Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

Warning: Spoilers Ahead!

Love is rarely worthy of a chronicle if it is not cheeky, blasphemous, unexpected, life-altering, I wrote in my review of Memories of my melancholy whores. I guess I should have reserved that judgment, for it probably holds more true for a book that is far more engaging, stirring, and famous, (or notorious, depending on which school of psychology you subscribe to). A book that has been discussed by every critic, psychologist and reader who has loved it or hated it, but couldn’t ignore it. A book that had such powerful ramifications in the literary world, that it sparked numerous controversies on the topics it dealt with – love, pedophilia, betrayal, revenge, among many others.

A book called Lolita.

Books of this genre (and there are not many of them), often find it hard to tread the thin line of separation between tasteless, scandalizing erotica, and ground-breaking literature. Lolita was assigned to the fate of former genre, until Graham Greene rescued it from obscurity, and elevated it to the heights most books can only aspire to reach. Over a period of time, it became to English literature what The Interpretation of dreams did to Psychology. Today it is considered as one of the most important works of all time (top 100 works by TIME magazine; fourth greatest novel by Modern Library), and for all the right reasons (including its subject matter). Such is its impact, that because of this book, the term Lolita, meaning “a nymphet” or “a seductive adolescent girl” has become a ubiquitous term in colloquial and literary language (although it is often erroneously used to refer to a young temptress).

Dolores, or Lolita, is introduced as the “the light of my life, the fire of my loins”, by the middle-aged narrator Humbert Humbert (yes that’s Humbert twice) – a Parisian scholar, who’s moved to U.S after his marriage has succumbed to the fate most mindless unions submit to. It was after the death of his childhood love Anabel though, that Humbert had developed a strange disease – a certain bulimia for nymphets – “maidens between the age of nine and fourteen…not human but nymphic (or demoniac)”, as he describes them. Wherever he goes, his eyes follow those “slightly feline outline of a cheekbone, the slenderness of a downy limb”, creating “bubbles of hot poison in [his] loins and super-voluptuous flame permanently aglow in [his] subtle spine.” The respite from his farce of a marriage and an avuncular letter from the U.S promising him a little fortune make him consider relocating and starting over a new leaf.

So Mr. Humbert packs his bags for U.S, and lands up at the doorstep of a certain Charlotte Haze – a middle aged widow with a penchant for decorum. As fate would have it, she has a daughter of twelve, a petite fille fatale, named Dolores, in whom Humbert has found the queen of his perverted kingdom of Nymphetville. While Humbert is burning in the agonizing fire of love, passion and lust for his Lolita, Charlotte Haze is falling head over heels for the [deceptively] quiet and pensive Humbert. Overwhelmed by her feelings, when Haze confesses her love for him, “throwing open her poor, bruised heart”, the desperate Humbert, who’d sell his soul to have Lolita in his lascivious embrace, grabs the opportunity with both hands. After all, what better way to get a moral license to touch his Lolita! As for the mother, she can be exterminated later.

Fortunately for him, he doesn’t have to dirty his hands with someone else’s blood – fate takes care of it for him and leaves him as the sole guardian of Lolita. Ah, how blessed our Humbert feels now that he has the only one thing he ever wanted! He doesn’t waste any moment and embarks on a journey across the country with the object of his affections, satiating his carnal appetite night after night with the unwilling, but compliant nymphet in countless motels in countless cities. As his obsessive love grows with time, he becomes more controlling and possessive of Lolita, who does not return his affections, but doesn’t rebel either. His paranoia about the divulgence of his dirty little secret and Lolita’s erratic attitude take over him as he follows his “pet” around everywhere and hardly gives her any space.

His insanity increases in magnitude over time, as he starts planning for the future. At one point he starts thinking of “producing a nymphet with [his] blood in her exquisite veins, Lolita the second”, who in turn will bear him Lolita the third. Such abominable thoughts take over him while he becomes blind to the developments in Lolita’s lives. He is shattered soon when Lolita manages to free herself from his clutches by running away with a playwright. Hunting for them like a mad dog but failing in his quest, Humbert finally gives up and spends days aimlessly drowning himself in her thoughts.

Finally, few years later, he gets a letter from his stepdaughter-cum-lover, telling him that she going through a financial crisis and needs some money to move to Alaska for a better future with her husband. Humbert eventually lands up at her doorstep, and learns about why she betrayed him. He doesn’t harm her of course since he truly loves her and begs her to come back to him, but she refuses, breaking his heart by telling him that she never felt anything for him. A broken Humbert leaves, but he still has one last task – to destroy the man who stole his Lolita away from him. After his crime, he is presumably incarcerated, as Lolita is basically his account of his obsession, written while he was in prison.

So what is it about Lolita that makes it so legendary, yet controversial? Can it be called a love story way ahead of its time? Or is it merely the revelations of a demented man who’s so blinded by his obsession that he’s blissfully ignorant of the irreversible damage he’s causing to another? Or is it, as many readers have speculated, a story about “old Europe debauching a young America?” Literary vigilantes would argue that Lolita is sheer sexual trash, trying to glorify a pervert’s amoral feelings for a child old enough to be his daughter. However, that deduction would be a unidimensional interpretation devoid of any perspicacity. Now, ladies and gentleman of the Jury (like our Humbert addresses the readers), let me first assure you that I do not endorse pedophilia in any form, lest I cook up a storm by calling this an “inspiring” tale of forbidden love (Important to note here that Vanity Fair called it a convincing love story). But if love could be contained within the confines of reason or morals, it would be stripped of its magical intensity. To a man burning in the fires of a passion and obsession, reason or morals were just two words. Like any paramour, he yearns for her touch, her caress and her small confessions betraying an iota for love for him, but somehow they never come, and he knows why.

It may also be important to understand where Humbert’s predilection for nymphets stems from - It is insinuated that it may have its origin in Anabel, “that little girl with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue [who] haunted [him] ever since.” Coasting along in her memories, he was at some level waiting for his Anabel, who was taken away from him, “until at last, twenty four years later, [he] broke her spell by incarnating her in another.” In Lolita, he saw his Anabel, and started off with her from where he left with Anabel.

Of course, there is no denying the degeneracy of his actions. Neither Nabokov, nor his villainous Humbert justify or defend them. His passionate intercourses often end with orgasmic pangs of guilt

– he knows what he’s doing is wrong yet his heart is enslaved to its amoral cravings. After his final rendezvous with Lolita, he recounts how, let alone as a human being, he was disturbingly pathetic as a lover, as he is engulfed with the realization that “she had been deprived of a childhood by a maniac.” It becomes clear to him how he was unjust and cruel to a child and how he took every ounce of existence away from her to satiate his carnal and emotional needs. Oh, how he could absolve himself of all his sins by just falling at her feet and begging for forgiveness…Only, she is far too removed to look down or hear his pleading cries. Redemption doesn’t come to everyone.

A work so profound to read, Lolita could only be a such a beauty because of its creator – an immensely talented auteur who has the authority over words so strong that he is incapable of making a boring statement. It is a sheer lingual delight in ways more than one – Vladimir Nabokov shows us how language can make a trite story exceptional. With his impeccable handling of the English language (his second language), he has carved a sheer sensual masterpiece out of what could have been a rubble of a sexual gibberish coming from a demented character out of a porno novel. Never at any point of the book, do the descriptions sound risqué or frivolous. He has also infused this otherwise tragic tale with sufficient humor while employing various innovative linguistic devices (like sparse use of French, literary puns and figures), and twisting the language to his convenience. Consider this part where a reluctant Humbert prepares for his “nightly duty” with Mrs. Humbert:

“and when by the means of pitiful ardent, naively lascivious caresses, she of the noble nipple and massive thighs prepared me for the performance of my nightly duty, it was still a nymphet’s scent that in despair I tried to pick up, as I bayed through the undergrowth of dark decaying forests…” - Sheer genius!

It took a while for the world to recognize the brilliance of this book, but it came around to it. This book’s journey from obscurity to unsurpassed fame is a story in itself. According to Nabokov, the response from four publishers (who rejected it) ranged from naive to ludicrous. One of the publisher reader wanted Lolita to be turned into a 12-year old lad and Humbert into a farmer! Another could not get around to finishing the book as it was too long. One publisher could not digest the absence of “good” characters in the book, while another gentleman feared imprisonment if the book was published by him. In addition, the book endured ban by the French Government, but was ultimately published by a small French Press. It was not until Graham Greene called it one of the best books, that it got a taste of recognition it truly deserved. God bless the soul of this savior; but for his verdict, Lolita would have been languishing in a basement of some European house, and the literary world would have lost out on one of its invaluable crown jewels!