#38 - Lolita

Lo lee ta. I have some trouble placing this cleanly into a category. The author is Russian, writing in English, about a European protagonist living in America. It's got heavy elements of dark comedy, but the core is still tragic. It's not pornography, as many people thought when it came out. And it's not paedophilic, either, just so you know. It's actually hebephilic, the equivalent term for adolescents. In any case, it's a controversial novel, for pretty understandable reasons.

The story is told as a confession from Humbert Humbert, the brooding, supposedly-attractive older man with a Freudian penchant for young girls, or specifically "nymphets", the girls he describes as "the little deadly demon among the wholesome children". Humbert reminds me a lot of Raskolnikov, an egoist who is so assured of his own intelligence that he can't help but to try and manipulate those around him. In this case, Humbert continually twists his story, making him one of the least reliable narrators I've had on my list. He changed perspective - mostly in the early, more predatory chapters - from first to third person whenever he wanted to distance himself from the action. He confides in the reader how he hoodwinked his psychoanalysts - a group of crackpots, according to him, even though he is well-versed in their literature - with tales of impotence, then tells the same stories to the reader later on. He insists on his innocence, then gives excuses, then pleads remorse, all for the same acts.

Which brings us to Haze, Dolores, aka Lolita. After all of the cultural references and homages and song lyrics (I had Lana Del Ray playing as my background music for this, I felt it fitting), I expected her to be more...well, more like a nymph. There were elements of it there - she was knowledgeable about sex, she too knew how to manipulate others to get what she wanted - but very soon it became clear that there was nothing special about her, that she was just a little girl. Then again, it's very difficult for anyone to know what Lolita thought of the whole thing, and how it affected her growth, because Humbert's story has the very thorough effect of removing all personality from her. She is objectified in the clearest sense of the term, used as the actualization of his desires and removed from any personal context. It didn't matter who she was, it mattered what she was, and that realization is what removed the (impressively lingering) doubt I had about Humbert's virtue. The story is about love, but about the vicious, damaging obsessive love that ruins lives. It's creepy, yes, but only in that he continually manages to have you so close to believing every word he says. I thought it was powerful, I thought it captured a twisted mind, and I need to go take a shower and look at buxom women.

9/10