Reviews with content warning for Domestic abuse - Lolita

Found it surprisingly engrossing and easy to submerge myself into the protagonist’s mind. Beautifully written, often had to reread passages i had skimmed over in order to fully appreciate the poetry of the descriptions. Thought it was interesting how the protagonist was simultaneously aware of the perversity of his actions and seemed convinced of his own ability to reason it away.

Content Warnings

nabaraditi's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

The rating is not for the book but represents my enjoyment thereof.

I’m in awe the way Vladimir Nobakov has depicted the mind of a human. It’s soooo shocking and mind-blowing. The first 100-150 pages were just amazing.. I was surely going to give it 4 stars. But then the book took a plunge and reading about the roadtrips and… that bored me to DNF it multiple times.

I feel this book should be seen as less to do with Humbert and more about Lolita’s sad life.

Her mother didn’t want her, didn’t treat her well. Her mother’s new husband is in lust with her. She does get raped at age 12. She is controlled by this man. Her even steals her money so that she cannot run away. Blackmails her that if she does tell about he raping her, she’ll end up in the system. He gives her gifts so that she would stay with him, even continue to have sex with him. Once he even paid her to masturbate him. Like it’s really horrible. I also feel she’s not sure what she wants.

This book also gave me an insight on what a paedophile finds attractive in young children.

This book also depicts how men or how society views women in their prime. When women are young like teenagers and in their 20’s, there are men who want to court them and marry them. And the way they are gaslighted and manipulated after or even before marriage. After a decade or two and having children, women in their 40’s and 50’s are considered old and not sexy anymore. This is what I thought of when Humbert starts to see Lolita not being a young pre-pubescent girl anymore. So, I think this book isn’t just about a paedophile who is in love with a 12 year old girl but about men and society and their portrayal of women’s sexuality and women themselves even.

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m0rdred_the_fallen's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

Seré honesto, leí el libro sólo para formarme mi propia opinión sobre el; por lo mismo no lo abandoné, a pesar de que llegó un momento en que pensé "Ugh, aun si estuvieras hablando de una mujer de tu edad, te pediría que pares con el lenguaje tan floreado".
Ahora que lo terminé, puedo decir que entiendo, completamente, porqué es tan controversial pero el lenguaje tan lírico y floreado realmente me molestaron al leerlo. También está el hecho de que, en mi opinión, puedes quitarle un tercio, o hasta dos, del libro y seguiría entendiendose porque HH toma para siempre para hacer cualquier cosa.

Incluso podría centrarse en uno de los viajes a los que HH obliga a Lolita a ir, o el escape de Lolita, o el asesinato de Clare Quilty

Personalmente, fue una lectura pesada, entiendo porqué es polémica, pero no empaticé ni con HH y Lolita no tiene ni voz en el libro así que tampoco me apegué mucho a ella.
El final fue bueno,

por un momento pensé que viviria el resto de sus días impune, atacando otras niñas, así que verlo ir a prisión por asesinato fue un buen giro

también es donde siento que el ritmo fue mucho más llevadero.

Content Warnings

ahh_listen's review against another edition

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dark reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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softly's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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hannah_cook's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Content Warnings

e_hng's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense 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

directorpurry's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

CW: There are so many in this bad boy... Pedophilia and victim blaming, mostly, but also SO MUCH statutory rape, Spoilerdeath of a parent, kidnapping, description of a corpse, stalking.
Updated 2020 rating: 3.5 stars

This is one of a short list of books where I can understand why some school districts and governments choose to ban it. While I find the writing to be absolutely amazing, at times almost breathtaking, the contents contained are questionable at best, atrocious at worst.
At times, Lolita is a book that can feel necessary to defend the reasons why you like it. I'll do my best to explain here:

Not to knock down the high-brow element of my review, but there's a Tumblr joke that has made the rounds about how the opposite of a "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" (usually a film trope character) is a "Depressed Goblin Nightmare Man" and how that is often a trope character of literature.
Not only that, it's often a popular trope character. (I'm looking at you, Erik, from The Phantom of the Opera.) Humbert Humbert is absolutely a "Depressed Goblin Nightmare Man" (DGNM from here on out).
He has combination of what it takes to make a DGNM, such as the cocky attitude. While HH spends most of the book degrading himself as "weak" or non-confrontational, he also spends the majority of the book strutting around like Lolita owes herself to him. Whenever she does something he doesn't like, he emotionally manipulates her into sleeping with him or forgiving him. HH also constantly blames his victims, these "Nymphets," who have done nothing more than behave like themselves, children who have no concept of the way he watches, stalks, and harasses many of them. Although he says he knows what he's doing wrong, HH ultimately places the blame on everyone but himself.

And Nabokov clearly knows what he's doing.
I've often noticed that many writers of "high" literature explore taboo topics far, far past the bounds of normalcy or even understanding. But it takes both an excellent writer and a committed reader to see past the surface topic to find the commentary underneath. Which isn't to say I blame anyone who hates or chooses not to even attempt this book because of the topic - I absolutely understand why people would want to chuck this book off a cliff.
But when I read it, I can see Nabokov's sarcastic attitude behind the words, the way he twists HH's own words against him as a narrator, making him at once unreliable and perfectly believable in his earnestness.
Lolita is clearly a girl suffering intense distress from her, at times, neglectful mother to her constant abuse and rape at the hands of HH. She shows many signs of abused children, from hiding food and money to her acting out in school and losing interest in hobbies.
There are many marks of Nabokov's deep involvement with these characters. I love the way he wrote this terrible book, and his characters are completely fascinating to me.

Additionally, I read this book for the first time just as I graduated high school, when I was personally quite enraptured by man DGNM in media. Outside of school work, this was one of the first "adult" "literature" books I elected to read on my own and I was completely swept away by the writing.
I'd like to think I've matured enough now as a reader to critique HH's status as a DGNM and as a writer to really absorb and understand the craft that went into this novel.
It's hard to say I "like" this book, but I would, perhaps, say I respect it. While perhaps no longer a 5-star because of my more nuanced understanding of the actual topic, rather than reading it when I was, in fact, still a teenager/child myself, the strong writing will always push it close to 4-stars for me.

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