"I knew I had fallen in love with Lolita forever; but I also knew she would not be Lolita forever."
Lolita is a true tragedy as well as a comedy, its unique style makes it stand out from any other book and has secured Vladimir Nabokov's name forever in the pantheon. Of course, the novel comes with a scandalous history which conjures up opinions and what I suspect, mostly speculations. The affair between a middle-aged sexual pervert (or a passionate lover?), and a twelve-year-old girl raises expectations of pornography, but anyone who has actually read it will know there isn't a single obscene term in Lolita and aficionados of erotica are likely to find it a bore for they would have stopped after the first few chapters. Lolita blazes, brighter than ever, with a perversity of a most original kind, despite the initial and what I can only imagine with the current public, continued public disapproval. But then again, what do most people know anyways?
Now, the gift of comedy comes just seldom to a writer unaccompanied. More often than not we see it attached to those less endearing qualities, like a tendency to preach a certain point or to moralise things that do not need any clarification. Other times, we see it as parodies, and sometimes as satire, but of all the pairings, Nabokov's work is the result of something truly unique, an odd conjunction of a definite sense of humour and some sort of indescribable horror. I must admit that the horrific nature of the story's subject drew me to this book, and with boyish wonder I picked this up from the bookstore. Man, unsurprisingly gives limited attention to the comical compared to the horrific, but to open the novel and only find Nabokov's restrained and unbelievably witty chronicle of a man's lust for a child or what he calls a "nymphet". At the same time, Nabokov has also created a queer surcharge of meaning, as if laughing in the face of the insoluble predicaments of life. The "Old Europe" is in contact with the then "Young America" -- an America full of filling stations, motels, and roller rinks, the very intensity of this view through Nabokov's binoculars creates a vision which admits the absolute certainty that the reader is entering an extraordinary world.
The novel acts as a kind of confession or manuscript as some would call it, of a man who is awaiting trial for murder, and this poor man chooses to give himself the pseudonym Humbert Humbert. He was born in France, and says he has mixed European parentage, his father owned a luxurious hotel on the Riviera. It was there when he was only thirteen, he met a little girl his own age and fell "agonizingly, shamelessly, and clumsily" in love, her name is Annabel. Their inexperience and of course the surveillance of their parents prevented the consummation of such romance, but on Annabel's last day of staying, they managed to slip away to a desolate part of the beach for just a brief session of caresses. Four months later, Annabel died of typhus. Humbert believes that this brief blighted romance is the reason for his permanent sexual bias toward girls between the ages of nine and fourteen, and exhibits the same kind of fey grace and insidious charm that links to Annabel, these are the so-called "nymphets".
Since society takes a stern approach to his rapture, poor Humbert lives miserably, periods of excruciating temptation alternate with residency in the better madhouses in Europe and later in America. And at last, in a New England town, Humbert comes upon a little girl who is the absolute incarnation of his long-lost love. Her name is Dolores Haze, Lolita, Lo. Her age is twelve. Humbert fell into a desperate extremity of desire and marries her mother Charlotte Haze. This heroic self-sacrifice is soon rewarded by the fates, or "McFate" as Humbert puts it. McFate arranged for Charlotte to be struck down and killed by an automobile and Humbert's most polluted dream comes true, he is granted access to Lo for her brief nymphancy. Although Humbert has the thoughts of a monster, he is not altogether a beast. In spite of the grotesque passion and overwhelmingly descriptive start to the novel, Humbert still does decide to dose the child with sleeping pills and finally achieve his transportation by being indirect and out of a scrupulous regard for Lo's purity. However, to his consternation and a sort of delight, it turns out to be Lolita who boldly seduces him. Lo's first love is not even Humbert, and she finds her eager stepfather somewhat maladroit, oh poor Humbert, how I feel sorry for you. Now with this demonic nymphet in his hands, a giddy Humbert sets off on an aimless tour of America, visiting every resort, Corn Palace, zoo and even all the gas station stores, just to keep Lo amused and compliant. Little did he know that her appetite is no match for Humbert's.
Of course, there were quarrels, and of course, Humbert wins all of them. The reason is made quite clear throughout the book with some 'horrible' passages. "You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go." Inevitably, Lolita does find somewhere else to go. She finds the protection of Clare Quilty, another pervert with whom she has been conducting a secret flirtation. So dexterously does Quilty whisk her from sight as she refuses to perform his fetishes. Several years elapse before Humbert is able to locate his nymphet and his love, only to learn the name of her seducer he has determined to kill. But by then, Lolita is no longer a nymphet, being all of seventeen and married, though not to the perverse Quilty but to a deaf and earnest young veteran, by whom she is hugely pregnant. Yet, in spite of her ruined looks for Humbert, he knows he still loves her "more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else." However, for her own part, Lolita remembers her young teenage years without rancour, but she still politely declined Humbert's proposal for her to run away with him. At last, the horror of their previous relationship which Nabokov has kept in solution all this time, is finally revealed and crystallised in front of us. Humbert comes to the realisation that perhaps even the most miserable of family lives would have been better than the only thing he had to offer, a "parody of incest".
Towards the end of the novel, Humbert reflects whilst driving to kill Quilty that unless it can be proven to him that it does not matter Dolores Haze has been deprived of her childhood by a manic, there is nothing for "the treatment of my misery but the melancholy and very local palliative of articulate art."
As Humbert reflects on the art that palliates his miseries, I started thinking about the reason for Nabokov to write this book. To this day, two months after I have finished reading, my distress has still not been relieved. One simple explanation does come to mind -- he simply found the story fascinating. The Bizarre relationship between Humbert and Lolita, and the contrast between Europe and America lies at the very heart of the complex and pervasive irony of the tale. The satiric equation that balances Humbert's macabre efforts to be a good father and reading books on child care, and the reality of his relationship with Lo forms the perfect comedy. Sometimes it functions so smoothly that it is invisible. For example, when Humbert speaks to the headmistress of the girls' school and Nabokov enjoys himself at the expense of 'progressive' education. The headmistress' cheerful prattle about getting Lolita to adjust to the group life and the total awareness of the reader of Lo's actual circumstances. The previously imparted knowledge of her "sobs in the night" Nabokov plays so pleasantly at the notion of that 'modern' educator's point of "adjustment to life" and leaving the tragedy of Lolita's life out of the calculation. It only leaves us staring at the vast distance between Lolita and the other happier children.
Perhaps there does not need to be a clear reason for the book, but what the book has proven is clear. The sense of horror is paired uniquely and perfectly in Nabokov's work. Humbert's journey across an immature America is the combination of national life, it is thrown together ludicrously in the story and their relationship becomes so sharp when in contrast to the normal American life. This special book set the example of this small category of satire, the Nabokov has the finest example.
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