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A review by shorshewitch
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
5.0
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
My rating: 4.5/5
I read this one a couple of months back but couldn't bring myself to review it. I was abashed about actually liking a book which had so much wrongdoing in it. I shunned it out of my mind, cringing that I might start thinking of myself as immoral. And then a candid post on another group from a younger girl about she liking this book prompted me to think why I ended up liking it. I liked it because of the talent of the writer, in spite of the plot being harsh. I thought hard, over and over again, disturbed, scandalized, and then I figured out finally and hence this review.
Humbert Humbert is a criminal and he knows he is one. And he does everything to project himself as not being one. Dolores alias Lolita, is a troubled 12-year old living with her Mother. What construes between them is a horrific tale of naivety and sexuality. People who know a little about this book know that the narrator is Humbert. He has looks and intelligence in equal proportions. But he has this dysfunctional sexual preference for younger girls. He knows it is a malign but he claims of not being able to help it. He showers Dolores with gifts and in turn gets her to do things she hasn't explicitly denied doing (so he presumes it is consensual) because she might not even have an idea of what she was into. Her troubled childhood can be attributed to this.
The concept is gross. The subject is terrifying especially when you have little girls playing around in your house and you are defied by the fact that they can be hounded into this hell while you would be oblivious to it. But you also know after reading the book that you have to deal with it if you have to save them.
Vladimir Nabokov has displayed this eerie ability of portraying a downright evil man as a lyrical story-teller. The book deals with a sexual subject and yet it doesn't get gruesomely sexual, such are the words and sentences used all over. And the end is not what you had ever expected it to be. It changes the entire course of the book. Although it doesn't cease entirely to haunt you, it amazed me how I despised the narrator in the entire book and yet, the author, after all this sheer loathing inside me, managed to create a soft spot for the villain too, right on the last page of the book. What I liked about this book was this uncanny skill of the author! It is a tough job to make diaboloical sound harmonious and yet not deny that inspite of this it is filthy.
I am glad I could get through this book, merely because we can no longer run away from this brutal face of the society we live in.
A few quotes worth a mention:
You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.
Perhaps, somewhere, some day, at a less miserable time, we may see each other again.
You know, what's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own.
-Just some. I can't seem to forget that most of them came from the abuser. So only some.
My rating: 4.5/5
I read this one a couple of months back but couldn't bring myself to review it. I was abashed about actually liking a book which had so much wrongdoing in it. I shunned it out of my mind, cringing that I might start thinking of myself as immoral. And then a candid post on another group from a younger girl about she liking this book prompted me to think why I ended up liking it. I liked it because of the talent of the writer, in spite of the plot being harsh. I thought hard, over and over again, disturbed, scandalized, and then I figured out finally and hence this review.
Humbert Humbert is a criminal and he knows he is one. And he does everything to project himself as not being one. Dolores alias Lolita, is a troubled 12-year old living with her Mother. What construes between them is a horrific tale of naivety and sexuality. People who know a little about this book know that the narrator is Humbert. He has looks and intelligence in equal proportions. But he has this dysfunctional sexual preference for younger girls. He knows it is a malign but he claims of not being able to help it. He showers Dolores with gifts and in turn gets her to do things she hasn't explicitly denied doing (so he presumes it is consensual) because she might not even have an idea of what she was into. Her troubled childhood can be attributed to this.
The concept is gross. The subject is terrifying especially when you have little girls playing around in your house and you are defied by the fact that they can be hounded into this hell while you would be oblivious to it. But you also know after reading the book that you have to deal with it if you have to save them.
Vladimir Nabokov has displayed this eerie ability of portraying a downright evil man as a lyrical story-teller. The book deals with a sexual subject and yet it doesn't get gruesomely sexual, such are the words and sentences used all over. And the end is not what you had ever expected it to be. It changes the entire course of the book. Although it doesn't cease entirely to haunt you, it amazed me how I despised the narrator in the entire book and yet, the author, after all this sheer loathing inside me, managed to create a soft spot for the villain too, right on the last page of the book. What I liked about this book was this uncanny skill of the author! It is a tough job to make diaboloical sound harmonious and yet not deny that inspite of this it is filthy.
I am glad I could get through this book, merely because we can no longer run away from this brutal face of the society we live in.
A few quotes worth a mention:
You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.
Perhaps, somewhere, some day, at a less miserable time, we may see each other again.
You know, what's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own.
-Just some. I can't seem to forget that most of them came from the abuser. So only some.