Book Review: Lolita

Note: This is #39 in my 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge for 2008.

Well, how to describe Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov? Those in touch with popular culture may know that this book is about a Humbert Humbert, a middle-aged man who is educated, European, dapper, and a pedophile obsessed with what he calls “nymphets” — certain girls between the ages of 9 and 14. Through a series of misadventures in 1947 he is introduced to a 12 year old girl nicknamed Lolita, with whom he is immediately obsessed. From there he begins conniving ways to seduce this new nymphette and steal her away, but it turns out that Lolita is not quite as innocent as you might think.

Far from an endorsement of pedophilia, Lolita‘s Humbert (who narrates the tale from first person) is drawn in clear, bold lines as not an underdog or even an antihero, but as a clear-cut villain. He is derisive of everything and everyone else around him (particularly all things Americana), he is treacherous, he is limitless in his self-deceit (especially when it comes to the ignobility of his desires), he is cruel, and he is generally really screwed up in the head. His robbing Lolita of her innocence and childhood is really sad to see, no matter how manipulative and occasionally mean-spirited she can be. And then of course there are his plans for drugging her into unconsciousness so he can have her way with her. That’s kind of bad.

But because Nabokov’s writing is so masterful and he makes Humbert so strangely charming, a lot of the appeal of the book is flowing along with this beautiful prose and letting it carry you closer to Humbert’s mind so that even if you don’t sympathize with him (I’m going to assume you’re not a misanthropic pervert here) you do get to see the complexities of his character and his motivations. It’s ugly, but at the same time it’s impressively crafted. I really can’t overstate the beautiful, flowing, and elegant quality of Nabokov’s writing, and it’s all the more impressive because English isn’t even his native language. Here, look at this famous passage that describes Humbert and Lolita lounging in the drawing room of Lolita’s mother’s boarding house:

She was musical and apple-sweet. Her legs twitched a little as they lay across my live lap; I stroked them; there she lolled on in the right-hand corner, almost asprawl, Lola, the bobby-soxer, devouring her immemorial fruit, singing through its juice, losing her slipper, rubbing the heel of her slipperless foot in its sloppy anklet, against the pile of old magazines heaped on my left on the sofa—and every movement she made, every shuffle and ripple, helped me to conceal and improve the secret system of tactile correspondence between beast and beauty—between my gagged, bursting beast and the beauty of her dimpled body in its innocent cotton frock.

It’s downright weird how that can be so elegant and so disgusting at the same time.

What also struck me about the book was how funny it was. Well, darkly funny. REALLY darkly funny. Humbert Humbert is almost farcical in his disdain for everything around him, and combined with his silver tongue and sense of European dignity this leads to some reasonably amusing rants as he and Lolita criss-cross the United States on a year-long road trip. Humbert is also often undone by his own manners and perverted predilections in comical ways that in another context would paint him as a classic, downtrodden, sad sack. All in all, the book is a masterful mixture of comedy, tragedy, and “ick.” And it’s worth it just to marvel at the prose alone.

Others doing the 52-in-52 thing this week:

• Jeremy reviewed Appaloosa by Robert Parker
• Heliologue reviewed The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson
• Nick reviewed Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote