Lolita - Let the discussion begin! - Page 2

zebracakes · October 18th, 2005, 04:32 PM

Did anybody else get the feeling around the point where he marries the mom and she conveniently dies that this was maybe where he lapsed into a fantasy? Like he was boarding with them and lusting after her and he started fantasizing about how he could get together with her?

Glasgow53 · October 19th, 2005, 09:01 AM

Yes, sometimes I thought it was a fantasy, like I said before, sometimes what happened was just too coindicental. Maybe the story is how he wanted it to be, but even knowing how it has to turn out, he made it end the way it did. He knew they couldn't live happily ever after. I think even H. H. comes to realize that.

buttmunch · November 1st, 2005, 07:13 AM

I am not quite done but I thought the writing was fantastic. Really sharp and descriptive. I also thought that he did hate HH as well as most all the other characters, or at least was mocking them mercilessly. What I found so good was his ability to paint each character to believably. The first wife, the first wife's lover, HH's reaction to that situation, but especially HH and his first love. The subject matter was tricky but at some point the story was beyond that. It was about manipulation and desires and who we really are underneath all the exterior crap we show the world.

And I've never heard that theory about Charlie Chaplin. Interesting, since he was always into young girls, even before Oona O'Neil (who, by the way, was always into much older guys). I'm going to check that out. Any links?

Lil · November 3rd, 2005, 06:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zebracakes

A couple have mentioned that Lolita was manipulative and knew what she was doing. I think my question is was she really this way or was this how she was seen through Humbert's eyes? Like he felt less guilty about his crime because he imagined she was as much into it as he was?

I didn't get on with the book and didn't finish it, but based on what I did read, that was how I saw it.

buttmunch · November 7th, 2005, 02:45 AM

Quote:

A couple have mentioned that Lolita was manipulative and knew what she was doing. I think my question is was she really this way or was this how she was seen through Humbert's eyes? Like he felt less guilty about his crime because he imagined she was as much into it as he was? Towards the end of the book it really seems like he starts to wake up to the how much he damaged her.

That's a great point and one I hadn't thought of. It does always depend on who's telling the tale, eh?

A*O · November 7th, 2005, 04:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zebracakes

A couple have mentioned that Lolita was manipulative and knew what she was doing. I think my question is was she really this way or was this how she was seen through Humbert's eyes? Like he felt less guilty about his crime because he imagined she was as much into it as he was? Towards the end of the book it really seems like he starts to wake up to the how much he damaged her.

That's the classic paedophile justification/excuse "children really don't see anything wrong with this kind of thing so why should I?" I think the themes are WAY too dark for them to be mere literary license by Nabokov - I think he writes with a true understand of how a paedophile thinks which means he's either an expert in the psychology of paedophilia, or he's expressing his own, possibly subconscious, desires.

buttmunch · November 7th, 2005, 01:46 PM

I'm not sure I buy that argument. A writer's job is to imagine and place him or herself into the minds of the characters. If someone writes extremely convincingly about a murder, with all the thrill of the gore, it doesn't mean they have either murdered or want to murder, simply that they have what any good writer needs: a wildly active and perceptive imagination.

Elise · November 7th, 2005, 01:54 PM

I LOVED this book--I feel sick for loving it so much. I'm not sure what Nabokov was thinking--if he had any desires for young girls or anything, but he really depicted what happened in such a surrealist way. However, I tend to think that much of the book is just a fantasy for HH, not something which really happened. As another poster said, things just seem way too convienenet.

buttmunch · November 14th, 2005, 03:54 AM

I just read an afterward in my copy, by Nabokov, which makes it clear that this was inspired by a newspaper article he read while living in Paris. It was an idea that had incubated for a number of years before he first wrote a short story of about 30 pages (and then decided wasn't any good and destroyed) then a few more years passed and he wrote the book. I have to say, it's stayed with me and I keep contemplating the ending. It was a bit disjointed but I think that was intentional, to show HH's state of mind. Any book that stays with me like this gets my vote for a great one.