It's no use, he sees her
He starts to shake and cough
Just like the old man in
That book by Nabokov.
-The Police, "Don't Stand So Close to Me"
Not My Usual Fare
I think anyone who follows my reviews knows that my usual literary tastes lean toward politics and history. After Red Famine though, and amid the tumult of escaping from Russia's invasion of Ukraine (an invasion I myself felt certain would not happen, until it did), I was ready for something lighter. Plus, it occurred to me that I had not read a single work of fiction (unless you count Chinese propaganda, ha ha) Since Three Kingdoms in the Summer of 2019. So when I saw Nabokov's notoriously scandalous almost-true-crime novel, Lolita, at Leksikon Bookstore here in Warsaw, I picked it up basically on a whim (1).
The first thing most people think of when they hear the name "Lolita" is the English slang term for a younger girl, usually a minor, who is romantically or sexually involved (often, but not always, against her will) with a far older man. Just for clarification, yes, this book is, in fact, where that term comes from. What I didn't know is that it's actually (probably) based on the real-life case of Sally Horner. I also didn't know that there had been a movie (nay, two movies; one in 1962 and one in 1997) made from it. Going into the book I knew little about it other than it being the source of the above-mentioned slang.
I'll say this. It was far different from what I expected.
Bah! Humbert!
I think I was expecting the book to center around an older professor who found himself wrestling with what he knew was an unhealthy attraction to a teen girl who was (probably deliberately) seducing him, and to shake my head at how the saucy young tart wears him down over the course of the book before finally indulging in a brief tryst and then losing interest and moving on to someone else, much to the chagrin of a now-heartbroken old man. To the contrary, the principal protagonist, Humbert Humbert, does not "wrestle" with his pedophilic tendencies at all. He rather flatly confesses them from the very beginning and his plea to his readers (or rather, the jury at his trial) to have these tendencies accepted and not held against him, is a running theme throughout the book.
Having watched the 1997 movie immediately after finishing the book, I will say that the director goes to admirable lengths (in his decisions of which scenes to use and which ones to cut out) in his attempt to cast Humbert as an at least semi-sympathetic character. Watching Jeremy Irons play out his doomed love affair with his forbidden-crush-turned-stepdaughter, Delores "Lolita" Haze (who, by the way, is two years younger in the book than in the movie; their first night at the Enchanted Hunters Hotel occurs when she is 12), one is left with the tongue-in-cheek thought "he'd be a swell guy, if he wasn't a pedophilic creepasaurus." In the book, this is most definitely not the case. From his contemplation (and near carrying out) of the murder of Delores's mother, Charlotte (p. 92 & 93), to his plan to keep Delores drugged and sedated in order to have his pleasure from her with impunity (p. 136), to the way he decides his young paramour has gotten "too old for him (at the ripe age of 14 years)" and toys with the idea of slipping across the Mexican border to "decide what to do with" her there (p. 220) -and of course Nabokov leaves the reader to wonder whether he is speaking of quietly murdering her or selling her to a brothel- Humbert's twisted and sadistic nature comes through in nearly every line. Indeed, the notion that this is a love story (as critics seem determined to call it) dies a little more with every page, just as the protagonist's young victim does. By page 303, Humbert recalls an incident where it is obvious to the reader, though not to him, that Lolita was contemplating suicide as her only escape and indeed the opportunity to do so puts a smile on her face, which vanishes when the knife that has given her the idea is taken from her reach.
Indeed, it is not until near the end of the novel when Humbert finally begins to show remorse for the ordeal to which he subjected his stepdaughter/concubine, and even then it only begins to dawn on him when thinking about (of all the random things) what a champion tennis player she could have been.
[Y]et I insist that had not something within her been broken by me - not that I realized it then! - she would have had on top of her perfect form the will to win, and would have become a real girl champion.
p. 246, emphasis by reviewer
And even then, after finally arriving at the realization that he has deprived the young object of his lusts ("object" here having an interesting duality of meaning that the protagonist would likely appreciate) of her childhood (though not her virtue; that was lost to a rival before our friendly neighborhood deviant could even pounce, as Humbert discovers when Lo confesses she's been "revoltingly unfaithful" to him at Camp Q (p. 119)), Humbert downplays the magnitude of his crime, claiming he should be sentenced to 35 years for rape and other charges should be dismissed (p. 327).
Though in his defense, he does FINALLY go through an atonement arc, complete with a duel-to-the-death with a rival who is perfect for the part.
Last Dance With the Devil in the Mirror
Humbert's arch-nemesis, present from the beginning but not out of the shadows until near the end, is the eccentric playwright Clare Quilty. Quilty shares all of Humbert's vices and then some, and rather than hiding them in the dark, he flaunts them openly, which he is able to get away with due to his vast wealth and the blackmail material he has against everyone with authority. Think of him as a more cultured Jeffrey Epstein with a mustache and an Old-World accent. He makes a perfect foil for Humbert not because he is Humbert's opposite, but because he is everything Humbert, in his darkest and most depraved moments, wishes he could be.
While Humbert has caged (well, mostly caged) the beast of his own pedophilic nature, Quilty owns a massive estate where he feeds that beast and indulges it wantonly, surrounded by a revolving door of youths who satisfy his every amorous whim (male, female, animal, vegetable or mineral). In fact, long before Humbert and Lo embark upon their journey of what Humbert refuses to name until Lolita -who is still enjoying the game at that point- casually clarifies "the word is incest (p. 127)," Quilty was already lurking on the periphery of her life and ready to pluck her at his leisure (p. 289). In a single sentence, Quilty is Humbert, but more successful. It is this fact which does the virtually impossible, by giving Humbert an atonement arc in both the literal AND symbolic sense.
In literature, there are three elements of penance for a protagonist: remorse, sacrifice, and struggle. The first, Humbert finds easily enough. It's not until late in the novel when he musters the Humanity to see how he has harmed Lolita and regret it.
I looked and looked at her, and knew as clearly as I know I am to die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else.
(p. 294)
What I used to pamper among the tangled vines of my heart... had dwindled to its essence: sterile and selfish vice, all that I cancelled and cursed. You may jeer me, and threaten to clear the court, but until I am gagged and half-throttled, I will shout my poor truth. I insist the world know how much I loved my Lolita...
(p. 295)
I loved you. I was a pentapod monster, but I loved you. I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t'amais, je t'aimais! And there were times when I knew how you felt, and it was hell to know it, my little one.
(p. 302)
The second (sacrifice) comes from the jury to which Humbert addresses the entire novel in his narration. It's essentially understood that he is to die in prison for what he has done, and despite the above-mentioned quibbling (he admits guilt in rape but seems never to grasp that this is made worse by the fact that it was rape of a child), he seems to accept this.
But the third? This does not come until the showdown at Quilty's manor, where Humbert finally puts the pistol he has carried with him throughout most of the book to its one and only instance of good use. In truth, the scene is rather pathetic, and the movie does a fine job of capturing this, making the struggle seem almost comical as two arthritic old men, one with enough of his parts showing to earn the movie it's 'R' rating if it had not already gotten it, wrestle over a .38 airweight, which for some reason leaves bullet-holes more indicative of a Desert Eagle .45. In the book, the protagonist describes it akin to the barfight in a Western, giving it a great deal more grandeur than it seems entitled to. Yet, nonetheless, when all is said and done, it is Clare Quilty who lies dead, in the same bed where he debauched countless children (including the already well-deflowered Lolita), under Herbert's gun. In this moment, when the embodiment of all Herbert's sins (embodied and magnified) dies in such a pathetically ironic Golgotha, Herbert has, in a very real sense, struggled with his darker self and emerged victorious.
I did not say "vindicated." But victorious.
So Who Should Read It?
I loved a woman who I was forbidden to have. I loved her too intensely, and in doing so, I doomed myself to hurt her, and destroy myself, and lose her.
I'd be quite surprised if there's a man on this Earth who cannot think of a time when those few sentences have been his story, and if there is, he either has ice water running through his veins or is too young to have fallen in love yet. And once you get past the fact that the reason Herbert's particular love was forbidden is the fact that physicians could debate for hours over whether she was yet qualified to be called a woman at all (no small mental obstacle, given the particular social stigma which, in Western culture particularly, surrounds carnal relations with juveniles), Herbert's story does, after its serpentine twists, arrive at precisely this point. The narrator's triple-helix of love, loss, and regret will resonate with any man who has lost, through his own misdeeds, a woman who carried his heart with her when she left, and it does so in a far more cultured manner than the annoying twang of a Country-Western ballad.
To the highbrow reader looking for "erotica with plausible deniability," the book delivers this as well by having just enough satirical points to make that are clear and explicit in between sexual encounters that (usually) are not. Though I'll warn ANY prospective reader ahead of time, polish up your Latin and especially your French before tackling it. When the bookflap says it was originally published in English, there is enough of those two languages in it to earn an asterisk after the word "English."
For good or ill, it does seem to be an important examination of the state of society in its time, the "Candide of the mid-20th century," if you will. The use of symbols, foreshadowing and callbacks is exquisite enough to do to any aspiring writer what the sight of a nymphet's leg does to Humbert, and there are just enough "that's not quite how it's supposed to happen" moments (such as the fact that it is Lolita, not Humbert, who brazenly makes the first move, and the next several after it) to keep the reader grinning knowingly and shaking their head. Whatever your tastes, I'm forced to grudgingly agree with Humbert Humbert on one point: Lolita is worth cracking open, at least once.
...Now get your brain out of the gutter.
(1) Post-Script Note: my girlfriend, who is significantly younger than me and has made use of that fact to give me unmitigated Hell since she saw this book in my hand, read this sentence and burst into uproarious laughter. "Oh, you picked up Lolita on a whim, did you? And tell me, Humbert: where did you take her?" To which I replied in annoyance, "Poland, apparently. Perhaps I should have left her in Ramsd... er, Kharkiv."