Lolita was sent off to publishers in 1954 and first published in 1955. In these 2 years Nabokov collected a certain amount of readers’ feedback, which did somewhat surprise him. In 1956, he wrote an essay “On a book entitled Lolita”. In this essay, one can find a divination, or a foretelling, on how one will perceive Lolita if one rereads it several times. Caveat: re-readings must be at least 7-10 years apart :).
I first read Lolita in my teens, being close enough to Lolita’s age. What happened then is what Nabokov describes in this passage of his essay:
Certain techniques in the beginning of Lolita (Humbert’s Journal, for example) misled some of my first readers into assuming that this was going to be a lewd book. They expected the rising succession of erotic scenes; when these stopped, the readers
‘stopped, too, and felt bored and let down.
Lolita is not a lewd book by any stretch of imagination. But it is profoundly erotic. It is also one of the pinnacles of linguistic esthetics, for sure. Its language is exceptionally refined and delicious.
Rabbit-hole. Mind you, Nabokov’s native language is Russian. But he wrote Lolita in English first and then rewrote it in Russian. So, the English Lolita is NOT a translation. Not even an auto-translation. It is the original.
Now, imagine erotic scenes written in this exquisite, refined, allegorical, and yet clear way. Actually, why imagine? Find the “couch scene” and read it:
Let her stay, let her stay . . . As she strained to chuck the core of her abolished apple into the fender, her young weight, her shameless innocent shanks and round bottom, shifted in my tense, tortured, surreptitiously laboring lap; and all of a sudden a mysterious change came over my senses. I entered a plane of being where nothing mattered, save the infusion of joy brewed within my body. What had begun as a delicious distention of my innermost roots became a glowing tingle which now had reached that state of absolute security, confidence and reliance not found elsewhere in conscious life. With the deep hot sweetness thus established and well on its way to the ultimate convulsion, I felt I could slow down in order to prolong the glow. Lolita had been safely solipsized. The implied sun pulsated in the supplied poplars; we were fantastically and divinely alone; I watched her, rosy, gold-dusted, beyond the veil of my controlled delight, unaware of it, alien to it, and the sun was on her lips, and her lips were apparently still forming the words of the Carmen-barmen ditty that no longer reached my consciousness.
No wonder readers are mesmerized by the eroticism, and, when it dwindles in the second half of the book, so does some readers’ interest. During my first reading of Lolita, I devoured the first part and then just skipped through the second. What remained in my mind was: Humbert is fishy, Lolita is a rather fantastical character, but the language is absolutely phenomenal. Every sentence is a jewel. Every paragraph is a delectation.
Missing the language, the aesthetic experience is what made me re read Lolita some 10 years later. By then I was a young mother. But because my son was still very small, a different perspective did not yet kick in. And I, once again, experienced the aesthetic delectation without any profound emotional involvement in the book’s events.
Then I have re read it in my forties. And then it hit me, and hit me hard… It was as if I had seen the face of a child I knew once, that promised a great beauty, as an adult – promise fulfilled – in full bloom, but with grown-up charisma, character, and developed mind added.
I have noticed all the things that Nabokov so aptly described as nerves of the book:
I find it [Lolita] to be a delightful presence now that it quietly hangs about the house like a summer day which one knows to be bright behind the haze. And when I
thus think of Lolita , I seem always to pick out for special delectation such images as Mr Taxovich, or that class list of Ramsdale School, or Charlotte saying ‘waterproof’, or Lolita in slow motion advancing toward Humbert’s gifts, or the pictures decorating the stylized garret of Gaston Godin, or the Kasbeam
barber (who cost me a month of work), or Lolita playing tennis, or the hospital at Elphinstone, or pale, pregnant, beloved, irretrievable Dolly Schiller dying in Gray Star (the capital town of the book), or the tinkling sounds of the valley town coming up the mountain trail (on which I caught the first known female of Lycaeides sublivens Nabokov), These are the nerves of the novel. These are the secret points, the subliminal co-ordinates…
These nerves reveal themselves to a more mature reader. And together with them, the tragedy of the story, which may have escaped a younger reader’s attention. Yet this tragedy is so clear, so looming over the narration. So obvious, really. Here are some milestones of tragedy for you.
First – a foreword that the reader is completely puzzled by, but later understands that Lolita is dead.
Through sentences dropped by Humbert here and there, like:
You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go…
And, lastly, the apex of the novel, its bestest scene. When, after having lost Lolita, Humbert finally finds her, has a brief encounter with her and her husband, and then drives to find and kill her second abuser, he stops on the curb of a road overlooking a small town. And this is what runs through his head then:
At this solitary stop for refreshments between Coalmont and Ramsdale (between innocent Dolly Schiller and jovial Uncle Ivor), I reviewed my case. With the utmost simplicity and clarity I now saw myself and my love. Previous attempts seemed out of focus in comparison.
[…]
There was the day, during our first trip—our first circle of paradise—when in order to enjoy my phantasms in peace I firmly decided to ignore what I could not help perceiving, the fact that I was to her not a boy friend, not a glamour man, not a pal, not even a person at all, but just two eyes and a foot of engorged brawn — to mention only mentionable matters. There was the day when having withdrawn the functional promise I had made her on the eve (whatever she had set her funny little heart on—a roller rink with some special plastic floor or a movie matinee to which she wanted to go alone), I happened to glimpse from the bathroom, through a chance combination of mirror aslant and door ajar, a look on her face . . . that look I cannot exactly describe . . . an expression of helplessness so perfect that it seemed to grade into one of rather comfortable inanity just because this was the very limit of injustice and frustration—and every limit presupposes something beyond it—hence the neutral illumination. And when you bear in mind that these were the raised eyebrows and parted lips of a child, you may better appreciate what depths of calculated carnality, what reflected despair, restrained me from falling at her dear feet and dissolving in human tears, and sacrificing my jealousy to whatever pleasure Lolita might hope to derive from mixing with dirty and dangerous children in an outside world that was real to her.
Taking in all these facets of the book leaves you rather dumbfounded: how did I not see all this before??? I suppose, like any great book, Lolita requires enough life experience to fully dawn upon a reader.
Before I conclude, here’s one more interesting perspective you can observe while reading Lolita. A fun little thought that came to me. Here it is: in our day and age, we ascribe high value to therapy (psychological one, that is). It is supposed to make us understand ourselves well enough as to be able to shape ourselves into better humans by way of introspective revision of our thoughts and actions, and their improvement, as a result. Now, I put to you that in Lolita Nabokov completely dismisses the premise that it is possible and makes an elaborate mockery of it.
Watch how Humbert Humbert psychoanalyzes himself every step of the way. Watch how clear his perception is, and yet how easily he rationalizes away the guilt while he is with Lolita. It is like reading Marquise de Sade’s Justine, but if it had internal, not external dialogs and was… well… much better written :).
Also, observe how Humbert taunts and deceives the psychiatrists who treated him. It’s really all a game. Obviously, Nabokov didn’t hold psychology or psychiatry in high regard. He himself confirms this in the essay I have been quoting here:
Although everybody should know that I detest symbols and allegories (which is due partly to my old feud with Freudian voodooism and partly to my loathing of generalizations devised by literary mythists and sociologists) …
This is just ONE glimpse into the many faces of this wonderful book. Read it, then put it aside for 5-10 years and read it again. I promise you, you will read an entirely different book then. Experiment with intervals 😉
Happy reading!
P.S. If you prefer audiobooks, look for Lolita read by Jeremy Irons – it is a phenomenal rendition!!
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.