'Lolita,' Vladimir Nabokov's most famous and controversial novel, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Most of all, it is a meditation on love--love as outrage and hallucinations, madness and transformation.
As you may agree, this synopsis is very vague and therefore deceiving. It doesn't exactly tell you that Humbert Humbert is a pedophile with specific lust for 9- to 13-year-old "nymphets"; and it doesn't warn you of cringes, winces and disgusted grunts that might result of getting to know this disturbingly lecherous man. Well, to be fair to the copywriter, "nymphet" is a small clue, but without reading anything else about the book, it's not much of one.
It's difficult to find the right words to comment about the book. Nabokov's prose is beautiful - I would go as far as to say stunning - and if nothing else, his writing alone makes the book worth it. However, he does craft the book very well, incorporating many elements that make the novel more than just controversial. It is great for those interested in clinical therapy or psychology, as it delves into the complications of sexually abusive relationships between an adult and a child. Humbert deceives Dolores into keeping their relationship secret by toying with her fear of abandonment and the law, which many real-life perpetrators do; Dolores's instructors notice the common symptoms of a sexually abused child in Dolores without being able to identify the real problem, a situation that happens all the time today. And it's stunning the way that Nabokov weaves this all into a memoir-style novel.
I hated Humbert throughout the story, and I think Nabokov intended it that way. Who would not be absolutely sickened with the creature for his lusts and his actions, for his horrifying hold over a child's life? He knew it himself that he broke her life the moment he raped her.
There is a moment I'd like to point out. It's long, but please read the entire thing:
On those frosty mornings in rime-laced Quebec, the good priest worked on me with the finest tenderness and understanding. I am infinitely obliged to him and the great Institution he represented. Alas, I was unable to transcend the simple human fact that whatever spiritual solace I might find, whatever lithophanic eternities might be provided for me, nothing could make my Lolita forget the foul lust I had inflicted upon her. Unless it can be proven to me - to me as I am now, today, with my heart and my beard, and my putrefaction - that in the infinite run it does not matter a jot that a North American girl-child named Dolores Haze had been deprived of her childhood by a maniac, unless this can be proven (and if it can, then life is a joke), I see nothing for the treatment of my misery but the melancholy and very local palliative of articulate art. To quote an old poet:
The moral sense in mortals is the duty
We have to pay on mortal sense of beauty.
We often fail to forgive ourselves for the small and big stupid things we've done in our lives. We seek God for forgiveness while failing to see that the biggest obstacle we need to overcome is transcending the world's sense of justice. When it comes to Humbert, I'd be torn myself, since the wrongs he committed were so grievous upon another. But who am I to judge when I am just another sinner? We've seen God transform Saul into Paul, after all. Maybe, if the story did happen, he could have transformed ol' Humbert Humbert. Of course, Humbert could not allow that out of his own understanding of justice. He could not get over the "simple human fact" that "an eye for an eye" just makes more sense.
The most encouraging thing I hear nowadays is when someone says he/she cannot understand grace. Disagree with me if you will, but I think those people are the closest to understanding what grace really is, what the love of Christ is. I myself cannot understand how grace is given from a Just God. It doesn't make any sense! They completely contradict each other! The formula of Christ as the Second Adam and the entire crucifixion story fits, but it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense that someone who has lived a perfect life can save the entire human race. A life for a life, an eye for an eye, now that I can understand. An ultimate sacrifice? That's out of this world.
My friend told me about the Lockerbie convict who was freed to go home and spend his dying days with his family. America is angry about it because it doesn't seem fair that a man who planted a bomb on a plane that killed 270 people should be released, even if he were dying of prostate cancer. Here is the story: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/22/world/europe/22lockerbie.html?_r=1&ref=global-home
It's hard thing to decide, isn't it? From someone who was unaffected by the event, it's easy to admire Scotland's decision, but if my family were killed? Can my compassion come out stronger than my hurt and anger?
It looks like I've been carried away. My ending thoughts: if you think you can handle it, read 'Lolita' (with a dictionary at hand). You might even find yourself yearning for more of these Russian crazies. If it comes to that, definitely check out Fyodor Dostoevsky.
