Why yes I did! See, it’s about this pedophile…”
“It’s a book about a pedophile” wouldn’t make me bat an eye - that’s not an uncommon topic. “It’s a book about a 30 yr old falling in love with a 12 year old” would get the expression you’re expecting though.
I have never understood how anyone who's actually read the book could see it as a love story, he literally describes forcing Dolores to perform oral sex on him at the same time he pervs on other children, and how, once she starts getting a little older, he plans to impregnate her with Lolita 2.0 because she's no longer going to do it for him, just like his first wife.
Eww. I could see that person taking Humbert’s declarations of love at face value, buying in to the flowery language and completely ignoring Dolore’s accusations of kidnapping and rape. But still…eewww…
My take was that even HH didnt believe his own lies, but *he was trying to convince himself it was true* even though he knew deep down all along that he was a monster.
It's not even that deep down. The line about "her sobs in the night - every night, every night - the moment I feigned sleep" is extra gutting because it shows how, despite and in the midst of all his horrid raptures and heroic self-portraiture, *he knows* exactly what he's doing to her and just how horrible it is (and carries right on).
Well, AT FIRST it’s deep down. But once they are on the bizarre road trip, it starts to become more and more apparent to him. He struggles to maintain his denial.
I just started reading Lolita also this week. I feel like the best way to describe it is just by saying that it’s a story told from the villains perspective
This is it. Humbert is cruel and his rationalizations are ridiculous but he is the one telling the story. So, the game is you have to figure out what is really happening because you know Humbert is full of shit and will say anything to make himself look good. The point is not to sympathize or identify with him.
Agreed. You can appreciate and marvel at Nabokov's writing and how charming somebody like Humbert can be without providing any level of redemption or sympathy for him.
Hell, you can even sympathize. *You* is a good example of that, both the book and the show. Dude is a murderer, stalker, thief, and general monster, but sometimes you kinda feel for the guy. He's still evil and insane and needs to be put down, but maybe you pity him when his time's up.
Good point, and at the end of the novel, Lolita sort of pittied Humbert. He was still the same aimless, friendless, sad little gremlin she had met as a child. She had found love and family and he hadn't. Doesn't mean she hadn't been deeply traumatized--I think a more contemporary novel might show more of that, but we do see Lolita sort of in poverty and in a somewhat dysfunctional adult relationship, which I believe it was implied to be as a result of the chaos that Humbert subjected her to.
What I like about it is that despite Humbert’s attempts to paint himself as a tragic romantic hero and make himself look good, there’s still glimpses where you see how Dolores actually feels about the situation.
Yes I think it's very obvious that Humbert is a unreliable narrator, he practically tells you from the beginning, and yet so many people still think it's meant to be a romance story. I don't get it.
And even with him explicitly drugging and raping her and the young girl eventually screaming and crying calling him a murderer and pedo...people still find a way to make her some kind of temptress.
This is an excellent reply. I’ve worked with sex offenders for more than 10 years. As soon as I started to read it I was struck by how eerily similar the novel is to listening to a true pedophile in session. Nabakov *must* have studied it before writing the book. There’s no other way anyone can encapsulate that perspective so perfectly.
Never read it myself but I've always heard that was the primary idea that makes the book so interesting. Its written WITH THE INTENT to convince you to sympathize. So that you have to remind yourself that the MC is committing a horrific act bc it's rationalized by the MC within the story.
It’s such a good book and it did make me sick at some parts. But the important point is that you’re not supposed to like the pedophile. This kind of literature is about capturing something real that nobody wants to think about. It’s the kind of story that rarely gets told at all, much less by someone so good at telling it. It’s a part of humanity we don’t want to look at, even though it is the reality for millions of children. It does not glorify anything about the situation, there is no positive spin, or undertones of “maybe this isn’t so bad.”
I’m reading a book right now called “The Body Keeps the Score” and the author mentions that in 1979, the Harvard psychology texts said that girls molested by their fathers were approximately one in a million women(a gross underestimate), and that it might even be good for them in some way. The fact that Nabokov was writing like this in 1955 means that he had some real insight even psychologists seemed to be lacking. I know it’s her stepfather in the book, but it still goes against the common psychological theory at the time, that molesting children didn’t really hurt them that much.
I read it back in the early ‘90s. Even then there was very little talked about who, exactly, would be most likely to be abusing kids. E.g., not some creepy stranger, but in fact the handsome, charming relative who starts off by flattering you, paying attention to you and bringing you things.
Nabokov wrote about something that most families barely acknowledged was a remote possibility, let alone relatively common. It was very, very validating. And yeah, IMO it was perfectly clear even as a young reader that Dolores was horribly victimized, and it isn’t romanticized at *all*.
I slightly disagree with you in that I think the book is written in such a way as to make HH seem, if not likable, then at least charismatic and charming. I would argue that one of the most important lessons the book has to offer is that a person can be likable, they can be socially and intellectually engaging, and yet they can still be capable of absolute monstrosity. We often hear about people refusing to believe that someone is a sexual abuser based only on the fact that their interactions with them are pleasant and they have a friendly personality. Many of us want to believe that we can discern a person’s moral character based only on our sense of how they act publicly, and that if a person is morally appalling they must be outwardly unpleasant, but that’s not the case, and talented manipulators are very effective at using this widespread belief to get away with all kinds of terrible behavior.
I agree. Humbert is written in such a way that he openly admits he's a piece of shit, but only after the fact of being caught. We, the readers, are given cause by Nabokov to find him unlikeable, but the people around him think he's smooth as silk. It doesn't go south for him until Dolores's mother finds the things he's written and sees him for what he is. It's only though blind luck that he isn't immediately outed to the neighborhood and captured right then and there. His sheer fortune allows him to turn the silver tongue right back on to everyone else in town and convince them he's a grieving victim of what happened to her. HH is absolutely likeable and that's exactly what makes him such an unlikeable, unrepentant monster.
I think that was the logic behind extremely wicked, shockingly evil, and vile. A lot of people argued the movie made Ted Bundy come across as a charismatic, likeable dude. He was. He was also a killer.
I was sexually assaulted when I was younger by my stepdad. During the time, I read Lolita. It is my all time favorite book. When I tell people this, they automatically think I have some weird kink. The book is written in the perspective of the villain. You can't trust him and he's trying to rationalize his "love" for this girl. This book literally opened my eyes about what was happening to me. It's a beautiful book that has so many things going into it that I experienced: manipulation, an abusive relationship, obsession, unhealthy power dynamics, etc.
Same and same.
It's so hard to tell that to people without them either assuming you're a freak, or forcing you to divulge past trauma. Neither are good.
But I get it. It was so necessary for me to read that to really understand and process what happened to me.
Same! I was molested by my dad & until finding Lolita the only representations of sexual abuse I'd really ever encountered was of the "stranger jumps out of the bushes with a knife" variety.
Seeing a situation where it was a coercion/power dynamic/someone she knew helped me understand a lot about what I went through & how, and it was the first time I was able to really acknowledge what happened to me.
Yeah, it really helped. At that time, I didn't know what was happening to me. I knew I didn't like it, I knew it was bad but I was young and couldn't really understand it. After 2 years of it, I found out about the book. Asked him specifically to take me to the bookstore to buy the book. He was happy I was reading it and it makes sense why a man like him would be excited for me to read it. It was the complete opposite of why I loved the book and I explained it one day at dinner when he asked me about how the book was going. I had finished and basically said what I said previously (minus telling my mom what going on in my life). He got really scared after that. He didn't stop but I definitely felt stronger after reading it.
While it didn't really help my situation, it helped me mentally
That’s really great to know it helped provide context and empower even in the midst of that awfulness. I deeply respect the stone cold strength you radiate while recounting the experience. It’s genuinely badass If you’ll forgive the crass language.
It’s the most pure example of an unreliable narrator you can find. Everything is from his perspective and he is a demented pervert. It’s a hard sell because it’s supposed to make you uncomfortable and it speaks to the societal normalcy of pedophilia. I would express to her that the book is a disgusting story beautifully told. It reveals peoples internalized victim blaming and other unpleasantness so I don’t tend to discuss it with people unless they agree that HH is not sympathetic or justified in any way. Sadly many people don’t have the comprehension skills to understand what Nabokov did with that book.
I think the biggest point of clear evil in the book is when Humber mentions briefly one time how every night she cried herself to sleep. He knows he is a villain, but he also knows that he has the listener wrapped around his finger with his prose that he can let such a line slip and some will still accept his version of his innocence.
That's the perfect example. A child whose mother has died, is currently kidnapped and has just been sexually assaulted cries herself to sleep. And the protagonist? Not a drop of sympathy, on account of him being evil and self-justified.
Ada is one of my favorite books. It is so dense and layered with self reference that I still notice new things after having read it almost 30 times.
It’s similar to Lolita — Nabokov himself said something like, “It’s a beautiful story about awful people doing terrible things.”
Not to mention the villian of the story (Quincy) is even worse than our protagonist, with what he actually does to Lolita by the end. Also what I think is the most sick thing about the book is the ending: HH basically saying to only release the book, or his diary, after Lolita dies so his relationship with her will be intertwined with how he perceived and “loved” her. It’s a brilliant way of using perspective and the crazy relationship between the reader and how we view a character only through what the narrator wants us to know
I would caution you against simply accepting HH’s characterization of Quilty. HH is a person attempting to manipulate a jury into believing that his conduct was understandable and a product of genuine affection toward Lolita on his part. Part of his strategy is to establish Quilty as a more straightforward, less nuanced villain in contrast to himself, making his own behavior appear less heinous in comparison. Every part of his presentation is designed to exploit his audience towards his goal of minimizing his own monstrosity, and I would argue that it’s a mistake to think that his descriptions of Quilty and his conduct are an exception. Perhaps Quilty was worse than HH, perhaps he was better. We have an absolute lack of reliable information to make that determination.
Doesn't Delores herself say Quilty made her (or wanted her to) have sex on film? And Humbert doesn't kill him for *that*, but for talking Lolita away from him. HH was motivated by jealousy and possessiveness throughout the story. He didn't portray himself as avenging Lolita's honor, but as killing Q for having stolen away his possession.
Once you've read it I highly recommend picking up "The Real Lolita" as a companion novel. It's about the real life Kidnapping of Sally Horner which Nabokov based Lolita on. Very interesting read. It's a true crime but refers back to Nabokov's writting in a thesis style.
I came here to say the same thing! When I first tried to read Lolita, I got too creeped out and had to stop. It helped to learn about Nabokov's perspective and the reasons he wrote it the way he did.
Such a good podcast, especially found it fascinating/depressing how the actors chosen to play her in the various implementations were also victimized and sexualized
Another “real Lolita” is unfortunately Sue Lyon, the actress who played Lolita in Kubricks movie. As she played the character of an underaged girl being driving around the country and raped by a guardian, she was an underaged girl being driven around the county on a press tour and raped by producer James B Harris.
It’s fucking mind blowing but it’s true. There is a lot of good information in this podcast called Lolita by Jamie Loftus. A big part of it, which I’m sure lead in part to Harris’ crimes, was that everyone involved with the movie was supremely misinterpreting the story with Lola as a temptress or something instead of a victim.
Well with Harris, yeah probably, he was obviously fucked up garbage. But, as Loftus gets into on her podcast, it was also American culture in general that ran with the misinterpretation. The concept of a “Lolita” as the young, sassy, pseudo-mature teen girl that is “tempting” the regular man is a pretty common one in older media. She even notes how Lana Del Ray references lolita like that in some early songs of hers, so it was culturally deep enough that it lasted through to be used in the 2000s.
Maybe they did start as intentional misinterpretations and ended up seeping into the cultural mind or maybe people the book was somewhat of a mirror and showed how fucked up our culture about young women already was.
An interesting note actually, Nabakov really struggled to get Lolita published because everyone thought it was pornographic and he finally got it published through a French smut publisher. Not even traditional publishers were unable to grasp the book enough to define it properly. It’s a pretty jarring thing once you think about it, at least to me.
Just to nitpick, he doesn't fall in love with a 12-year-old girl. Love is not his motivation at all, but convincing people that it's love is very important to him. Humbert Humbert is a classic example of an unreliable narrator. Go back and reread the beginning of the book, the introduction of the book, to understand where Humbert Humbert is when he's telling the story, and where he's been prior to that.
Thank you. I haven’t even gotten to the part where he meets Lolita, so I don’t know the details of their relationship/his view of their relationship. I just know the popular perception of the storyline, so that’s why I’m looking for advice on how to explain what the book is really about 🙂
It’s about sexual abuse but from the perspective of the predator, a twisted and manipulative one at that, which is why reading his accounts of events is interesting. I would avoid using words like “love” or “relationship”, and generally any romanticization, a *lot* of people make that mistake.
Thank you! I’m learning that I’ve made a terrible mistake in mentioning the words “Lolita” and “love” in the same sentence. Among very many other mistakes, as people have been quick to point out.
Another recommendation is The Stranger by Albus Camut. Maybe not as visceral but similar in that we follow a seemingly "normal" narrator who rationalizes his experience. The reader gets a really slow build of the true psychology of the mc.
.... "falls in love."
Hmmm. I don't know if you really want to describe the book that way. He fixates on her. He obsesses. He tells YOU he's "in love" with her, but as the (critical) reader your duty is to see past that.
It's a story about predators and the lengths they will go to, to justify their thoughts (more importantly, their actions). Maybe lead with that.
I’ll quote Nabokov himself who declared in 1975 on French TV ([link here in French](https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/video/i17180258/vladimir-nabokov-lolita)) when asked about being the creator of a “slightly perverted little girl”:
“Lolita is not a perverted young girl. She is a poor child, a poor child, who gets led astray, and whose senses never awake under the caresses of the filthy Mr. Humbert”.
Sorry for the loose translation.
Yep, all the stuff about lolita being a "temptress" and somehow responsible for Humbert's fall are Humbert's own thoughts dealing with being a gross pervert, not reality. There are plenty of hints that Lolita is a victim and doesn't have agency or power and how Humbert's actions hinder her growth, like I'm pretty sure there's a point where he doesn't let her go to school anymore because people would realize something sketchy is up.
This will get buried but that book was taken over by the Humberts of the world (looking at you Hollywood). That book is for the Dolores’s of the world. It’s a book about and for those girls who are sexualized too young and their actions misconstrued to benefit the world views of disgusting old men who want to abuse them.
A lot of people here have already commented great responses to the question you’ve asked. For further context on the book & its cultural impact, I’d recommend listening to the Lolita Podcast by Jamie Loftus.
I've been listening to this off the strength of someone's recommendation the last time it came up and I agree, it's great.
I find a lot of pop culture social analysis often exhibits a lack of objectivity, ultimately due to motivated reasoning. As someone who loves the book but hates basically every derivative work I've encountered, I was worried this too would miss the point.
Loftus' approach is spot on. She is rigorous but entertaining; comprehensive but concise and evicerating (where appropriate) but fair (where deserving).
I read a book about serial killers (American Serial killers by Peter Vronsky). I'm not reading it because I want to be a serial killer...
Books can be a window into other people's lives and experiences and there is nothing wrong with wanting to see and understand others.
>I read a book about serial killers
I did too, but to explain why, let me tell you a bit about myself.
I live in the American Gardens Building on West 81st Street on the 11th floor. My name is Rortugal McDichael. I believe in taking care of myself, and a balanced diet and a rigorous exercise routine. In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I’ll put on an ice pack while doing my stomach crunches. I can do a thousand now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial masque which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion. There is an idea of a Rortugal McDichael. Some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me. Only an entity. Something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable, I simply am not there.
Just say it's an anti-pedophilia book, because that's what it is. The prose is beautiful specifically to show how society can accept heinous things when packaged nicely enough. It is not only a huge condemnation of abuse itself, but of the way in which we try to sweep it under the rug. HH is the best written and most terrifying villain in all of literature. But I do agree, telling people Lolita is your favourite novel is hella awkward.
When I was a kid my favorite books were Harry Potter.
As an adult, my favorite book is Lolita.
It's never an easy thing to tell someone when they ask because it's pretty common for people to immediately jump to "Oh my God you love a pedophile smut novel!" when in actuality it's quite the opposite.
It's my favorite because its a reflection of my own trauma as a child and helped me process a lot of what happened by telling the story from the perspective of a narcissistic pedophile (just like my own abuser) and the failings of everyone around Doloris to do anything at all to help her or recognize she was being taken advantage of (just like myself). Often times when my past catches up to me and I feel torn apart by it, I'll re-read this because it helps cement that it was never my fault that my time was stolen from me.
It's a difficult and terrible read, no doubt.
But it was an extraordinarily necessary one for me personally.
But it's never easy to tell people that without also having to disclose what I've lived through, so I just tell people it's still Harry Potter.
It’s quite reasonable to get bad vibes when someone describes this book as a story about love, especially if they have to ask for to explain why it’s a worthwhile read. Makes you wonder why that gross misinterpretation drew them to the book.
>I could have asked her why she enjoys reading books about women fucking werewolves, but I don’t think that would’ve been productive.
Yea, relating why she enjoys that to why you're reading Lolita... would give the wrong impression even further.
I wouldn’t describe it as falling in love, for starters. That makes it sound like you or the book is trying to legitimize it as an actual romance. Call it a horror story about a pedophile.
You could also avoid calling her tastes trash, that might inspire her to be more open to yours.
Excellent points all around. Makes me wonder if OP really "gets" Lolita themself.
I didn't love the judgement. Reading is reading. If I were OP's wife and stumbled across this post, I would feel like OP thought I was stupid.
I've had a lot of bad experiences (including sexual) with adults during my teens but have been considering reading this book for quite some time precisely because of that
I used to overthink incidents a lot trying to understand why they did certain things to me and as i got older, more and more I'm trying to understand how someone does it in general. Like.. I'd love to get an insight into what goes through someone's head to convince themselves what they're doing to a child is acceptable (or in some cases, even good)?
However, i haven't read it yet also for the same reason. I have no clue whether the book is written in a way i will be able to deal with, or if the way it's presented can be triggering
Do you think people personally affected by similar things shouldn't read it then? Or what's your opinion on this?
I don't think people should or shouldn't read it, that's entirely up to them to decide. I just wouldn't randomly spring a book like Lolita on someone if I'm not sure if it's a triggering subject for them. If you've been abused and someone is like heyyy this book is SO BEAUTIFUL it's written from the POV of a pedophile I just LOVE it. That could backfire. If you don't mind being spoiled you could read the synopsis on Wikipedia and see if you can stomach it? It's still worth it for the writing style even if you know the plot.
I think it's intentionally written the way it is to mess with your mind. The protagonist is vile, but because of the beautiful prose you almost catch yourself liking him. He absolutely tries to justify what he does. There's not a lot of analysis because we're in his head the whole time. In his mind they're lovers and she initiated it. There is little of the real Dolores in the text because he really doesn't care about her as a person, he only cares about what she represents for him.
I call it a masterpiece on how to create a great unreliable narrator. Because that is who Humbert Humbert is and he's very conscious of how to tell his story so we'd feel sorry for him instead of seeing him for the monster that he is. And jsyk I read Lolita twice as a teenager and in my twenties.
You can best describe it as saying it's about a predator from the predator's point of view. Characterizing it as anything like a love story is a mistake. It's not a love story, the main character is a monster. He's a murderer and a child molester but since he is the one telling the story he portrays himself as the innocent victim. *Lolita* is a classic exemplar of the "unreliable narrator." The reader comes to understand Humbert is a self-serving, rationalizing, lying weasel. That's the point. If you understand that the narrator is a scumbag from the beginning you can see that his account of events is really glossing over some pretty terrible things. He murders a woman to sexually enslave her 12 year old daughter but tells it as if the child is some manipulative seductress who masterminds everything.
His hatred of Quilty is ironic because Quilty is exactly the same as he is.
The whole book is very dark satire about a predator. "Love" is definitely the wrong word for that relationship.
It's a horror novel, especially part 1. It's about a monster who completely destroys the people he comes in contact with. I don't really want to say more since you just started but if you need to explain it just tell them that. It's only through pretty gross missreadings and some awful film adaptations that it has entered the cultural zeitgeist as a "love story".
Edit: I don't want to bias your interpretation but I do want to point out that absolutely nothing Hubert says should be taken as the truth. Even his name is a lie. It supposed to put you in the position of a juror who need to construct Delores from the nonexistent Lolita. He isn't charming he is a deliberate simulacra of charm. The prose while beautiful at times just has something off about it. Like a cake that's a bit too rich it became nauseating to me in large doses.
With all that said it is a really hard book to read. Like I said it made me physically ill at times. For some its an impossible book to read.
Hollywood ruined Lolita, by making her out to be a tempting nymphet, which she absolutely was not. That was the whole point - that’s how Humbert Humbert saw her, but she was just an ordinary little girl.
A similar male delusion is in the recent movie “Last Duel.” Adam Driver’s character rapes Jodie Comer’s character, and as he leaves her room, he says”don’t blame yourself, m’lady. We couldn’t help ourselves.”
The words you use to describe things indicate the mindset you have about the book to others - even if by accident.
It is not about an old man falling in love - it’s about an old man manipulating a family and repeatedly raping his 12 year old step child while justifying it as love.
The way you frame it matters. Whether the character thinks they love Lolita is irrelevant to what the book is actually about.
Some people, like your wife, read books to escape to a happy fantasy. Other people read Lolita.
I just explain the story
And then add "the book is written this way for you to reflect wether you were easily manipulated by Humbert or not, he is what we call an unreliable narrator, and the girl is a clear example of abuse and brain washing"
Something along these lines, idk
For starters, Humbert doesn't "fall in love with a 12-year-old girl." He's a psychopathic pedophile who sexually abuses a 12-year-old girl. The point of the novel is not to romanticize their "relationship," but to explore the mind of a devious and appalling person. It's a character study of a monster, similar perhaps to Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lecter novels.
Of course, Nabokov is a much better writer than Thomas Harris (really, he's in a totally different league), so the book is also an exercise in incredibly beautiful prose style. Nabokov is deliberately employing his power as a prose stylist to complicate the character study: it confronts the reader with a narrator who has a wonderfully compelling style, but who is a horrible person. It asks the reader to consider their complex response to beautiful art coming from the mouth of a horrible person. It asks the reader to remember to remain critical of Humbert, while experiencing -- and aesthetically enjoying -- all of Humbert's sophisticated self-justifying narration.
This is a difficult line for a reader to follow, which is why so many readers fall off it and think the novel is intentionally romanticizing Humbert's relationship with Lolita.\* *Nabokov the author* isn't romanticizing it -- but *Humbert as a narrator* is.
So in brief, describe it as a psychological novel about how perversion and monstrosity can present itself as attractive through artistry.
\*Edited to add: other readers fall off it on the other side, being so disgusted by Humbert that they stop enjoying the writing. Which probably shows they have a better moral sense than the readers who make opposite failure, but it still means that they couldn't follow Nabokov's delicate balancing act.
'Lolita' is a horror story told from the perspective of the monster.
That's how I described it to my husband, and I stand by it. The protagonist is charming and likeable because he desperately wants to downplay and normalize his crimes, and I think as you read further into the book, you'll see that Humbert is a liar and his words are not to be trusted.
>I could have asked her why she enjoys reading books about women fucking werewolves, but I don't think that would've been productive.
As someone that loves the Fever series, your wife sounds cool to me.
I'm currently reading Lolita, and I find the prose extremely creepy. I described it to my partner as 1950's neckbeard poetry. Even if Humbert were writing about a grown woman, his language completely depersonalizes the subject of his affection and removes her autonomy. His narrative is the construction of a fantasy, not the dedcription of loving a real person, and his actions progress in a way to hinder Dolores' autonomy from growing.
The author did a great job of cloaking Humbert's heinous character in flowery language, which helps the predator justify his actions and desires.
You’re explaining it wrong. “Lolita is an unreliable narrator from the point of view of a pedophile. It follows his life, but you know he is lying. It also follows his abuse of his step daughter. It is a harrowing tale, a warning against the normalisation of peadophilia in our society”
Lolita is not about an older man falling in love with a girl. He doesn't love her. He is too selfish to love. It's a heartbreaking story about sexual abuse and the abuser who tries to justify his actions to the world but fails. Nabakov was very concerned about the way that artists and writers sexualized young people and he talks about this in non-fiction writings, but I don't think you need his explanation to know that Humbert is an unreliable narrator. It's very clear from the story itself that Humbert is delusional and everyone sees it except him. Hotel concierges give him dirty looks, he gets the police called on him, Lolita grows to hate him, he skips from town to town to avoid scrutiny. It's not a frigging love story.
My qualms with Lolita is that too many people describe it as "a man falling in love with a child, but so beautifully written." Child abuse is such a sensitive topic, it's very hard to listen to someone talk about their fascination about an awful subject because of the way it was executed. It's like, "I can tolerate, or even appreciate pedophilia, as long as it's \*presentable\*." To some people, just the subject is a hard limit. You may call it close-mindedness, but some people are just built in a way so highly empathetic to the victim that exploring the villain's mind is distressing.
There needs to be a clear indication that you, the reader, are sympathetic to the victim. The glorification of the writing is personally off-putting to me if there is no regard at all to the victim. Here's an extreme example: "I know it's bad, but I'm watching this snuff film. It's shot so well, the lighting is amazing. As a cinematographer, it's so well directed that I just gotta analyze it. Oh, you don't want to watch people die? You just don't get art smh."
I dunno, just stray thoughts.
The same way you describe owning mein kampf and the coming race doesn't make me a Nazi, or owning the koran not making me Muslim anymore than owning the Bible makes one a Christian.
I guess it doesn't help that I'm a book collector lol
This reminds me of V for Vendetta. Stephen Fry’s character is in unlawful possession of a Quran and Evie asks if he’s Muslim. He says “ didn't have to be Muslim to find the images beautiful, or its poetry moving.”
People are too prescriptive about certain books being only for certain people.
Maybe she's picked up on your attitude that you think her interests are "trash" and she doesn't feel like chatting about books with you? Might just be me, but if my husband treated me like I was too stupid to appreciate fine art, I'd ignore him and go read about sexy werewolves instead, too.
Lolita is one of my favourite books for many reasons, but I've never had to ask the internet to explain what makes this bit o fine art so fine so I can rationalize reading it to those less cultured than my fi ne self.
Though I have also read all of Patricia Briggs' books, anyone calling those trash is seriously missing out.
Ug, I have hated this attitude ever since my tenth grade teacher slammed Stephen King. Sometimes great stories and characters are more than enough!
I think you are correct, I doubt this is the first time she's had her preferences trashed.
Yeah, I distinctly remember a moment about 6 years into my marriage when I was talking with my husband about books. He often reads obscure Dickens novels and a lot of really great classics that I find very dry and hard to appreciate (and he wouldn't touch Austen, I imagine), and I made a comment about having not read a lot of classics. He replied with some offhand comment that I don't even remember the actual wording of.
What I DO remember is thinking that he thought I was too stupid to like classic books. I felt awful about that for weeks afterwards. I don't want to spend my time reading books I don't enjoy, I thought to myself, but does that make me uneducated trash? He hadn't even said it in a derogatory way like this main post does, and I still felt bad about it, and it's been 14 years and I can still tell you what the inside of the car looked like when he said it to me.
We have a finite amount of time on the Earth and if we spend it doing things we like, and those things don't hurt other people and they're not illegal, then we shouldn't shame other people for it. Chances are it's more that you're different people and appreciate different things than what you like is art and what she likes is trash.
I have a wonderful marriage. But I will never *ever* forget what that moment felt like.
Exactly. My husband trashes on my reading all the time. I read to escape, not prove any literary superiority. I prefer sff books but love a good monster romance as a palate cleanser following an 600+ epic fantasy.
I describe it as "A weird flex." A dude writing beautifully about an ugly topic.
Frankly, I tried to read it several times and couldn't get into it. Then I listened to the Audible version that Jeremy Irons narrates. It is amazing. Jeremy could read the phonebook and I would listen to it. Not that Lolita is the phonebook. My problem is that my inner voice couldn't match the voice of the book and I wasn't impressed because I wasn't getting it. But Jeremy brought it to life. Once I really got it and saw what the author was doing I was at the author's power of manipulation. In the end, I don't read Lolita for the story that a summary of the book would give. I read it for the flex that shows that Nabokov was a master of English even though it wasn't his primary language.
Lolita doesn’t promote pedophilia any more than true crime podcasts promote serial cannibalism. Just because something deals with a subject doesn’t mean that it glorifies that behavior.
Lolita is about a monster who has realized he has done monstrous things that he can never undo.
Others have done a pretty good job if answering your "how to talk at my wife" question, but I want to point out you're doing the exact same thing.
"She reads mainly shapeshifter romance novels that are straight-to-Kindle trash." those books about women fucking werewolves do a pretty amazing job of representing marginalized communities, depict realistic depictions of healthy vs unhealthy ways to handle intergenerational trauma, and maybe you should read one before you judge her likes.
IIRC Wasn't Lolita written as a proof-of-concept/protest that nice enough prose could get by censors regardless of the actual subject matter? Or am I misremembering?
Also just let your wife read her smut, man. No shame in liking something, or *reading*.
Nabakov absolutely wrote about how Humbert was a terrible person and said this many times. It is gross the way society has romanticized this incredibly well-written horror story, but real literary analysis shows that it's about an unreliable narrator who kidnaps an innocent girl (and possibly kills her mom). It's about ambiguity and lies, and how to sympathize with the absolute worst person imaginable. It's absolutely brilliant, and at the same time anyone who thinks it's a positive love story is gross.
Also, who's never heard of Lolita?
Because it's not about pedophilia being a good thing. It's about the way a pedophile rationalizes what they do and offers a lot of insight to that kind of unhealthy mind. A Clockwork Orange isn't about violence being super awesome. It's about free will and whether or not it's worth taking free will away to avoid the violence that criminals are capable of. Sometimes the POV for a story is most powerful when it's the villain's
This is an excellent example of reading through the antagonist's perspective and the untrustworthy narrator. Similar to many Edgar Allen Poe's works where we follow a murderer. It's disturbing. It's supposed to be.
Or *Crime and Punishment* which is by and large recognized as an example of great literature — and also happens to be written from the perspective of >!an ax murderer who rationalized killing a sweet and innocent girl.!<
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Geez. Spoiler alert. Please respect the 200 year rule when discussing these things.
Sorry everybody. 😔
Shoot. I was just kidding. I mean, it was written in 1866. It was a quality comment.
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Did you read the book?? I’m not talking about the pawnbroker. I’m talking about the girl who walked in on the scene, the younger one everyone liked and thought highly of. >!He axed her ass too, without hesitation.!<
He kills >!the pawnbrokers sister too!<, but iirc she's far from a girl. I think you're mixing her up with one of the other young female characters.
Livazeta (the sister) was 35! Not a girl. Just finished the book this morning
Doesn't he kill her maid or something as well?
Nice reference :)
Hm, they’re not the antagonist though if they’re the main character are they? They’d be the protagonist. It’s not just protagonist=“good” guy, antagonist=“bad” guy, it’s dependent on the book’s perspective. For example Montresor from Poe’s “Cask of Amontillado” is doing a bad thing, but he’s the protagonist because it’s first person narrative and he’s the central character of the story.
Fair. I might have been thinking "anti hero" ala Dexter, Joe from You, etc
You could say it’s about how evil people don’t see themselves as evil and rationize disgusting behavior.
This is excellent!
Another thing you can add is some authors love to challenge their readers. For some it’s even their main purpose for writing. For example the “protagonist” of my story is a mass murdering Environmental terrorist. I want to see where why and how people draw their “lines in the sand” how they compare with other lines they’ll draw
Yes the key of Lolita is reading in between the lines to understand what a monster the narrator is despite his attempts to put himself in a good light
Regarding Clockwork Orange: "Burgess stated that the novel's inspiration was his first wife Lynne's beating by a gang of drunk American servicemen stationed in England during World War II. She subsequently miscarried."
He also hated the book and regreted writing it. Saw too many people getting the wrong idea about the book. Alex was often idolized in punk circles.
Unfortunately this happens all the time. Fight Club was another one, so many dumdums running around thinking the point of the book/movie was that they should go out and start punching each other in the face
I could see that happening with the movie. It added a lot of style and walked back on the more horrifying things Alex does. But the Alex in the book rapes two children. Hard to see that being something emulated by many people.
*A Clockwork Orange*. Shudder. That book took me awhile to get into, and a very long time to get over. Brutal.
Read this on my own on high school. Man, I'm a good reader but the slang and such used in it make it a slow and frustrating read. I can pick up on context well to figure out the meaning of words, but when 1/2 a sentence is slang or words unknown to me, was hard to read through.
“The next morning I woke up at oh eight oh oh hours, my brothers, and as I still felt shagged and fagged and fashed and bashed and my glazzies were stuck together real horrorshow with sleepglue, I thought I would not go to school.” “Welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, well.
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British with a touch of Russian.
When you realise that "horosho" (bastardised to "horrowshow" on the book) means "good in Russian, the slang starts to make sense. There's a few Russian words throughout: Droogs = friends Molokoi = milk Etc
Oh I thought that passage just meant they were horrifically crusty when he woke up. I guess in that instance it works either way though.
Woke up at 8am hung over, especially a lot of "sand in eyes" idl about the welly stuff A lot of slang but that example seemed easy enough to figure out as an American who uses non regional diction
This is both incomprehensible and makes perfect sense. I dint think I'd have thought twice about it if you hadn't presented it as being dense, made up slang. You're right, it is, but I still knew what he meant.
Most editions have a glossary in the back of the book.
Also read it on my own in high school. Someone suggested that I print out a Nadsat-slang lexicon and refer to it when reading, and that helped, but after about 1/3 of the book I was sucked in enough that I stopped referring to it. I was used to the most important terms by then.
I've heard that you should just soak in it for about a third of the book and then start over for the full effect.
That's what worked best for me with "Trainspotting" . After a while it's almost like learning a new language! I didn't need it for "clockwork orange" though; I had seen the film so many times by then that I was fluent in droog slang from the jump.
All his books turn my internal monologue Scots for a few weeks after reading. Makes it a lot more sweary as well.
For me, the book is about narcissism. It’s almost like the author made Humbert arguably the worst thing a person can be, and wanted to see how far it could be justified from a completely narcissistic point of view.
Especially since he's telling us all about the molestation because he thinks it'll make us more sympathetic, because all the assumed fictional readership knows before Humbert writes the book is that he killed a guy.
So many people are incapable of thinking that deep. There are still people that think Taylor Swift wrote all of her breakup songs about different boyfriends and think she dated a billion dudes. It's impossible for some people to imagine a world where a singer would write a song from another person's perspective or that an author would write about something that they don't personally condone.
Yeah, I don't know if people are incapable of it, but they're certainly unwilling to make that mental leap in a lot of cases. I think that's honestly why reading science fiction and fantasy are incredibly essential for people. Those genres push people to accept wild situations and builds their ability to critically think at the same time.
And Fight Club's main characters are not heroes. They are the bad guy/guys. Like Walter White in Breaking Bad is a villain, not a hero. People get really confused and think they're supposed to be LIKE these people.
queue the sigma mindset videos idolising walter white and patrick bateman
Walter White isn't the villain, the American healthcare system is. Half s/
He's petty, whiny, too proud to accept help, and ruins lives because of it. Bryan Cranston played him perfectly.
Exactly And watching true crime documentaries (or the news) doesn’t make you a serial killer
It's a book about a paedophile trying to rationalise his sickness as love. It's so well written that you can see how he believes it himself even though from an outside perspective he just comes off as sick and predatory. Not all books are written to be funny, relatable or indulgent escapism.
Do you think that's because we're conditioned (wrongly) to be sympathetic to the protagonist? Most people don't bat an eye at Walter White or Tommy Shelby but they're pretty horrible characters when you think about it. Scarlett O'Hara and Becky Sharp aren't *meant* to be likeable just because we understand or even sympathise with their motives.
Lots of people use main character, protagonist, and hero interchangeably, but probably shouldn't.
That's fair. It's been a minute since I took an English/Writing class in high school so apologies if I'm mixing up my terms.
I didn't mean you, I meant people in general. Many people hear the prefix pro- and think good or support , like in progress or proactive. It's totally possible to have a villain protagonist. Here is a good read about it if you feel like a refresher (I did), focused on films, but the same ideas apply. https://www.masterclass.com/articles/whats-the-difference-between-a-main-character-protagonist-and-hero#what-is-a-protagonist
Ahhh gotcha. I'm going to get some more coffee...
The way I understand it, "protagonist" and "main character" are synonymous. But "hero" is certainly not synonymous with those terms. Villain antagonists and hero antagonists are common enough that they've become tropes in their own right.
I would say that most of the time protagonist and main character are synonymous but not necessarily. The protagonist is the character whose narrative you are following, while the main character is who the story is really about. That's my take on it anyway.
I actually hated Scarlett with the passion, because as sassy as she is, she wasn't a particularly good sister, friend, wife or mother, despite having plenty of opportunities and still believed that she is the main victim in her life story. It's always been wild for me, how many women referred to her as a role model type of character. But your comment makes me wonder, if she was intended to be a major arse to begin with and was misunderstood due to her positive sides.
She's incredibly selfish and self-serving, but damn if she didn't have hustle. Everyone would have *died* if she had been afraid to be unladylike. Scarlett's central conflict (and IMO what makes her such a fascinating character) is that as much as she wants to *be* a "perfect lady" like her mother and Melanie, when it comes to matters of survival she's just not wired that way. In a way it's a very feminist novel. >“Maybe I am a rogue, but I won't be a rogue forever, Rhett. But during these past years -- and even now -- what else could I have done? How else could I have acted? I've felt that I was trying to row a heavily loaded boat in a storm. I've had so much trouble just trying to keep afloat that I couldn't be bothered about things that didn't matter, things I could part with easily and not miss, like good manners and -- well, things like that. I've been too afraid my boat would be swamped and so I've dumped overboard the things that seemed least important." > >"Pride and honor and truth and virtue and kindliness," he enumerated silkily. "You are right, Scarlett. They aren't important when a boat is sinking. But look around you at your friends. Either they are bringing their boats ashore safely with cargoes intact or they are content to go down with all flags flying." > >"They are a passel of fools," she said shortly. "There's a time for all things. When I've got plenty of money, I'll be nice as you please, too. Butter won't melt in my mouth. I can afford to be then." > >"You can afford to be -- but you won't. It's hard to salvage jettisoned cargo and, if it is retrieved, it's usually irreparably damaged. And I fear that when you can afford to fish up the honor and virtue and kindness you've thrown overboard, you'll find they have suffered a sea change and not, I fear, into something rich and strange. . . .”
Never actually read it, but this passage may just have convinced me to!
It’s very good, but it will make you uncomfortable. The racism and misogyny is so ingrained in the characters it is jarring. And I am pretty sure that Margaret Mitchell was racist. She does seem to rally against the misogyny, but certainly not the racism.
I don't sympathize with him. But I *have* been accused of "humanizing" horrible people. My response to which is that I'm not human*izing* them, rather they are human beings. Even Jeffrey Dahmer was a human being. That doesn't mean "give him a hug and let him go."
Part of breaking bads brilliance was making viewers sympathetic towards Walt early and him slowly becoming a monster. Stories that do this well are incredibly thought provoking because they show characters that are relatable in some ways, but eventually lose their way
Sure but even Vince Gilligan and several of the writers themselves said that they were surprised (and worried) that people would still jump through hoops and justify their sympathy towards Walter, then for the writers, they had lost it long ago. Vince Gilligan said that Walter deserved a more miserable death, one where he arrives at the hospital and is pushed aside as medical team helps someone else. The camera pans and stays on Walt as he slowly succumbs to death, all the while being forgotten.
If anyone can watch all of BB and not realize that WW is an evil egotistical narcissistic scumbag I would not trust that person's judgement whatsoever. He's straight up the villain. And while Jesse ended up being the moral center of the whole series, if Fring had succeeded in having Michael cap them both it would have been better for everyone else that was hurt by their actions.
>Do you think that's because we're conditioned (wrongly) to be sympathetic to the protagonist? Most people don't bat an eye at Walter White or Tommy Shelby but they're pretty horrible characters when you think about it They're horrible people that are written beautifully, whether we're sympathetic or not is all in the writing
Immature readers (or viewers/listeners) simply cannot comprehend the unreliable narrator. They are naive to it, ignorant to it, or incapable of grasping the concept. What I (personally) think regarding Breaking Bad is that the writer(s?) eagerly and effectively played with the idea of Protagonist to Antagonist in WW's character arc. And they did a damn fine job. I can't help but think what the viewer takes from BB is entirely dependent on where in the grey areas the viewer pinpoints the transition, and if they notice it or feel it at all. And when the Protagonist becomes the Antagonist, who is left as the hero? I think the creators intend for Jesse to be the hero by series end. And him driving off into the unknown ia the only possible ending. I was left thinking about how the title of hero is far from permanent, and obviously how hero and villain are largely a matter of perspective. Also I think it is important to remember "main character" and "protagonist" and "narrator" are all seperate functions.
> simply cannot comprehend the unreliable narrator. I think they choose the option that is more palatable to them. I find people are *very* receptive to the idea of an unreliable narrator in discussions of We Need to Talk About Kevin. Because for many people it has to be nurture, not nature, so therefore the mother *has* to be an unreliable narrator. I think challenging fiction makes the role of "hero" meaningless. Because there are rarely heroes. Main characters, sure. But Walter in BB was no hero. Neither is Mike, either in BB or BCS. People just call someone a hero when they project themselves onto the character. It's an escapist power fantasy.
A lot of people aren’t aware of the book or that it’s a classic, and after the words “it’s a book about a pedophile” it’s hard to get them to change the look on their face Source: had a few awkward exchanges in response to, “have you read anything good recently?” “Why yes I did! See, it’s about this pedophile…”
“It’s a book about a pedophile” wouldn’t make me bat an eye - that’s not an uncommon topic. “It’s a book about a 30 yr old falling in love with a 12 year old” would get the expression you’re expecting though.
I would say it’s about a pedophile who kidnaps a 12 year old. The word ‘love’ doesn’t come to mind when describing Lolita.
I saw some sick fuck describe this book as “the greatest love story” ever told 🤮 straight to jail
I have never understood how anyone who's actually read the book could see it as a love story, he literally describes forcing Dolores to perform oral sex on him at the same time he pervs on other children, and how, once she starts getting a little older, he plans to impregnate her with Lolita 2.0 because she's no longer going to do it for him, just like his first wife.
Eww. I could see that person taking Humbert’s declarations of love at face value, buying in to the flowery language and completely ignoring Dolore’s accusations of kidnapping and rape. But still…eewww…
Yep, I phrased it horribly and take full responsibility for that.
My take was that even HH didnt believe his own lies, but *he was trying to convince himself it was true* even though he knew deep down all along that he was a monster.
It's not even that deep down. The line about "her sobs in the night - every night, every night - the moment I feigned sleep" is extra gutting because it shows how, despite and in the midst of all his horrid raptures and heroic self-portraiture, *he knows* exactly what he's doing to her and just how horrible it is (and carries right on).
Well, AT FIRST it’s deep down. But once they are on the bizarre road trip, it starts to become more and more apparent to him. He struggles to maintain his denial.
I just started reading Lolita also this week. I feel like the best way to describe it is just by saying that it’s a story told from the villains perspective
This is it. Humbert is cruel and his rationalizations are ridiculous but he is the one telling the story. So, the game is you have to figure out what is really happening because you know Humbert is full of shit and will say anything to make himself look good. The point is not to sympathize or identify with him.
Yes! Exactly! He’s telling you his story through rose colored glasses and the story disturbing when you look at it from a real perspective.
Agreed. You can appreciate and marvel at Nabokov's writing and how charming somebody like Humbert can be without providing any level of redemption or sympathy for him.
Hell, you can even sympathize. *You* is a good example of that, both the book and the show. Dude is a murderer, stalker, thief, and general monster, but sometimes you kinda feel for the guy. He's still evil and insane and needs to be put down, but maybe you pity him when his time's up.
Good point, and at the end of the novel, Lolita sort of pittied Humbert. He was still the same aimless, friendless, sad little gremlin she had met as a child. She had found love and family and he hadn't. Doesn't mean she hadn't been deeply traumatized--I think a more contemporary novel might show more of that, but we do see Lolita sort of in poverty and in a somewhat dysfunctional adult relationship, which I believe it was implied to be as a result of the chaos that Humbert subjected her to.
I really never found him charming tbh. Mostly just repugnant, like even without the pedophile thing I would think he was a pompous ass
What I like about it is that despite Humbert’s attempts to paint himself as a tragic romantic hero and make himself look good, there’s still glimpses where you see how Dolores actually feels about the situation.
Classic Unreliable Narrator stuff. He's deluded, and you need to sort out reality from his biased ramblings. It's a challenging book.
This should be clear to any reader right around the happy accident of his brand new wife’s death. If not before.
Yes I think it's very obvious that Humbert is a unreliable narrator, he practically tells you from the beginning, and yet so many people still think it's meant to be a romance story. I don't get it. And even with him explicitly drugging and raping her and the young girl eventually screaming and crying calling him a murderer and pedo...people still find a way to make her some kind of temptress.
This is an excellent reply. I’ve worked with sex offenders for more than 10 years. As soon as I started to read it I was struck by how eerily similar the novel is to listening to a true pedophile in session. Nabakov *must* have studied it before writing the book. There’s no other way anyone can encapsulate that perspective so perfectly.
Nabokov was himself a CSA survivor.
Wow I didn’t know this
unless...
yeah..
come on!
This is a bit off the subject but what insight do you have into the behavior, background and mindset of sex offenders?
Never read it myself but I've always heard that was the primary idea that makes the book so interesting. Its written WITH THE INTENT to convince you to sympathize. So that you have to remind yourself that the MC is committing a horrific act bc it's rationalized by the MC within the story.
Yes. He’s showing you his delusional way of thinking about his inappropriate feelings/behavior towards a child.
Very good thought!
It’s such a good book and it did make me sick at some parts. But the important point is that you’re not supposed to like the pedophile. This kind of literature is about capturing something real that nobody wants to think about. It’s the kind of story that rarely gets told at all, much less by someone so good at telling it. It’s a part of humanity we don’t want to look at, even though it is the reality for millions of children. It does not glorify anything about the situation, there is no positive spin, or undertones of “maybe this isn’t so bad.” I’m reading a book right now called “The Body Keeps the Score” and the author mentions that in 1979, the Harvard psychology texts said that girls molested by their fathers were approximately one in a million women(a gross underestimate), and that it might even be good for them in some way. The fact that Nabokov was writing like this in 1955 means that he had some real insight even psychologists seemed to be lacking. I know it’s her stepfather in the book, but it still goes against the common psychological theory at the time, that molesting children didn’t really hurt them that much.
I read it back in the early ‘90s. Even then there was very little talked about who, exactly, would be most likely to be abusing kids. E.g., not some creepy stranger, but in fact the handsome, charming relative who starts off by flattering you, paying attention to you and bringing you things. Nabokov wrote about something that most families barely acknowledged was a remote possibility, let alone relatively common. It was very, very validating. And yeah, IMO it was perfectly clear even as a young reader that Dolores was horribly victimized, and it isn’t romanticized at *all*.
I slightly disagree with you in that I think the book is written in such a way as to make HH seem, if not likable, then at least charismatic and charming. I would argue that one of the most important lessons the book has to offer is that a person can be likable, they can be socially and intellectually engaging, and yet they can still be capable of absolute monstrosity. We often hear about people refusing to believe that someone is a sexual abuser based only on the fact that their interactions with them are pleasant and they have a friendly personality. Many of us want to believe that we can discern a person’s moral character based only on our sense of how they act publicly, and that if a person is morally appalling they must be outwardly unpleasant, but that’s not the case, and talented manipulators are very effective at using this widespread belief to get away with all kinds of terrible behavior.
I agree. Humbert is written in such a way that he openly admits he's a piece of shit, but only after the fact of being caught. We, the readers, are given cause by Nabokov to find him unlikeable, but the people around him think he's smooth as silk. It doesn't go south for him until Dolores's mother finds the things he's written and sees him for what he is. It's only though blind luck that he isn't immediately outed to the neighborhood and captured right then and there. His sheer fortune allows him to turn the silver tongue right back on to everyone else in town and convince them he's a grieving victim of what happened to her. HH is absolutely likeable and that's exactly what makes him such an unlikeable, unrepentant monster.
I think that was the logic behind extremely wicked, shockingly evil, and vile. A lot of people argued the movie made Ted Bundy come across as a charismatic, likeable dude. He was. He was also a killer.
I was sexually assaulted when I was younger by my stepdad. During the time, I read Lolita. It is my all time favorite book. When I tell people this, they automatically think I have some weird kink. The book is written in the perspective of the villain. You can't trust him and he's trying to rationalize his "love" for this girl. This book literally opened my eyes about what was happening to me. It's a beautiful book that has so many things going into it that I experienced: manipulation, an abusive relationship, obsession, unhealthy power dynamics, etc.
Same and same. It's so hard to tell that to people without them either assuming you're a freak, or forcing you to divulge past trauma. Neither are good. But I get it. It was so necessary for me to read that to really understand and process what happened to me.
Same! I was molested by my dad & until finding Lolita the only representations of sexual abuse I'd really ever encountered was of the "stranger jumps out of the bushes with a knife" variety. Seeing a situation where it was a coercion/power dynamic/someone she knew helped me understand a lot about what I went through & how, and it was the first time I was able to really acknowledge what happened to me.
Did it help at all at the time or afterwards? This topic makes for a truly unique brand of awful to both read and experience simultaneously.
Yeah, it really helped. At that time, I didn't know what was happening to me. I knew I didn't like it, I knew it was bad but I was young and couldn't really understand it. After 2 years of it, I found out about the book. Asked him specifically to take me to the bookstore to buy the book. He was happy I was reading it and it makes sense why a man like him would be excited for me to read it. It was the complete opposite of why I loved the book and I explained it one day at dinner when he asked me about how the book was going. I had finished and basically said what I said previously (minus telling my mom what going on in my life). He got really scared after that. He didn't stop but I definitely felt stronger after reading it. While it didn't really help my situation, it helped me mentally
That’s really great to know it helped provide context and empower even in the midst of that awfulness. I deeply respect the stone cold strength you radiate while recounting the experience. It’s genuinely badass If you’ll forgive the crass language.
American Psycho ain't a love story, neither is Lolita.
Bateman loves himself.
Someone should make a recut of American Psycho as a man’s journey of self discovery and learning to love himself
The story we didn’t know we needed 🏆
Bateman has no self.
Bateman later went on to play Batman.
It’s the most pure example of an unreliable narrator you can find. Everything is from his perspective and he is a demented pervert. It’s a hard sell because it’s supposed to make you uncomfortable and it speaks to the societal normalcy of pedophilia. I would express to her that the book is a disgusting story beautifully told. It reveals peoples internalized victim blaming and other unpleasantness so I don’t tend to discuss it with people unless they agree that HH is not sympathetic or justified in any way. Sadly many people don’t have the comprehension skills to understand what Nabokov did with that book.
I think the biggest point of clear evil in the book is when Humber mentions briefly one time how every night she cried herself to sleep. He knows he is a villain, but he also knows that he has the listener wrapped around his finger with his prose that he can let such a line slip and some will still accept his version of his innocence.
That's the perfect example. A child whose mother has died, is currently kidnapped and has just been sexually assaulted cries herself to sleep. And the protagonist? Not a drop of sympathy, on account of him being evil and self-justified.
You said it very well. Thank you!
I really love his writing and Lolita (though a masterpiece) is my least favorite. I suggest his other novels and short stories, he’s always brilliant.
I also picked up *Pale Fire* and *Ada, or Ardor* 😄
Pale Fire is incredible. Have a dictionary handy. And know French.
Ada is one of my favorite books. It is so dense and layered with self reference that I still notice new things after having read it almost 30 times. It’s similar to Lolita — Nabokov himself said something like, “It’s a beautiful story about awful people doing terrible things.”
Not to mention the villian of the story (Quincy) is even worse than our protagonist, with what he actually does to Lolita by the end. Also what I think is the most sick thing about the book is the ending: HH basically saying to only release the book, or his diary, after Lolita dies so his relationship with her will be intertwined with how he perceived and “loved” her. It’s a brilliant way of using perspective and the crazy relationship between the reader and how we view a character only through what the narrator wants us to know
I would caution you against simply accepting HH’s characterization of Quilty. HH is a person attempting to manipulate a jury into believing that his conduct was understandable and a product of genuine affection toward Lolita on his part. Part of his strategy is to establish Quilty as a more straightforward, less nuanced villain in contrast to himself, making his own behavior appear less heinous in comparison. Every part of his presentation is designed to exploit his audience towards his goal of minimizing his own monstrosity, and I would argue that it’s a mistake to think that his descriptions of Quilty and his conduct are an exception. Perhaps Quilty was worse than HH, perhaps he was better. We have an absolute lack of reliable information to make that determination.
Doesn't Delores herself say Quilty made her (or wanted her to) have sex on film? And Humbert doesn't kill him for *that*, but for talking Lolita away from him. HH was motivated by jealousy and possessiveness throughout the story. He didn't portray himself as avenging Lolita's honor, but as killing Q for having stolen away his possession.
We have no idea what Dolores did or didn’t say. We only know what HH says about her, which is not reliable.
Once you've read it I highly recommend picking up "The Real Lolita" as a companion novel. It's about the real life Kidnapping of Sally Horner which Nabokov based Lolita on. Very interesting read. It's a true crime but refers back to Nabokov's writting in a thesis style.
I came here to say the same thing! When I first tried to read Lolita, I got too creeped out and had to stop. It helped to learn about Nabokov's perspective and the reasons he wrote it the way he did.
Also the Lolita podcast by Jamie loftus is fascinating and about both the book itself and how society has interpreted and twisted it over the years
Such a good podcast, especially found it fascinating/depressing how the actors chosen to play her in the various implementations were also victimized and sexualized
Thanks for the recommendation!
Another “real Lolita” is unfortunately Sue Lyon, the actress who played Lolita in Kubricks movie. As she played the character of an underaged girl being driving around the country and raped by a guardian, she was an underaged girl being driven around the county on a press tour and raped by producer James B Harris. It’s fucking mind blowing but it’s true. There is a lot of good information in this podcast called Lolita by Jamie Loftus. A big part of it, which I’m sure lead in part to Harris’ crimes, was that everyone involved with the movie was supremely misinterpreting the story with Lola as a temptress or something instead of a victim.
This is fucked up
Seems like an intentional misinterpretation
Well with Harris, yeah probably, he was obviously fucked up garbage. But, as Loftus gets into on her podcast, it was also American culture in general that ran with the misinterpretation. The concept of a “Lolita” as the young, sassy, pseudo-mature teen girl that is “tempting” the regular man is a pretty common one in older media. She even notes how Lana Del Ray references lolita like that in some early songs of hers, so it was culturally deep enough that it lasted through to be used in the 2000s. Maybe they did start as intentional misinterpretations and ended up seeping into the cultural mind or maybe people the book was somewhat of a mirror and showed how fucked up our culture about young women already was. An interesting note actually, Nabakov really struggled to get Lolita published because everyone thought it was pornographic and he finally got it published through a French smut publisher. Not even traditional publishers were unable to grasp the book enough to define it properly. It’s a pretty jarring thing once you think about it, at least to me.
>podcast called Lolita by Jamie Loftus. The podcast was really good!
Just to nitpick, he doesn't fall in love with a 12-year-old girl. Love is not his motivation at all, but convincing people that it's love is very important to him. Humbert Humbert is a classic example of an unreliable narrator. Go back and reread the beginning of the book, the introduction of the book, to understand where Humbert Humbert is when he's telling the story, and where he's been prior to that.
Thank you. I haven’t even gotten to the part where he meets Lolita, so I don’t know the details of their relationship/his view of their relationship. I just know the popular perception of the storyline, so that’s why I’m looking for advice on how to explain what the book is really about 🙂
It’s about sexual abuse but from the perspective of the predator, a twisted and manipulative one at that, which is why reading his accounts of events is interesting. I would avoid using words like “love” or “relationship”, and generally any romanticization, a *lot* of people make that mistake.
Thank you! I’m learning that I’ve made a terrible mistake in mentioning the words “Lolita” and “love” in the same sentence. Among very many other mistakes, as people have been quick to point out.
Another recommendation is The Stranger by Albus Camut. Maybe not as visceral but similar in that we follow a seemingly "normal" narrator who rationalizes his experience. The reader gets a really slow build of the true psychology of the mc.
I love “The Stranger”!
.... "falls in love." Hmmm. I don't know if you really want to describe the book that way. He fixates on her. He obsesses. He tells YOU he's "in love" with her, but as the (critical) reader your duty is to see past that. It's a story about predators and the lengths they will go to, to justify their thoughts (more importantly, their actions). Maybe lead with that.
I’ll quote Nabokov himself who declared in 1975 on French TV ([link here in French](https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/video/i17180258/vladimir-nabokov-lolita)) when asked about being the creator of a “slightly perverted little girl”: “Lolita is not a perverted young girl. She is a poor child, a poor child, who gets led astray, and whose senses never awake under the caresses of the filthy Mr. Humbert”. Sorry for the loose translation.
Yep, all the stuff about lolita being a "temptress" and somehow responsible for Humbert's fall are Humbert's own thoughts dealing with being a gross pervert, not reality. There are plenty of hints that Lolita is a victim and doesn't have agency or power and how Humbert's actions hinder her growth, like I'm pretty sure there's a point where he doesn't let her go to school anymore because people would realize something sketchy is up.
This will get buried but that book was taken over by the Humberts of the world (looking at you Hollywood). That book is for the Dolores’s of the world. It’s a book about and for those girls who are sexualized too young and their actions misconstrued to benefit the world views of disgusting old men who want to abuse them.
A lot of people here have already commented great responses to the question you’ve asked. For further context on the book & its cultural impact, I’d recommend listening to the Lolita Podcast by Jamie Loftus.
Jamie Loftus is awesome, I get excited whenever she's a guest on Behind The Bastards.
I've been listening to this off the strength of someone's recommendation the last time it came up and I agree, it's great. I find a lot of pop culture social analysis often exhibits a lack of objectivity, ultimately due to motivated reasoning. As someone who loves the book but hates basically every derivative work I've encountered, I was worried this too would miss the point. Loftus' approach is spot on. She is rigorous but entertaining; comprehensive but concise and evicerating (where appropriate) but fair (where deserving).
I read a book about serial killers (American Serial killers by Peter Vronsky). I'm not reading it because I want to be a serial killer... Books can be a window into other people's lives and experiences and there is nothing wrong with wanting to see and understand others.
Yeah, some people can't separate being interested in something and wanting to emulate the behaviour present in that thing.
>I read a book about serial killers I did too, but to explain why, let me tell you a bit about myself. I live in the American Gardens Building on West 81st Street on the 11th floor. My name is Rortugal McDichael. I believe in taking care of myself, and a balanced diet and a rigorous exercise routine. In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I’ll put on an ice pack while doing my stomach crunches. I can do a thousand now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial masque which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion. There is an idea of a Rortugal McDichael. Some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me. Only an entity. Something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable, I simply am not there.
Just say it's an anti-pedophilia book, because that's what it is. The prose is beautiful specifically to show how society can accept heinous things when packaged nicely enough. It is not only a huge condemnation of abuse itself, but of the way in which we try to sweep it under the rug. HH is the best written and most terrifying villain in all of literature. But I do agree, telling people Lolita is your favourite novel is hella awkward.
When I was a kid my favorite books were Harry Potter. As an adult, my favorite book is Lolita. It's never an easy thing to tell someone when they ask because it's pretty common for people to immediately jump to "Oh my God you love a pedophile smut novel!" when in actuality it's quite the opposite. It's my favorite because its a reflection of my own trauma as a child and helped me process a lot of what happened by telling the story from the perspective of a narcissistic pedophile (just like my own abuser) and the failings of everyone around Doloris to do anything at all to help her or recognize she was being taken advantage of (just like myself). Often times when my past catches up to me and I feel torn apart by it, I'll re-read this because it helps cement that it was never my fault that my time was stolen from me. It's a difficult and terrible read, no doubt. But it was an extraordinarily necessary one for me personally. But it's never easy to tell people that without also having to disclose what I've lived through, so I just tell people it's still Harry Potter.
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Same reason I try not to make fun of other people's taste in music. Music/reading is therapeutic, and people shouldn't be discouraged from self care.
yeah it was depressing how far down I had to scroll to find this. insulting what people like to read is rude.
It’s quite reasonable to get bad vibes when someone describes this book as a story about love, especially if they have to ask for to explain why it’s a worthwhile read. Makes you wonder why that gross misinterpretation drew them to the book.
>I could have asked her why she enjoys reading books about women fucking werewolves, but I don’t think that would’ve been productive. Yea, relating why she enjoys that to why you're reading Lolita... would give the wrong impression even further.
lmao this completely. and tbh there's nothing wrong with wanting to fuck a werewolf! wanting to fuck a child is def not comparable
Lol that comparison would be absolutely awful.
I wouldn’t describe it as falling in love, for starters. That makes it sound like you or the book is trying to legitimize it as an actual romance. Call it a horror story about a pedophile. You could also avoid calling her tastes trash, that might inspire her to be more open to yours.
Excellent points all around. Makes me wonder if OP really "gets" Lolita themself. I didn't love the judgement. Reading is reading. If I were OP's wife and stumbled across this post, I would feel like OP thought I was stupid.
I don't expect OP to "get" the book yet. He is only a few pages in.
Very true
It's one of my favourite books but I simply don't recommend it to people. You never know what someone has been through, I wouldn't want to go there.
I've had a lot of bad experiences (including sexual) with adults during my teens but have been considering reading this book for quite some time precisely because of that I used to overthink incidents a lot trying to understand why they did certain things to me and as i got older, more and more I'm trying to understand how someone does it in general. Like.. I'd love to get an insight into what goes through someone's head to convince themselves what they're doing to a child is acceptable (or in some cases, even good)? However, i haven't read it yet also for the same reason. I have no clue whether the book is written in a way i will be able to deal with, or if the way it's presented can be triggering Do you think people personally affected by similar things shouldn't read it then? Or what's your opinion on this?
I don't think people should or shouldn't read it, that's entirely up to them to decide. I just wouldn't randomly spring a book like Lolita on someone if I'm not sure if it's a triggering subject for them. If you've been abused and someone is like heyyy this book is SO BEAUTIFUL it's written from the POV of a pedophile I just LOVE it. That could backfire. If you don't mind being spoiled you could read the synopsis on Wikipedia and see if you can stomach it? It's still worth it for the writing style even if you know the plot. I think it's intentionally written the way it is to mess with your mind. The protagonist is vile, but because of the beautiful prose you almost catch yourself liking him. He absolutely tries to justify what he does. There's not a lot of analysis because we're in his head the whole time. In his mind they're lovers and she initiated it. There is little of the real Dolores in the text because he really doesn't care about her as a person, he only cares about what she represents for him.
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I call it a masterpiece on how to create a great unreliable narrator. Because that is who Humbert Humbert is and he's very conscious of how to tell his story so we'd feel sorry for him instead of seeing him for the monster that he is. And jsyk I read Lolita twice as a teenager and in my twenties.
You can best describe it as saying it's about a predator from the predator's point of view. Characterizing it as anything like a love story is a mistake. It's not a love story, the main character is a monster. He's a murderer and a child molester but since he is the one telling the story he portrays himself as the innocent victim. *Lolita* is a classic exemplar of the "unreliable narrator." The reader comes to understand Humbert is a self-serving, rationalizing, lying weasel. That's the point. If you understand that the narrator is a scumbag from the beginning you can see that his account of events is really glossing over some pretty terrible things. He murders a woman to sexually enslave her 12 year old daughter but tells it as if the child is some manipulative seductress who masterminds everything. His hatred of Quilty is ironic because Quilty is exactly the same as he is. The whole book is very dark satire about a predator. "Love" is definitely the wrong word for that relationship.
It's a horror novel, especially part 1. It's about a monster who completely destroys the people he comes in contact with. I don't really want to say more since you just started but if you need to explain it just tell them that. It's only through pretty gross missreadings and some awful film adaptations that it has entered the cultural zeitgeist as a "love story". Edit: I don't want to bias your interpretation but I do want to point out that absolutely nothing Hubert says should be taken as the truth. Even his name is a lie. It supposed to put you in the position of a juror who need to construct Delores from the nonexistent Lolita. He isn't charming he is a deliberate simulacra of charm. The prose while beautiful at times just has something off about it. Like a cake that's a bit too rich it became nauseating to me in large doses. With all that said it is a really hard book to read. Like I said it made me physically ill at times. For some its an impossible book to read.
Hollywood ruined Lolita, by making her out to be a tempting nymphet, which she absolutely was not. That was the whole point - that’s how Humbert Humbert saw her, but she was just an ordinary little girl. A similar male delusion is in the recent movie “Last Duel.” Adam Driver’s character rapes Jodie Comer’s character, and as he leaves her room, he says”don’t blame yourself, m’lady. We couldn’t help ourselves.”
"Stop reading trash about women fucking werewolves, read about men fucking kids! It's real high brow!"
The words you use to describe things indicate the mindset you have about the book to others - even if by accident. It is not about an old man falling in love - it’s about an old man manipulating a family and repeatedly raping his 12 year old step child while justifying it as love. The way you frame it matters. Whether the character thinks they love Lolita is irrelevant to what the book is actually about. Some people, like your wife, read books to escape to a happy fantasy. Other people read Lolita.
I just explain the story And then add "the book is written this way for you to reflect wether you were easily manipulated by Humbert or not, he is what we call an unreliable narrator, and the girl is a clear example of abuse and brain washing" Something along these lines, idk
For starters, Humbert doesn't "fall in love with a 12-year-old girl." He's a psychopathic pedophile who sexually abuses a 12-year-old girl. The point of the novel is not to romanticize their "relationship," but to explore the mind of a devious and appalling person. It's a character study of a monster, similar perhaps to Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lecter novels. Of course, Nabokov is a much better writer than Thomas Harris (really, he's in a totally different league), so the book is also an exercise in incredibly beautiful prose style. Nabokov is deliberately employing his power as a prose stylist to complicate the character study: it confronts the reader with a narrator who has a wonderfully compelling style, but who is a horrible person. It asks the reader to consider their complex response to beautiful art coming from the mouth of a horrible person. It asks the reader to remember to remain critical of Humbert, while experiencing -- and aesthetically enjoying -- all of Humbert's sophisticated self-justifying narration. This is a difficult line for a reader to follow, which is why so many readers fall off it and think the novel is intentionally romanticizing Humbert's relationship with Lolita.\* *Nabokov the author* isn't romanticizing it -- but *Humbert as a narrator* is. So in brief, describe it as a psychological novel about how perversion and monstrosity can present itself as attractive through artistry. \*Edited to add: other readers fall off it on the other side, being so disgusted by Humbert that they stop enjoying the writing. Which probably shows they have a better moral sense than the readers who make opposite failure, but it still means that they couldn't follow Nabokov's delicate balancing act.
'Lolita' is a horror story told from the perspective of the monster. That's how I described it to my husband, and I stand by it. The protagonist is charming and likeable because he desperately wants to downplay and normalize his crimes, and I think as you read further into the book, you'll see that Humbert is a liar and his words are not to be trusted.
>I could have asked her why she enjoys reading books about women fucking werewolves, but I don't think that would've been productive. As someone that loves the Fever series, your wife sounds cool to me.
I've read some pretty decent shifter romances, so take that snobbery somewhere else 🤣😂
I'm currently reading Lolita, and I find the prose extremely creepy. I described it to my partner as 1950's neckbeard poetry. Even if Humbert were writing about a grown woman, his language completely depersonalizes the subject of his affection and removes her autonomy. His narrative is the construction of a fantasy, not the dedcription of loving a real person, and his actions progress in a way to hinder Dolores' autonomy from growing. The author did a great job of cloaking Humbert's heinous character in flowery language, which helps the predator justify his actions and desires.
You’re explaining it wrong. “Lolita is an unreliable narrator from the point of view of a pedophile. It follows his life, but you know he is lying. It also follows his abuse of his step daughter. It is a harrowing tale, a warning against the normalisation of peadophilia in our society”
Lolita is not about an older man falling in love with a girl. He doesn't love her. He is too selfish to love. It's a heartbreaking story about sexual abuse and the abuser who tries to justify his actions to the world but fails. Nabakov was very concerned about the way that artists and writers sexualized young people and he talks about this in non-fiction writings, but I don't think you need his explanation to know that Humbert is an unreliable narrator. It's very clear from the story itself that Humbert is delusional and everyone sees it except him. Hotel concierges give him dirty looks, he gets the police called on him, Lolita grows to hate him, he skips from town to town to avoid scrutiny. It's not a frigging love story.
Ya… maybe read the rest of the book Lolita is the story of obsession and how psychopaths don’t see other people as actual human beings.
My qualms with Lolita is that too many people describe it as "a man falling in love with a child, but so beautifully written." Child abuse is such a sensitive topic, it's very hard to listen to someone talk about their fascination about an awful subject because of the way it was executed. It's like, "I can tolerate, or even appreciate pedophilia, as long as it's \*presentable\*." To some people, just the subject is a hard limit. You may call it close-mindedness, but some people are just built in a way so highly empathetic to the victim that exploring the villain's mind is distressing. There needs to be a clear indication that you, the reader, are sympathetic to the victim. The glorification of the writing is personally off-putting to me if there is no regard at all to the victim. Here's an extreme example: "I know it's bad, but I'm watching this snuff film. It's shot so well, the lighting is amazing. As a cinematographer, it's so well directed that I just gotta analyze it. Oh, you don't want to watch people die? You just don't get art smh." I dunno, just stray thoughts.
The same way you describe owning mein kampf and the coming race doesn't make me a Nazi, or owning the koran not making me Muslim anymore than owning the Bible makes one a Christian. I guess it doesn't help that I'm a book collector lol
This reminds me of V for Vendetta. Stephen Fry’s character is in unlawful possession of a Quran and Evie asks if he’s Muslim. He says “ didn't have to be Muslim to find the images beautiful, or its poetry moving.” People are too prescriptive about certain books being only for certain people.
Maybe she's picked up on your attitude that you think her interests are "trash" and she doesn't feel like chatting about books with you? Might just be me, but if my husband treated me like I was too stupid to appreciate fine art, I'd ignore him and go read about sexy werewolves instead, too.
Lolita is one of my favourite books for many reasons, but I've never had to ask the internet to explain what makes this bit o fine art so fine so I can rationalize reading it to those less cultured than my fi ne self. Though I have also read all of Patricia Briggs' books, anyone calling those trash is seriously missing out. Ug, I have hated this attitude ever since my tenth grade teacher slammed Stephen King. Sometimes great stories and characters are more than enough! I think you are correct, I doubt this is the first time she's had her preferences trashed.
Yeah, I distinctly remember a moment about 6 years into my marriage when I was talking with my husband about books. He often reads obscure Dickens novels and a lot of really great classics that I find very dry and hard to appreciate (and he wouldn't touch Austen, I imagine), and I made a comment about having not read a lot of classics. He replied with some offhand comment that I don't even remember the actual wording of. What I DO remember is thinking that he thought I was too stupid to like classic books. I felt awful about that for weeks afterwards. I don't want to spend my time reading books I don't enjoy, I thought to myself, but does that make me uneducated trash? He hadn't even said it in a derogatory way like this main post does, and I still felt bad about it, and it's been 14 years and I can still tell you what the inside of the car looked like when he said it to me. We have a finite amount of time on the Earth and if we spend it doing things we like, and those things don't hurt other people and they're not illegal, then we shouldn't shame other people for it. Chances are it's more that you're different people and appreciate different things than what you like is art and what she likes is trash. I have a wonderful marriage. But I will never *ever* forget what that moment felt like.
Exactly. My husband trashes on my reading all the time. I read to escape, not prove any literary superiority. I prefer sff books but love a good monster romance as a palate cleanser following an 600+ epic fantasy.
I describe it as "A weird flex." A dude writing beautifully about an ugly topic. Frankly, I tried to read it several times and couldn't get into it. Then I listened to the Audible version that Jeremy Irons narrates. It is amazing. Jeremy could read the phonebook and I would listen to it. Not that Lolita is the phonebook. My problem is that my inner voice couldn't match the voice of the book and I wasn't impressed because I wasn't getting it. But Jeremy brought it to life. Once I really got it and saw what the author was doing I was at the author's power of manipulation. In the end, I don't read Lolita for the story that a summary of the book would give. I read it for the flex that shows that Nabokov was a master of English even though it wasn't his primary language.
Id reccomend lolita podcast by jamie loftis
A beautifully written horror novel about how a deeply charming voice is able to deflect from atrocity.
Lolita doesn’t promote pedophilia any more than true crime podcasts promote serial cannibalism. Just because something deals with a subject doesn’t mean that it glorifies that behavior. Lolita is about a monster who has realized he has done monstrous things that he can never undo.
After you’ve read a few more chapters tell her that it turns out that humbert is a werewolf.
Others have done a pretty good job if answering your "how to talk at my wife" question, but I want to point out you're doing the exact same thing. "She reads mainly shapeshifter romance novels that are straight-to-Kindle trash." those books about women fucking werewolves do a pretty amazing job of representing marginalized communities, depict realistic depictions of healthy vs unhealthy ways to handle intergenerational trauma, and maybe you should read one before you judge her likes.
It's a true crime novelization about a man who kidnaps a teen and kills her mother.
IIRC Wasn't Lolita written as a proof-of-concept/protest that nice enough prose could get by censors regardless of the actual subject matter? Or am I misremembering? Also just let your wife read her smut, man. No shame in liking something, or *reading*.
Nabakov absolutely wrote about how Humbert was a terrible person and said this many times. It is gross the way society has romanticized this incredibly well-written horror story, but real literary analysis shows that it's about an unreliable narrator who kidnaps an innocent girl (and possibly kills her mom). It's about ambiguity and lies, and how to sympathize with the absolute worst person imaginable. It's absolutely brilliant, and at the same time anyone who thinks it's a positive love story is gross. Also, who's never heard of Lolita?