bookwormerica's review against another edition
5.0
I wanted to dislike this book.
I read it years ago and loved it . I thought I’ve changed and it’s been years maybe this book will be awful to me
Still great. Humbert humbert is an awful awful man. He really is. You know it and even thru his self denial and romanticism of the events ... it’s there.
The book itself is funny and a story that you can’t can’t out of .
I do wish there was a book from los pov
I read it years ago and loved it . I thought I’ve changed and it’s been years maybe this book will be awful to me
Still great. Humbert humbert is an awful awful man. He really is. You know it and even thru his self denial and romanticism of the events ... it’s there.
The book itself is funny and a story that you can’t can’t out of .
I do wish there was a book from los pov
lurkze's review against another edition
challenging
dark
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Pedophilia, Child abuse, Incest, and Sexual content
kateships's review against another edition
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
4.75
This is one of the most beautifully written books I’ve ever read. The subject matter is obviously very difficult to read, but the way the story is written is so immersive and makes your relationship as a reader to the story very complicated. Absolutely NOT a love story in any way. A hard to stomach read as far as content goes, but a book that you can consume because of how wonderfully it’s written. A tough read, but worth it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship
Moderate: Rape
leelulah's review against another edition
2.0
Read for The Literary Life Podcast: 20 for 2020 Reading Challenge.
13.An Intimidating Book You Have Avoided
More because of the taboo topic than because of length. It's really average length, only 216 pages. I've changed to this Penguin edition in order to respect the author's view, which I'll discuss below.
First off, Nabokov has skill. I certainly could never pull this level of English perfection. But also I must say that I have never hated a main character so much as I hate Humbert Humbert, and it's not just the pedophilia but the lengths he goes to justify it, ranging from misogyny to self pity to dehumanization of his victims.
I don't want to rate it higher than two stars, under the fear it would seem that I'm praising even the fictional narrative of a pedophile. Many people talk about the character being persuasive and repulsive at the same time but if you read the idiotic excuses he puts forward, you wouldn't believe it. At least this is what happened to me, here's a sample:
2) He was stupid in matters of love and sex
3) He even made use of prostitutes, trying really hard to be good (cause women are holes so that he doesn't get near to the kids, a 16 yo is fair game)
4) It has been normal across societies, Rahab was a harlot since 10.
5) The girls in question are not human but demonic nymphettes unaware of their powers on men with large age gaps.
6) He even thought marriage would cure him (cause women are holes so that he doesn't get near to the kids), so he chose a woman who acted childlishly until she left him for another man.
7) He's attractive and even to little girls.
8) The world is unfar to him because he cannot pursue a 12 year old at 25 (he's way older and his margins of 9 to 14).
9) His first "love", a girl of the same age, decidedly was one of these demonic creatures
10) Dolores Haze (which I won't call Lolita, because see, we're seeing things from the rapist's perspective, even conceeding him this pleasur sounds wrong) seduced him.
11) He has gone to therapy to no avail
12) They are preferrable to real adult women and provoke more bliss sexually speaking, so normal sexuality is "vanilla".
11) He masturbates to her at first and does not take away her virginity, cause touching a minor inappropiately leaves them unharmed. Really, he tries hard to preserve her inocence but still uses her as his personal sex toy, this is too akin to child pornography justifiers "they're smiling, it's not wrong"
12) At least he's not a murderer, just an awkward and shy, poor, persecuted man
13) If she's asleep it's not rape
14) The idea that purity is debunked by science.
Well, you get the gist.
Now, if you've read through the spoiler, you'll find out these are not much different from "MAPS" ("minor attracted persons", the audacity!) self justifying on Twitter, or pornography addicts wishing women were like this or like "anime girls".
His obsessive speeches about his agonies and progresses, besides the obvious fact of conjuring up what we have in front of us as readers, a predator, are deeply reminiscent of two things 1) incels writing fantasy posts about inaccessible women, and 2) modern romance novels who think this is an accurate depiction of masculinity, a supposedly "helpless" lust.
I've tried to read a fair share of articles and data before I embarked on this, determined to finish the novel, and I came across the factoid that Nabokov wanted us to empathize with Humbert. It's simply not true. Why would people make up something like that? One does not know, but I simply cannot understand.
The fact that Nabokov refused to representations of the girl should be addressed as well: "I want pure colors, melting clouds, accurately drawn details, a sunburst above a receding road with the light reflected in furrows and ruts, after rain. And no girls.… Who would be capable of creating a romantic, delicately drawn, non-Freudian and non-juvenile, picture for Lolita (a dissolving remoteness, a soft American landscape, a nostalgic highway—that sort of thing)? There is one subject which I am emphatically opposed to: any kind of representation of a little girl."
Furthermore, Nabokov says: Lolita isn’t a perverse young girl. She’s a poor child who has been debauched and whose senses never stir under the caresses of the foul Humbert Humbert, whom she asks once, “how long did [he] think we were going to live in stuffy cabins, doing filthy things together…?” [...] It is equally interesting to dwell, as journalists say, on the problem of the inept degradation that the character of the nymphet Lolita, whom I invented in 1955, has undergone in the mind of the broad public. Not only has the perversity of this poor child been grotesquely exaggerated, but her physical appearance, her age, everything has been transformed by the illustrations in foreign publications. Girls of eighteen or more, sidewalk kittens, cheap models, or simple long-legged criminals, are baptized “nymphets” or “Lolitas” in news stories in magazines in Italy, France, Germany, etc; and the covers of translations, Turkish or Arab, reach the height of ineptitude when they feature a young woman with opulent contours and a blonde mane imagined by boobies who have never read my book.
In reality Lolita is a little girl of twelve, whereas Humbert Humbert is a mature man, and it’s the abyss between his age and that of the little girl that produces the vacuum, the vertigo, the seduction of mortal danger. Secondly, it’s the imagination of the sad satyr that makes a magic creature of this little American schoolgirl, as banal and normal in her way as the poet manqué Humbert is in his. Outside the maniacal gaze of Humbert there is no nymphet. Lolita the nymphet exists only through the obsession that destroys Humbert. Herein an essential aspect of a unique book that has been betrayed by a factitious popularity." (full article here)
While most of us are terrible sinners to a great degree, me included, I'm not going to feel sympathy for this pathetic excuse to ruin someone's life. I don't care that Humbert is fictional, I couldn't possibly say something like "oh, I can empathize with pedos so as long as they're well articulated". See, this is part of their tricks to get access to children. This prose is not beautiful, it's disgusting because it's some long verbal diahrrea of justification. I mean we're talking about someone unafraid to.
With Nabokov saying it has no moral at first he had to come through all these clarifications in a Baudelaire-Wilde sort of way, because of course, all the sorts of projection criticisms he loathed came for him. I'm under the impression that Goodreads' stars are for enjoyment, and I personally *see* the point, I just wish to read no more. I read the whole thing and while the end is somewhat satisfactory... I just wish to read no more about little girls being completely destroyed.
Fun "feminist" game: read between the lines and see the child's suffering, come on.
13.An Intimidating Book You Have Avoided
More because of the taboo topic than because of length. It's really average length, only 216 pages. I've changed to this Penguin edition in order to respect the author's view, which I'll discuss below.
First off, Nabokov has skill. I certainly could never pull this level of English perfection. But also I must say that I have never hated a main character so much as I hate Humbert Humbert, and it's not just the pedophilia but the lengths he goes to justify it, ranging from misogyny to self pity to dehumanization of his victims.
I don't want to rate it higher than two stars, under the fear it would seem that I'm praising even the fictional narrative of a pedophile. Many people talk about the character being persuasive and repulsive at the same time but if you read the idiotic excuses he puts forward, you wouldn't believe it. At least this is what happened to me, here's a sample:
Spoiler
1) He was a law abiding citizen for as long as he could2) He was stupid in matters of love and sex
3) He even made use of prostitutes, trying really hard to be good (cause women are holes so that he doesn't get near to the kids, a 16 yo is fair game)
4) It has been normal across societies, Rahab was a harlot since 10.
5) The girls in question are not human but demonic nymphettes unaware of their powers on men with large age gaps.
6) He even thought marriage would cure him (cause women are holes so that he doesn't get near to the kids), so he chose a woman who acted childlishly until she left him for another man.
7) He's attractive and even to little girls.
8) The world is unfar to him because he cannot pursue a 12 year old at 25 (he's way older and his margins of 9 to 14).
9) His first "love", a girl of the same age, decidedly was one of these demonic creatures
10) Dolores Haze (which I won't call Lolita, because see, we're seeing things from the rapist's perspective, even conceeding him this pleasur sounds wrong) seduced him.
11) He has gone to therapy to no avail
12) They are preferrable to real adult women and provoke more bliss sexually speaking, so normal sexuality is "vanilla".
11) He masturbates to her at first and does not take away her virginity, cause touching a minor inappropiately leaves them unharmed. Really, he tries hard to preserve her inocence but still uses her as his personal sex toy, this is too akin to child pornography justifiers "they're smiling, it's not wrong"
12) At least he's not a murderer, just an awkward and shy, poor, persecuted man
13) If she's asleep it's not rape
14) The idea that purity is debunked by science.
Well, you get the gist.
Now, if you've read through the spoiler, you'll find out these are not much different from "MAPS" ("minor attracted persons", the audacity!) self justifying on Twitter, or pornography addicts wishing women were like this or like "anime girls".
His obsessive speeches about his agonies and progresses, besides the obvious fact of conjuring up what we have in front of us as readers, a predator, are deeply reminiscent of two things 1) incels writing fantasy posts about inaccessible women, and 2) modern romance novels who think this is an accurate depiction of masculinity, a supposedly "helpless" lust.
I've tried to read a fair share of articles and data before I embarked on this, determined to finish the novel, and I came across the factoid that Nabokov wanted us to empathize with Humbert. It's simply not true. Why would people make up something like that? One does not know, but I simply cannot understand.
The fact that Nabokov refused to representations of the girl should be addressed as well: "I want pure colors, melting clouds, accurately drawn details, a sunburst above a receding road with the light reflected in furrows and ruts, after rain. And no girls.… Who would be capable of creating a romantic, delicately drawn, non-Freudian and non-juvenile, picture for Lolita (a dissolving remoteness, a soft American landscape, a nostalgic highway—that sort of thing)? There is one subject which I am emphatically opposed to: any kind of representation of a little girl."
Furthermore, Nabokov says: Lolita isn’t a perverse young girl. She’s a poor child who has been debauched and whose senses never stir under the caresses of the foul Humbert Humbert, whom she asks once, “how long did [he] think we were going to live in stuffy cabins, doing filthy things together…?” [...] It is equally interesting to dwell, as journalists say, on the problem of the inept degradation that the character of the nymphet Lolita, whom I invented in 1955, has undergone in the mind of the broad public. Not only has the perversity of this poor child been grotesquely exaggerated, but her physical appearance, her age, everything has been transformed by the illustrations in foreign publications. Girls of eighteen or more, sidewalk kittens, cheap models, or simple long-legged criminals, are baptized “nymphets” or “Lolitas” in news stories in magazines in Italy, France, Germany, etc; and the covers of translations, Turkish or Arab, reach the height of ineptitude when they feature a young woman with opulent contours and a blonde mane imagined by boobies who have never read my book.
In reality Lolita is a little girl of twelve, whereas Humbert Humbert is a mature man, and it’s the abyss between his age and that of the little girl that produces the vacuum, the vertigo, the seduction of mortal danger. Secondly, it’s the imagination of the sad satyr that makes a magic creature of this little American schoolgirl, as banal and normal in her way as the poet manqué Humbert is in his. Outside the maniacal gaze of Humbert there is no nymphet. Lolita the nymphet exists only through the obsession that destroys Humbert. Herein an essential aspect of a unique book that has been betrayed by a factitious popularity." (full article here)
While most of us are terrible sinners to a great degree, me included, I'm not going to feel sympathy for this pathetic excuse to ruin someone's life. I don't care that Humbert is fictional, I couldn't possibly say something like "oh, I can empathize with pedos so as long as they're well articulated". See, this is part of their tricks to get access to children. This prose is not beautiful, it's disgusting because it's some long verbal diahrrea of justification. I mean we're talking about someone unafraid to
Spoiler
marry and kill or the very least give a sleeping potion a woman to rape his own stepdaughter in the child's sleep as well, he even admits having to imagine his wife as a child to be attracted to her, and be "okay with a child aging" so as long as he can have a child with her and have another child to rape all over again (don't come at me with "it's jUsT fAnTaSy")With Nabokov saying it has no moral at first he had to come through all these clarifications in a Baudelaire-Wilde sort of way, because of course, all the sorts of projection criticisms he loathed came for him. I'm under the impression that Goodreads' stars are for enjoyment, and I personally *see* the point, I just wish to read no more. I read the whole thing and while the end is somewhat satisfactory... I just wish to read no more about little girls being completely destroyed.
Fun "feminist" game: read between the lines and see the child's suffering, come on.
mihknael's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
thenameistheworstpart's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Child abuse, Toxic relationship, and Rape
Minor: Death of parent and Car accident
semilee0's review against another edition
2.0
This book was so hard to get through. If I weren't reading it for a class, I would have given up. It is undeniably beautiful writing... but it just is so icky and gross. Nabokov's mind, while intriguing and creative, is terrifying.
robynmiller's review against another edition
this is the third time I've tried reading this thing, and I just can't do it! This man repulses me on so many levels... Uggg
natalie10224's review against another edition
challenging
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
oryx_and_crake's review against another edition
3.0
Great writing, gross story. Definitely a new perspective on a subject, but hard to sit through reading from the peso POV. Also the non-pedo plot was pretty thin... bleh