Lolita

Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is about as controversial as one can get; rejected by four publishers in a row before being finally picked up in America. As the years have passed, it has become two films, a musical, various stage-plays, an opera, and even a ballet! It’s spawned fashions (albeit ones totally unrelated to anything that the character may have worn) and is used in a variety of ways, such as shocking media revelations. It’s interesting that very few children nowadays have her name.

It’s become an icon of modern popular culture, especially with the current obsession with sexualisation and the ways its creeping into younger and younger lives. Take those Bratz dolls, for example (in my day it was Barbie, boys and girls, good ‘ol Barbie!) – aimed at prepubescent young girls, can be bought with a Pole Dancing version. Pole dancing is all very well, and I hear it is gaining popularity as a great abdominal workout, but meanwhile, the connotations it contains are inappropriate for young children. Lolita, on the other hand, almost argues that it comes of their own initiative, or from another viewpoint, awakens the reader to the dangers that hide behind the narrator’s handsome exterior.

Humbert Humbert is wonderfully creepy – it’s hard to not sympathise with him, yet at the same time, his narrative makes one aware of the perverted way he’s justifying the twisted incest he tricks his step-daughter into. The way he portrays Dolores Haze allows us to view her only through the dark reflection of his mind, as he shows himself as a victim of her seduction. He makes her afraid of turning elsewhere, demanding sexual favours in return for presents, and presenting their journey as an inevitable destiny.

He repents and yet defends his actions so that one can look closely into his psyche and judge for oneself how hard he really tried, and all the minute little details that he so carefully preserves. He is in love with an ideal and obsessively continues to try to recapture the moment that he desires. Well worth reading. It reminded me a little of Ken Kesey, or Chuck Palahniuk. I suppose that’s because they all have an intense focus on the inner workings of the mind, rather than any thematic or stylistic similarities. Read on!