With its unreliable narrator and ambiguous tone, Lolita avoids drawing any definite moral conclusions from this notorious story of ageing academic Humbert Humbert and his obsessive confusion of lust and love for a 12-year-old girl. It is Nabokov's playful prose, however, that is the most bewitching aspect of this novel.It is a truly remarkable work. That it was written in a second language makes it all the more incredible - to have such a command of a tongue that is not your own... my envy is palpable.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Little Lola
Interestingly, we all seem to have read Lolita. I was utterly mesmerised by it. I think what people find troubling about the novel (probably those who haven't read it) is its strength: the ambiguity with which we view Humbert. He is not obviously a monster, despite doing often monstrous things. It's on every list of the greatest books of all time that you can find, it seems. The Guardian's 50 books you must read describes it thus:
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I cried. I can't remember the turn of phrase---somewhere toward the end---but it made me weep. And at a fundamental level, when you take the situation stripped of its immorality, its squeamishness, its horror, really, it gets at something we can actually identify with. And perhaps that's the most disturbing thing of all?
Can I say, though, that I feel utterly, utterly vindicated that The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Maltese Falcon are both on that list? Because these were two novels I read in my formative years, and which made lasting impressions on me? And which don't often make these kinds of lists? Can I?
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