Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov.

Raving Lunatic · Wed Oct 01, 2008 7:28 pm

I would actually like to keep this discussion going. We just need to drum up some more readers. I totally understand trying to find time especially while being in school.

So with that said, does anyone else want to join?

Ophelia · Sun Oct 05, 2008 1:43 pm

Hello Raving,

Sorry, I logged in every day but did not see your post.
I was going to write that we could just go on on the previous thread, but the discussion has been moved to official selection, which is lovely.

I'll go back to the book and think of discussion topics, and perhaps you can introduce some too?

Raving Lunatic · Mon Oct 06, 2008 7:50 am

I have a really good one: Do you feel pity or disgust for Humbert? Do you feel he is the victim or the aggressor?

Ophelia · Mon Oct 06, 2008 10:51 am

You're right, this is a good question, and one that we can go back to as we read.

So far I've been mostly annoyed and exasperated by the narrator.

The character as portrayed by Jeremy Irons in Lyne's film was someone I pitied, and I had expected to feel sorry for the character in the book too, but so far it hasn't happened.

I felt distinctly annoyed by his portrayal of his (grown up!) wives, especially Valeria in the opening chapters.
Here I find him at his most unpleasant and mired in his contradictions: can't stand grown up women, coldly decides to marry one anyway, chooses one that he thinks acts girlish , then decides he can't abide her and seems to expect us to sympathize!
Yet when I had almost given up on him he seems to redeem himself in his description of Rita in chapter 26 (I haven't read the whole book but I've read the end!). Here he seems to feel genuine empathy for another human being, which is rather out of character (can he grow?).

Another reaction I had was that I didn't really feel sorry for him, I felt sorry for humanity and all its sums of obsessions and mental illnesses, and I felt sorry for myself at times as the reader who is being dragged down into Humbert's universe.
The effect of this depiction is very powerful, I could literally feel myself being pulled down.

Ophelia · Mon Oct 06, 2008 3:07 pm

Raving, since you can read French, here is an extra tidbit in connection with the topic you introduced.
It is a review of Maurice Couturier's essay about Lolita. I think it's very well put.


	Quote: L'aguicheuse nymphette de Nabokov, devenue un type litteraire au meme titre que la Bovary de Flaubert, seduit des millions de nouveaux lecteurs chaque annee dans le monde, tout en continuant de provoquer la colere des puritains. Humbert Humbert, picaro des temps modernes, manipule le double langage avec une virtuosite desarmante : il s'accuse dans vergogne des fautes qu'il a commises en tant que protagoniste a l'egard de Lolita, mais s'ingenie par ses prouesses d'ecriture a gagner l'admiration, voire la complicite de son lecteur. Le present ouvrage, tout en presentant un dossier complet sur ce prodigieux roman et en apportant les annotations necessaires a sa comprehension, analyse la logique de ce double langage ; il demonte les mecanismes paradoxaux de l'interaction auteur-narrateur-lecteur et le jeu croise de leurs desirs respectifs.

(emphasis mine)

So, does Humbert establish complicity with his reader, does he provoke admiration?

I like the comparison with Madame Bovary. Yes, Lolita is an established literary type now. I imagine Madame Bovary must have been a scandalous book when it was published, although it looks rather tame now.

Ophelia · Mon Oct 06, 2008 3:14 pm

A big advantage of being now a Booktalk selection is that we can use several threads for this discussion, instead of having everything together.
I'm going to open new threads, and please feel free to do so too if you want to introduce a new topic.
Ideally I would also open threads for some of the topics we have started discussing... We'll see.

Raving Lunatic · Mon Oct 06, 2008 7:17 pm

Ophelia,
My French is rusty but I did understand a great deal of the quote. Unfortunately, I have not read Madame Bovary. But you do bring up a good point. I am going to continue with the book and get back to you on that. Like we talked about before I think that he is over explaining his thoughts.

I will open a new thread.

BreanaMaguire9 · Sun Jul 03, 2011 3:36 pm

I think it was Nabokov's intention to make Humbert the ostensible "man of letters" (from the interview Ophelia posted) from the more evolved Europe through the use of the narrator's intelligence and diction. This method grants the jurors or readers some sort of sympathetic feeling to the pedophile. Humbert never speaks of the details of sex and displays his feelings toward Lolita in a loving manner beyond that of any other love story to the point of sympathy....but then glimmers of the true Humbert shine through with his obsessive behavior and lack of true care for Lolita and her well being. It is a tug and war game that eventually grants our deluded Humbert Humbert the title of both victim and aggressor; arousing pity an disgust.

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