Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

So I picked up this novel because of the whole idea of the Lolita complex. It seems that many people have heard of the novel but it's one of those things that people refer to but never exactly know what they are actually talking about. It's so widely acknowledged that I felt that I must read it and I'm glad I did.

However, the unfortunate downside to this novel is that I think I missed out on a good 75% of the references that were in French that I couldn't figure out from the context clues or that the narrator simply did not translate. The version of the novel that I had also did not have footnotes (I'm assuming there is a copy that does...) so every single time that Humbert made a reference to something in French, it was just one of those things where I just read it over, tried to figure out what some of the words kind of looked like and then with a sad shake of my head, had to move on. Because of this, there was probably much that I missed in the novel.

With that said, the book in and of itself was a good read. I ended up reading the preface and the author's note at the end and Nabokov is such a compelling writer - even when he's just writing an aside. I actually think his nonfiction (is that what it would be called?) writing is better because it's so much more intellectual... but I liked how the novel played out.

Sadly to say, I actually thought that Lolita was based on a true story. This is so completely untrue. It seems that the novel was incredibly pivotal at the time because no one thought to even write a novel like it and Nabokov complains in his authors note about how the seemingly more "liberal" America didn't want to publish his work. I thought it was really cool how his (in a way) justification for writing Lolita was simply for writing's sake and none other.

To get to the meat of the story, Humbert Humbert was to me a pathetic character with weak willpower. In a way, his character had a relatability that many good characters do because of his weakness to this one flaw. His obviously was socially unacceptable, but I think that what made him a pitiable character was that many people do recognize that they too have some kind of fatal weakness, whether or not they know of it, and whether or not they choose to act on it. With most people, it isn't something terrible and thus they can allow themselves to indulge in such "sinful pleasures" as is so tritely but aptly put. I think that in some ways, while I was reading the novel, I was trying to forgive him for doing what he did but in the end I wasn't able to, even if his character was so pathetic.

Overall, I think that the novel was a good read, but I would hesitate to recommend the novel because of its lewd nature. I can easily imagine a lot of people being put off by the fact that the narrator is essentially a child molester, regardless of whether or not the child was willing.