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A review by maketeaa
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
dark
sad
fast-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
5.0
lolita is not a love story. i have said this every time i have read the book, but in my third pass, as a 20 year old instead of a 14 or 17 year old, all the flowery prose, the carefully hidden details feel like they've been peeled off like a fruit skin and left the bare rinds of what this story is. humbert humbert kidnapped a 12 year old girl, drove her around the states, and raped her for a year. not to mention the abuse that continued after that.
this book deserves five stars because nabokov is clearly a master in creating an unreliable narrator. there were times i questioned whether anything we knew about humbert was real at all -- the small suggestions that he has embellished certain details, this insistence of creating 'art' and taking liberties for that purpose. you could argue that humbert is delusional, but i actually don't think he is. i think he knows exactly what he is and what he did but is psychopathically aware of creating a new version of himself and his story to make a good story for the 'jury'. because we do see his true colours, very often, in fact, colours that betray his claims that he loves lo, that he believes she's the one who can control him -- for example, the evaluation of Charlotte haze in his ability to 'twist her wrist' as he did with valeria, his almost disgust at some of the regular 12-year-old things lo was into (magazines, etc), and, most importantly, the fact he states the murder of quilty was actually the intended climax of his memoir all along, the whole purpose of his work. that's not to mention his obsession with 'capturing' lo -- in his journal entries, in the desire to take photos of her while she played tennis, in the very act of calling her 'lolita'.
i think this book is a disgusting, monstrous work of art. always enthralled by nabokov's mastery everytime i read this
this book deserves five stars because nabokov is clearly a master in creating an unreliable narrator. there were times i questioned whether anything we knew about humbert was real at all -- the small suggestions that he has embellished certain details, this insistence of creating 'art' and taking liberties for that purpose. you could argue that humbert is delusional, but i actually don't think he is. i think he knows exactly what he is and what he did but is psychopathically aware of creating a new version of himself and his story to make a good story for the 'jury'. because we do see his true colours, very often, in fact, colours that betray his claims that he loves lo, that he believes she's the one who can control him -- for example, the evaluation of Charlotte haze in his ability to 'twist her wrist' as he did with valeria, his almost disgust at some of the regular 12-year-old things lo was into (magazines, etc), and, most importantly, the fact he states the murder of quilty was actually the intended climax of his memoir all along, the whole purpose of his work. that's not to mention his obsession with 'capturing' lo -- in his journal entries, in the desire to take photos of her while she played tennis, in the very act of calling her 'lolita'.
i think this book is a disgusting, monstrous work of art. always enthralled by nabokov's mastery everytime i read this