Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov, 1955
336 pages
Read in 2009
Check the synopsis and details on amazon.com
🔽 Summary and quick note 🔽
✔ A middle aged man fell in love with a child, too famous for its sexual description and controversies
✔ The book actually has other interesting themes of the sad intellectual man, than the sexual theme
✔ The book so controversial that it still divides critics and readers
★★★★★ The protagonist is in love, but she was a child. The shock it brought to the world still has not faded. Controversial, yes but what makes it more interesting is that the book also explores other aspects of the intellectual yet sad protagonist and his (selfish) struggles, along with thrills of road trip and crimes.
🔽 Book review 🔽
I haven't seen neither of the films, so I thought, I should start with the book.
(I then watched the film later)
I only knew about the impressions of this famous book and I actually didn't know the storyline and, it was shocking.
But it's not just the shocking part that makes it interesting, the storytelling is great; the protagonist Humbert's (selfish) struggles, their road trip, their escapes and crimes, so it's in a way a pity that it's too famous for the sextual content.
Either way, you cannot avoid contemplating about the sexual theme.
It's so iconic, outrageous, and still something that divide us, both with the protagonist and among us readers.
Sure, the protagonist was in love with Lolita, but she was a child.
He knows it, he knows that he destroyed her childhood and hates himself for that, but was he the only one to blame?
The book (or the narrator, the protagonist) claims that before meeting him she was already a "nymphet" so was she also to blame?
For me personally, he was to blame for manipulating a child, but the book leaves that conclusion open, by giving them that ending - or maybe both are punished.
I read that Humbert represents Europe, old, intellectual yet insidious, while Lolita is young and candid and represents America - that's also interesting.
One thing that's clear and for everyone to agree is, as the author says, nobody wants to name their daughters Lolita anymore. Yes, we agree.
I read this looong time ago, so that was how I felt, I should probably reread it, I'm sure I'd feel differently now.
🔽 Related pages 🔽
🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽
●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●
Lolita (Penguin Modern Classics)
赤パンの本棚 akapan's bookshelf 