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A review by drakken
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
challenging
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Blargh, this was a slog.
I went into this with a morbid sense of curiosity - I’d of course heard many references to Lolita over the years and had some awareness of its cultural impact, but had never actually come close to picking up the book until it got selected for a book club I’m in.
For the first third or so, I actually found myself taking well to Nabokov's writing style and deriving some measure of enjoyment from the language employed, despite the discomfiting subject matter.
That enjoyment soon faded however, and by about the halfway mark it became a struggle to progress. Living in the mind of someone as abhorrent and delusional and perpetually self-important as Humbert and reading about his thoughts toward and treatment of Dolores was absolutely exhausting. At a certain point, I just do not need to hear yet again how the sweat on a pubescent girl's armpit glistened, or how he wanted to ravish her internal organs, or how she smelled when he leaned close to her. I also couldn't care less about his documenting of the 100th place he visited on his travels across the country and all the minutiae that occurred along the way (all the while reminding me how intelligent and witty he is with his references and unnecessary insertions of French).
Admittedly once Dolores went off on her own, things became a little more tolerable, but by that point I was already checked out and wanting to speed through to the end.
If this book had been about half as long, I may have been able to stomach it better and come away with a more positive impression. One could make an argument that a literary exploration of a human being like this is worthwhile - for a time. As constructed though, it left a really sour taste in my mouth, and I'm glad to be done with it and move on.
(still giving it 2 stars for Nabokov's writing)
I went into this with a morbid sense of curiosity - I’d of course heard many references to Lolita over the years and had some awareness of its cultural impact, but had never actually come close to picking up the book until it got selected for a book club I’m in.
For the first third or so, I actually found myself taking well to Nabokov's writing style and deriving some measure of enjoyment from the language employed, despite the discomfiting subject matter.
That enjoyment soon faded however, and by about the halfway mark it became a struggle to progress. Living in the mind of someone as abhorrent and delusional and perpetually self-important as Humbert and reading about his thoughts toward and treatment of Dolores was absolutely exhausting. At a certain point, I just do not need to hear yet again how the sweat on a pubescent girl's armpit glistened, or how he wanted to ravish her internal organs, or how she smelled when he leaned close to her. I also couldn't care less about his documenting of the 100th place he visited on his travels across the country and all the minutiae that occurred along the way (all the while reminding me how intelligent and witty he is with his references and unnecessary insertions of French).
Admittedly once Dolores went off on her own, things became a little more tolerable, but by that point I was already checked out and wanting to speed through to the end.
If this book had been about half as long, I may have been able to stomach it better and come away with a more positive impression. One could make an argument that a literary exploration of a human being like this is worthwhile - for a time. As constructed though, it left a really sour taste in my mouth, and I'm glad to be done with it and move on.
(still giving it 2 stars for Nabokov's writing)