{"id":7997,"date":"2011-01-15T13:27:16","date_gmt":"2011-01-15T18:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=7997"},"modified":"2011-01-15T13:27:16","modified_gmt":"2011-01-15T18:27:16","slug":"book-review-lolita-by-vladimir-nabokov","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2011\/01\/book-review-lolita-by-vladimir-nabokov\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Lolita<\/em>, by Vladimir Nabokov"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I’ve (finally!) posted my review of Nabokov’s Lolita<\/em>, over at The Book Book<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

It certainly made for a discomfiting read, on some levels. Anyone with a niece or daughter, as young as the title character or simply once<\/em> that young — and, I’d bet, any one who herself was once that young — will find in its pages plenty to squirm over.<\/p>\n

And yet, there are all those other<\/em> levels: the annoyingly hard-to-resist charms of the voice of the narrator, the protagonist, Lolita’s stepfather (and abuser) Humbert; the lavish stylistic flourishes; the mounting tensions — leading first to the central “Will he or won’t he?” answer and, later, finally “…will he really kill<\/em>? kill whom<\/em>?”<\/p>\n

Of course I’m writing here as a guy — a middle-aged guy, at that — and maybe this alone invalidates all my disclaimers to the contrary. But I have to admit that even while being most horrified, I could also feel a little frisson<\/em> of titillation from time to time. This was especially true early in the book, before the “Will he or won’t be?” question got its (maybe inevitable) answer. It was like inspecting close-up the carapace of what looks from a distance like a beautiful beetle: the ugly hairs and horrible eyes jump out at you, and you almost can’t wait to back off again. It’s a grotesque parody, in a way — a Bruegel<\/a>‘s-eye-view of infatuation.<\/p>\n

(Of course the publisher knows and is quite willing to trade on, to toy with<\/em> this. Just look at that cover from the book’s 50th-anniversary edition. Do you see the horrors of pedophilia there? I don’t, either.)<\/p>\n

Anyway, obviously there’s a lot to feel ambivalent about. If you don’t mind ambivalence and messy morality, love language, and of course haven’t read Lolita<\/em>, you might want to give it a try. Just don’t be surprised if, like me, you can’t imagine yourself ever reading the book again — and being grateful to have read it once<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

O<\/span>n another note, I just wanted to thank everyone for their comments and support regarding our friend “Ashleigh Burrows<\/a>.” (If you haven’t seen it already, please pay a visit to friend Froog’s blog, where he meditated yesterday, movingly, on the interconnectedness of everything<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

For what it’s worth, the last word I have is that a\/b remains in the hospital following last Saturday’s shooting in Tucson, but that her condition has been upgraded to “good.” Of course, that means (among all the really<\/em> good things!) that she’s embarked now on a long and no doubt complicated period of rehabilitation and life-rebuilding.<\/p>\n

We’re thinking of you, girl.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve (finally!) posted my review of Nabokov’s Lolita, over at The Book Book. It certainly made for a discomfiting read, on some levels. Anyone with a niece or daughter, as young as the title character or simply once that young — and, I’d bet, any one who herself was once that young — will find […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,94,5,50,36,266,1905],"tags":[265,331,2124,2155,2157,2167],"class_list":{"0":"post-7997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-02_in-the-news","8":"category-06_writing","9":"category-language-writing_cat","10":"category-reading","11":"category-book-reviews-writing_cat","12":"category-my-kindle","13":"tag-the-book-book","14":"tag-froog","15":"tag-vladimir-nabokov","16":"tag-tucson","17":"tag-ab","18":"tag-lolita","19":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-24Z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7997\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}