I managed to get a few chapters into “Lolita” before I decided to put it down. It’s well written, but so very creepy. This text is like it’s written by the main character – maybe even a more honest version of him.
It’s very clear that Nabokov despised and mocked most of his protagonists, with only a couple exceptions. Humbert is a loser with nothing interesting about him.
Still some people somehow manage to interpret the book as a ‘defense’ of Humbert of sorts, or a fantasy. Seen this on Reddit.
Yeah, the edition I read had a preface that seemed specifically written to prevent those kinds of interpretations. I wonder if it was written by a female relative of Nabokov’s.
Lolita is meant to be disturbing. A horror story told from the perspective of a very unreliable narrator. Intellectually, I appreciate it, but I too could not get through it.
You might mean the case of Florence Horner, kidnapped in 1948 by Frank La Salle. It’s apparently directly referenced in ‘Lolita’. However, Wikipedia mentions that Nabokov was already working on ‘Lolita’ in '47, under its original title ‘The Kingdom by the Sea’; and he had similar themes in previous works, going back to a poem and a novella from '28 and '39 respectively.
Importantly, ‘Lolita’ has a few brief allusions to Lewis Carroll, and multiple to Charlie Chaplin’s relationship with Lita Grey.
I managed to get a few chapters into “Lolita” before I decided to put it down. It’s well written, but so very creepy. This text is like it’s written by the main character – maybe even a more honest version of him.
It’s very clear that Nabokov despised and mocked most of his protagonists, with only a couple exceptions. Humbert is a loser with nothing interesting about him.
Still some people somehow manage to interpret the book as a ‘defense’ of Humbert of sorts, or a fantasy. Seen this on Reddit.
Yeah, the edition I read had a preface that seemed specifically written to prevent those kinds of interpretations. I wonder if it was written by a female relative of Nabokov’s.
It’s well written, but maybe too subtle
Lolita is meant to be disturbing. A horror story told from the perspective of a very unreliable narrator. Intellectually, I appreciate it, but I too could not get through it.
The truly fucked up thing is that that book is (very loosely) based on a true story.
You might mean the case of Florence Horner, kidnapped in 1948 by Frank La Salle. It’s apparently directly referenced in ‘Lolita’. However, Wikipedia mentions that Nabokov was already working on ‘Lolita’ in '47, under its original title ‘The Kingdom by the Sea’; and he had similar themes in previous works, going back to a poem and a novella from '28 and '39 respectively.
Importantly, ‘Lolita’ has a few brief allusions to Lewis Carroll, and multiple to Charlie Chaplin’s relationship with Lita Grey.