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Original poster

Should I read Lolita?

67 replies

PotteringPondering · 19/12/2023 17:35

I’m wondering whether I should read Nabokov’s Lolita. I’ve heard people say it’s a classic, and well written. I also know it’s about an older man who becomes obsessive about a 12-year-old girl. But that’s all I know about it.

I’m not keen to immerse myself in the mindset of a creepy paedophile. Or does the book give some sort of framing/distancing, so the reader isn’t led to sympathise with that character?

Happy to be persuaded on this.

OP posts:
Bpickle1 · 19/12/2023 17:38

The book is from a paedophiles point of view and is very graphic in parts about touching Lolita. - Also features passage at the start about how he wasn't convinced the French child prostitute he paid for in Paris was really enough of a child. So probably wouldn't if the thought of that upsets you

sunshinesupermum · 19/12/2023 17:39

I certainly didn't sympathise with him! Lolita is a classic but if you don't want to read about a paedophile then give it a miss.

JaninaDuszejko · 19/12/2023 17:46

There's no framing or distancing, he's an unreliable narrator that aims to gain your sympathy.

ApolloandDaphne · 19/12/2023 17:50

We read it for my English lit class. It was and uncomfortable read but it's beautifully written. I think it is worth a read for sure.

SylvieLaufeydottir · 19/12/2023 17:52

It's an incredible piece of literature. Well worth reading. But no, it doesn't use "framing or distancing". Nabokov was not out to give the reader a nice moral glow. That's rather the point.

If you think you'd find it deeply upsetting to read, that's up to you; it's certainly not mandatory.

JaneyGee · 19/12/2023 18:53

Of course you should read it. Lolita is one of greatest English-language novels of the 20th-century. Harold Bloom ranked it alongside Joyce’s Ulysses, D. H. Lawrence’s Women in Love, and a handful of others. Is it an evil or immoral book? Oscar Wilde said that there’s no such thing, “books are either well written or badly written, that is all”. Anthony Burgess agreed. He said there are two kinds of good - artistic good and ethical good. Lolita is a work of art, not a political pamphlet.

ANightmareBeforeChristmas · 19/12/2023 18:58

The first half is tense and harrowing - the second half is dreary and depressing.

SapatSea · 19/12/2023 19:05

@ANightmareBeforeChristmas great synopsis.

It is really well written but it made my skin crawl - I'll never read it again.

Original poster
PotteringPondering · 19/12/2023 19:09

JaneyGee · 19/12/2023 18:53

Of course you should read it. Lolita is one of greatest English-language novels of the 20th-century. Harold Bloom ranked it alongside Joyce’s Ulysses, D. H. Lawrence’s Women in Love, and a handful of others. Is it an evil or immoral book? Oscar Wilde said that there’s no such thing, “books are either well written or badly written, that is all”. Anthony Burgess agreed. He said there are two kinds of good - artistic good and ethical good. Lolita is a work of art, not a political pamphlet.

Interesting, thanks.

Genuine question: so it follows that if something is labelled art, normal moral frameworks are suspended? The better the art, the greater the suspension of ethics? So the Marquis de Sade fantasising about rape, torture and child abuse is not problematic?

I find that unsettling.

OP posts:
Emotionalsobriety · 19/12/2023 19:19

I’ve read it many times - wrote my dissertation on it, etc.
I suppose I would have agreed with JaneyGee. Now I find her position naive.

OP it is a highly erotic and titillating novel where you identify against your will with the paedophile, not least because he is very funny - think Richard III. As said above the first part is more fun - because that is the seduction bit. As a reader you are willing him on.

Nabokov’s wife angrily denied there was anything wrong with it, saying anyone who suggested there was failed to see the compassion for the child in every page. Again, choosing not to see what’s in front of you.

SylvieLaufeydottir · 19/12/2023 20:44

Emotionalsobriety · 19/12/2023 19:19

I’ve read it many times - wrote my dissertation on it, etc.
I suppose I would have agreed with JaneyGee. Now I find her position naive.

OP it is a highly erotic and titillating novel where you identify against your will with the paedophile, not least because he is very funny - think Richard III. As said above the first part is more fun - because that is the seduction bit. As a reader you are willing him on.

Nabokov’s wife angrily denied there was anything wrong with it, saying anyone who suggested there was failed to see the compassion for the child in every page. Again, choosing not to see what’s in front of you.

But there is deep compassion for the child in it. Not in Humbert, but the novel is more than Humbert.

It's not amoral as a novel. A novel is more than the morality of its protagonist. Nabokov is inviting you to notice how easy it is to be seduced by Humbert as a reader, not affirming that it's morally right that you should be. Humbert's moral realisation is trite and shallow. The novel's isn't.

Ultimately we could go seven postmodern layers deep on the death of the novelist, blah blah blah. Whatever. But I don't want to live in a world where art has to affirm its Upright Moral Correctness at every turn and a narrator can never do anything bad without Learning A Lesson and Recognising His Failings. If it deeply unsettles you to read it... it's doing its job as art.

bookworm14 · 19/12/2023 21:11

It’s one of the greatest novels ever written. It’s often misinterpreted as condoning paedophilia, but that is a misreading of the text (and also partly the fault of the films which totally misunderstand the book in portraying Dolores as sexually precocious). Humbert is a witty and compelling narrator, which can be very uncomfortable for the reader, but the sympathy of the book is always with Dolores herself.

DancingLedgend · 19/12/2023 21:13

I found it disgusting.

Helenahandkart · 19/12/2023 21:25

I read it as an older teenager and again in my 20s and enjoyed it. I then read it again almost 30 years later and found it incredible. There was so much I missed as a younger reader. So many signs of the distress of the child that went completely over my head previously.
I thought it was an amazing book. It would be a shame to discount it because of the subject matter. It is deeply shocking, but it is intended to be.

ditalini · 19/12/2023 21:29

I've never understood how anyone could read it as Nabakov having sympathy for Humbert. He gives him all the rope he needs to hang himself.

LambriniBobinIsleworth · 19/12/2023 21:30

It's an amazing book and worth reading if you want to read amazing literature. The subject matter is sort of irrelevant with that in mind. The film versions are both atrocious and miss the point of the novel in my humble opinion.

Santalazy · 19/12/2023 21:31

It is extremely disturbing, mostly because one does feel sympathy for Humbert. Somehow you are led to wanting him to succeed. For this reason it is also brilliant, but I don’t want to read it again.

SylvieLaufeydottir · 19/12/2023 21:36

Genuine question: so it follows that if something is labelled art, normal moral frameworks are suspended? The better the art, the greater the suspension of ethics?

To engage with this: labelled "art' by who? What does it mean to be "labelled art'"? Whose moral framework are "normal"? Who said anything about artistic value being in inverse proportion to ethical value?

The postmodernists would say that the novel is created anew for you when you read it. It has no independent existence. And you bring your own moral framework to it, as everyone does. Nabokov knew you would read it through that lens. A genuine question for you: do you think Nabokov=Humbert? If so, why? If not, why not? Have you ever fundamentally disagreed with something a character did, but still valued a piece of fiction? If so, why? Where does this leave Paradise Lost, where the protagonist is - quite literally - Satan?

Divebar2021 · 19/12/2023 21:44

I haven’t read it but I worked in child protection for a few years and I avoid the subject matter if I can. That being said I don’t believe in censoring literature because the subject matter is considered off-limits or immoral. I know the OP wasn’t talking about censoring anything but there is no committee that sits to decide what’s acceptable or not acceptable - the only way to know is by reading it and finding out yourself.

SylvieLaufeydottir · 19/12/2023 21:45

Another point to ponder on: the novel climaxes with Humbert murdering a man in cold blood (although it can't be denied that this bit doesn't linger like the farewell to Dolly does). What makes people think that the novel is, in any way, an endorsement of Humbert's perspective and actions?

ZenNudist · 19/12/2023 21:49

Helenahandkart · 19/12/2023 21:25

I read it as an older teenager and again in my 20s and enjoyed it. I then read it again almost 30 years later and found it incredible. There was so much I missed as a younger reader. So many signs of the distress of the child that went completely over my head previously.
I thought it was an amazing book. It would be a shame to discount it because of the subject matter. It is deeply shocking, but it is intended to be.

This interesting. I read it at a similar young age and I'd be intrigued to see what my take would be on it now.

Suspect I'd find it hard as I have 10 and 13yo ds

TheCave · 19/12/2023 21:58

If you read for writing rather than story (if you get the distinction), then I recommend it. It is a beautifully written book. Probably in my top 10 favourite and most memorable books.

MissLucyEyelesbarrow · 19/12/2023 22:00

SylvieLaufeydottir · 19/12/2023 20:44

But there is deep compassion for the child in it. Not in Humbert, but the novel is more than Humbert.

It's not amoral as a novel. A novel is more than the morality of its protagonist. Nabokov is inviting you to notice how easy it is to be seduced by Humbert as a reader, not affirming that it's morally right that you should be. Humbert's moral realisation is trite and shallow. The novel's isn't.

Ultimately we could go seven postmodern layers deep on the death of the novelist, blah blah blah. Whatever. But I don't want to live in a world where art has to affirm its Upright Moral Correctness at every turn and a narrator can never do anything bad without Learning A Lesson and Recognising His Failings. If it deeply unsettles you to read it... it's doing its job as art.

Show quote history

Good analysis.

It is disturbing, because of how well Nabokov succeeds in making the reader feel complicit with Humbert. But it is nothing like de Sade, which I had to read for a course on ethics (wouldn't happen now, I'm sure - imagine the trigger warnings), and which I found vile with no redeeming features and no literary merit. Lolita is a work of art. Art is meant to challenge us - to make the invisible visible.

If you don't like it, OP, you can just stop reading it. It builds gradually; it doesn't plunge you into to scenes of rape and murder, like de Sade.

theotherfossilsister · 19/12/2023 22:10

It is so beautiful. I first read it at Lolita's age. I am now reading it at Humbert's.

ANightmareBeforeChristmas · 19/12/2023 22:13

So the Marquis de Sade fantasising about rape, torture and child abuse is not problematic?

What I have seen of de Sade's work is extremely graphic, and often more like a catalogue of his fantasies and fetishes than a properly structured story. I can't judge his prose as I'm not competent to read it in the original French but I don't think it's regarded as great prose. It would be highly problematic if people were reading it to 'get off' on it. I read some from curiosity when I was a teenager and it was pretty revolting.