Should I read Lolita?

[PotteringPondering]

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.

Big thanks for all your thoughtful responses so far. I’ve now got mental rabbits running in all sorts of directions:

• The role of great art and literature as a window into human experience.

• Art as propaganda and moral vehicle versus art for art’s sake.

• Freedom of speech v censorship.

• Unreliable narrator as creative device (I loved Sebastian Faulks’s Engleby).

• Do I react to moral evil in art differently from moral evil in real life? Does the quality of the art affect my reaction (eg if the Marquis de Sade were a truly great novelist, and Mein Kampf was great literature)?

• Where are my own boundaries in terms of what I want to fill my mind with (fictional or real)?

All very interesting jumping-off points, and worth contemplating. Good luck.

My own final tuppence, FWIW:

• Nabokov is basically saying "I could not have told you any more clearly what Humbert is. A psychiatrist has told you he's a pervert and a murderer. He's told you he fantasises about abusing his own children and grandchildren. If there's a figleaf here, you, the reader, wove it."
• The language, the writing, is razor-blade perfect. When I quoted the first chapter above, I did it from memory; I've had every word of the first chapter etched there since I pulled the book off the library shelf twenty-five years ago and it blew me away. He does alchemical things with English that I've never seen matched. But this is not a compulsory class and there's no final exam; you can spend your time however you want.

I was waiting for someone to say moral panic

I think it's a very skilfully written and compelling book. I would say that it forces the reader to confront how manipulative paedophiles are of their victims and those around them. It is not a comfortable read but good literature often isn't.

I haven't read it for years and was struck by the poster who says that they are re-reading it at Humbert's age having first read it at Lolita's. Maybe I should re-read it now. I do reread books that I love but I have to say I've never really wanted to revisit it - wonderfully written but not a world that I want to go back to.

It's a fantastically well-written book and worth reading purely for that reason, imo.

If you start it and find that the subject matter is too unpleasant for you, then you can always stop reading. But I wouldn't have said it was graphic/pornographic.

In terms of morality: I think there are plenty of characters in literature making poor moral choices which impact on other characters. (The books would be quite dull if they contained only virtuous characters!) I think the reader has the opportunity to form their own opinions about characters and their choices. I obviously read books involving actions I think are wrong; I wouldn't read any books otherwise! I don't read/finish reading books with material I find too distressing. But this is an emotional and comfort-based judgement, not one based on ethics or aesthetics.

I particularly remember the scene in which 'Lolita' comes to Humbert, crying, because, he said, "She had nowhere else to go". That really cut me to the quick.

IIRC, he murdered her mother too.

(If you can trust his narration) Humbert didn't murder her mother. She'd just discovered his lust for Lolita and was about to expose him, but was hit by a car when she ran out of the house.

Arguably, Charlotte Haze doesn't come out too well, but I think there's a real humanity to her, and a real compassion for her, too. She's a single mother in a time that was not common, grieving a husband and child, struggling financially, struggling with a "difficult" adolescent daughter, wanting a partner and to be loved and appreciated. And by terrible, awful luck, the lodger she has foisted on her to help her pay her bills is Humbert.

I don't think Humbert murders her though; that she gets hit by a car in her intense, blind distress seems pretty plausible.

Sorry to hijack the thread, but if you have watched the film, do you think that it explains Quilty adequately?
Because of my adhd I can't focus enough on the film, but I can barely grasp the concept of who his character is.
I read a bit of the book but couldn't past a certain point because it revolted me. If I remember correctly it was very detailed and graphic.
Do you think the film makers expect the viewers to have read or know about Quilty before they watch the film? There's hints in the film about who he is, but they are very subtle. I gey the impression that he was supposedly following them in the car but I can't remember if that's what I read more about in the book.

The language is poetic. Nabokov has the advantage of seeing English as a foreign language and plying with words like building blocks.

So "therapist" is "the rapist" and purple pills are "purpills".

And heartbreakingly Lolita's voice breaks through the narrator's. How they have to get sanitary towels the day after he raped her - details that let the narrator's mask slip and the author's genius shine through.

It is an absolutely gorgeous novel. The language is incredibly evocative.

the protagonist wants to be a sympathetic character, but only the most surface reading of the novel would find him believable. Nabokov writes about a monster who believes himself to be the victim. It’s an incredibly complex and compelling read.

This is a very simplistic interpretation of his obsession. And it does not say anywhere that he seeks out a clone of his childhood girlfriend; he is obsessed with "nymphets" and believes they are not ordinary children but rather legitimate targets for his sexual desires. Lolita happened to fit the profile of a "nymphet" and an unfortunate kid he could get his hands on.

I actually read the novel in Russian and now thinking I need to read the English version to compare. Nabokov wrote the English version first and actually struggled with the Russian one as he apparently felt more comfortable writing in English at that stage.

I disagree:

On first seeing Lolita:

"I was still walking behind Mrs Haze when .. half-naked, kneeling, turning about on her knees, there was my Riviera love peering at me over dark glasses.
It was the same child - the same frail, honey-hued shoulders, the same silky supple bare back, the same chestnut head of hair."

It starts that way, but it doesn't stay that way. Dolly/Lolita isn't static, and she ends up completely eclipsing Annabel, even as of course the dynamic between her and adult Humbert is very, very different from the (apparently) reciprocal feelings between Annabel and adolescent Humbert.

I agree broadly with @SylvieLaufeydottir. It’s a great novel.

OP, if what you’re asking is whether Nabokov writes Humbert’s sexual relationship with Lolita in the kind of graphic terms that, say, Brett Easton Ellis does with those drawn-out sequences of rape, torture, mutilation etc in American Psycho, then no, nothing at all like that. I don’t think there’s a single sentence you could say was ‘obscene’.

Funnily enough, I started reading it again today because it was on the shelf at the house I'm staying at for Christmas. It's really beautifully written, actually. I've only read the first chapter so far. I think I might have to make a point of re-reading everything I last read before I turned 20...