Why ‘Lolita’ is a fascinating book

Let me step into my English Lit graduate shoes for a minute here. I tend to never skip introductions and authors’ notes. For ‘Lolita’ both of these were crucial. The foreword acts as a ‘trigger warning’, written by a fictional editor who receives Humbert’s book for publishing after his death. The author’s note at the end, explains how Nabokov came to write this and all the difficulties around publishing it. These two bits of text contextualise everything. This is not some Freudian confession nor a madman’s fantasy. It’s literature. Disturbing, provocative literature.

I wouldn’t put this book on everyone’s ‘100 books to read in a lifetime’ list. You need to have a strong stomach for it and to disassociate from the immorality of the story. The way to experience this novel is with curiosity - what is it like to be a deranged man crazily in love with a minor? Of course, we and Nabokov could only imagine.

It’s also more morally grey than I expected. I thought Lolita was much younger, 7 to 10 years old maybe, the fact that she was a preteen makes things more complicated. At 12/13, she is naturally starting to explore notions of sex and relationships which Humbert takes advantage of. There is less manipulation, per se, and more distortion. To some extent, Lolita also plays his game and takes advantage. Obviously, she’s not to blame and all responsibility falls on the mature person, but there is a lot to analyse. I could talk about this for hours.

Writing-wise, there are some long descriptive chapters, almost boring, that I skimmed through. I appreciated that there were some nicely inserted ‘trigger warnings’ throughout the book, subtly introducing the heavy scenes. The language is also a little bit clunky, but Nabokov himself explains that this was his first time writing a novel in English instead of Russian.

All in all, this is longer than my usual Muddy Shoes post, but I felt the need to detail the experience of reading such a controversial book.