I’ve read Lolita a couple of times, and am now rereading it. I also saw the Kubrick version of the film last night.
I pretty much started this thread to express some thoughts I’d always had. When I first read the book, it seemed a bit ambiguous to me–Humbert was a creep, but Lolita herself seemed kind of oversexed and obnoxious, etc.
Going back, the second and third time around, the whole book seems like a pitiful excuse for pedophilia. HH’s definition of nymphet just seems to be any girl he’s attracted to and a defense that said girls bewitch older men and lead them into traps. It’s also kind of hard to really gauge what’s going on–even when he acts as though she’s coming onto him, a lot of times it seems like a survival technique and less like a genuine love relationship (though creepily enough, some magazine, forget which, called the only convincing love story).
The film to me seemed to really miss the point–making her fourteen, and looking developed, though apparently that had to be done to appease the censors. The reality of Lolita as an undeveloped twelve year old would have been too shocking I suppose. I also got the sense that we as viewer were supposed to think, “Ooh, titillating, maybe Humbert’s not so bad, etc.” whereas in the book, from what Humbert and Charlotte Haze say, Lolita’s a sturdy but somewhat homely kid to the rest of the world. Which kind of makes the whole, “She was so hot, how could he contain himself” subtext I got from the film kind of icky.
Well, you’re right. In the book, Humbert is the narrator so he puts himself in the best possible light: she’s a nymphet, she wanted it, she seduced me, she knew what she was doing, etc. Of course he’s the ultimate unreliable narrator. Reading between the lines, you can see that Lolita was a typical young, innocent twelve year old until Humbert abuses and damages her.
The movie sort of takes Humbert’s view, but you’re seeing it as a third party observer – so it makes Humbert seem even more reasonable because it’s not so clear you’re really seeing his version of what happened. The perspective seems more objective, which makes Humbert’s behavior less repellant.
Yeah, while the Kubrick Lolita is classic, I’ve always felt the Jeremy Irons version a lot closer to the feel of the novel. Have you seen that one?
Well, not only that, but Humbert Humbert’s narration is unreliable. Remember, you’re seeing this all through his eyes, so take the narrative in with a healthy dose of skepticism. The book should somewhat read as an excuse for pedophilia, it’s written from a pedophile’s perspective, and the narrator will be naturally inclined to justify his perversion as much as possible.
Yes–I also think it’s a bit infuriating to see so many interpretations of the idea of Lolita as a sexually advanced temptress who happens to be underage. I found this really good review of the book.
It’s just interesting that so many people look at the Lolita character as this sexy woman in a girl’s body when really it’s Humbert’s sickness that causes him to project this onto her.
And the fact that he sees her as vulgar, shallow, coarse (and that we see her through his eyes) makes her so hard to relate to. It’s easy to roll one’s eyes at her and think of her as boring, superficial, and to just stop feeling sorry for her…but there’s no way she could ever fit into his vision.
Plus, I think for Humbert, it’s his way of assuaging what he’s doing. He can tell himself that she’s this enticing breed of nymphet that’s forcing him into doing these atrocious things. But at the same time, he can also tell himself and us that she’s so brainless that it doesn’t matter what he does–who’s going to feel sorry for her, or really care?
I see him less as a guy who just so happened to fall in love with a girl, and more as a guy who was calculating enough to seize on a perfect situation (young girl he’s attracted to without a strong caring parental figure).
ETA: Haven’t seen the Jeremy Irons’ version yet. But if it’s closer to the book, I think I’d like to.
Actually, let me take that back. It’s closer to the book in certain ways – Lolita actually is played by a very young actress and you get more of a feeling of the pedophilic ickiness that Kubrick’s version lacks. That said, while those details are right, the tone is a little off. It’s a bit more dramatic, whereas the book is very much a black comedy. I saw it once, about twelve years ago, but I thought it was an interesting perspective on what probably is my favorite book.
Yes, Humbert is the classic example of the unreliable narrator. The reader is not getting an objective account of events, but a self-serving, delusional rationalization. he tries to make himself the victim, but he is a weasel and a predator. He is so sympathetic to himself, and so tendentious with his account of events, that it’s easy to confuse his point of view with author’s, but they are not the same. If you read closely enough, you can see that Nabakov despises Humbert and wants the reader to know that he’s despicable.
I noted that in the opening credits and my first reaction after it ended was surprise that this came from him. Reading wiki, apparently Nabakov submitted a screenplay and Kubrick altered it and the end result was very little of what Nabakov had actually written.
And Kubrick apparently said that he wouldn’t have made the film if he’d known about the censorship issues. Since it was censorship that forced him to cast a girl who looked much older, and was in fact 14, not 12, I can definitely see why. I’d like to have seen what he could have done had he not had to conform to the restrictions.
So would I. Making Lolita look older really does reduce the creepiness. And as far as Kubrick goes, I think that as the film went on, he got more interested in Peter Sellers’ performance as Quilty and less in the Humbert-Lolita story. But the thing that makes Lolita Lolita is the writing style and there’s no particular way to transfer that to film.
She IS kind of obnoxious, and she’s sexually active at an early age, too. But then, Humbert’s pretentious and unbearable, and her mother is no picnic either, and that kind of invites the obnoxiousness. But no, I don’t think there is much ambiguity in Lolita’s relationship with Humbert at first. You can make a legit case that she flirts with him a little but she’s not attracted to him. She’s a young girl who is role playing. He’s the one who takes it further, and then manipulates her and takes her prisoner.
As long as you’re talking about Humbert’s intentions and not the author’s, yes, it pretty much is. Once you get past the creepiness you realize he is rather pathetic. After that he’s still creepy, but you realize how stunted he is and how much he is a prisoner of his own desires. Lolita’s not a a seductress, she’s a pretty average suburban girl, and like you said, she’s kind of obnoxious. None of which makes his actions less wrong, but you realize how much of a facade he puts on.
Yup. He’s fixated on girls who remind him of Annabel Lee. Everything else is just projection on his part.
Right. Once in a while he seems to be aware of this, but he doesn’t do anything about it. Ultimately he pays a price in that he falls in love with her (or at least he thinks he does), but he’s already ruined her life.
It changes a lot. I think Kubrick got the point but couldn’t get around those limitations. Even in the remake, which I haven’t seen, the actress who played her was around 15. I think seeing a 12-year-old girl in those situations would probably still scandalize some people.
I read it when I was about 11-12, and I thought the book was just about the sexiest thing ever. It was about a girl my age! Who was found desirable by a FULL-GROWN MAN! He thought she was so attractive and so beautiful that he married her mom just to get close to her! And she got to have SEX!
Needless to say, all the subtext went right over my head.
I’m really lucky I didn’t catch the eye of any pedophiles. I would have been easy bait.
I agree that the book is entirely based on the concept of the “unreliable narrator,” and probably several more layers of misdirection as well. As a reader, you need to be sophisticated (and cynical) enough to reject the narrator’s assessment of things and burrow deeply.
But I’d like to add that this book takes me FOREVER to read… because the prose is So Fucking Great. I’ll read a sentence, go, “whoa! what a great line!” and then read it four or five more times. I do that several times per page. After five or six pages, I put it down, exhausted. The writing is about the best and most breathtaking I’ve seen anywhere.
A friend in her 20s saw the newer version & said “What I couldn’t stand was that he loved her and she threw it away.” I replied “Well, first, you couldn’t have missed the point of the story more spectacularly. Also, you need to watch the older version. The recent one is technically closer to the book but the older one is more like the book in that it’s funnier.” "FUNNY??? The older movie is funny?" “It’s hilarious.”
The thing with Lolita and HH’s narration is that at the end, he breaks. After he finds the ‘adult’ Delores and she is knocked up and living in some pretty low conditions he gives her money and drives off.
He parks the car at the top of the hill and he can hear children playing and he realizes that he doesn’t hear something. He does not hear Lolita’s voice because he stole her childhood. Yes, he is a monster and by the end of his confession, he at least knows he is one.
Irons did a terrific job as HH. Don’t watch the film, get the book on ‘tape’ read by Irons.
I’ve never thought of Humbert Humbert as a pedophile, myself, but more as a weak-willed person who fell in love with a girl who happened to be twelve years old. It was Lolita herself that he was attracted to and not eleven or twelve-year-old girls in general. Even though he may have felt that girls that age had the power to bewitch men, the only one that bewitched him was Lolita. He became infatuated with her as a person and her age was secondary, if even that.
Most of us have had the experience of becoming infatuated with someone who we knew all along was wrong for us, but we couldn’t help it and became infatuated with them anyway, and that was what happened to Humbert Humbert when it came to Lolita. He didn’t want her because she was twelve, but despite that fact.
Of course that doesn’t mean it was okay for him to engage in a sexual relationship with her, but it does mean that he was not a pedophile in the commonly understood sense of the term.
Which is where I developed the hypothesis that pedophillia may be a form of Asperger’s Syndrome with the “misinterpreting” of “just flirting” as " OMG they’re in LOVE with me" and the fixtation on young girls.
Other than the “weak willed” comment, I disagree. Maybe you’re seeing him as even more dissembling than I do, but he takes pains to describe his type throughout the book. The idea that he can’t resist the nymphets is a big part of his self-justification. He’s not attracted to all prepubescent girls, but he’s attracted to the ones who remind him of Annabel Leigh. I don’t think he admits to working up the nerve to get involved with one of these girls before he meets Lolita, and it’s true his relationship with her eventually turns into something else, but he does have a consistent attraction to them. Early in the book (I think after his wife leaves him), he gets involved with a prostitute just because her body reminds him of a young girl’s.
It seems like you’re right. She sure as heck looks a lot younger than Kubrick’s Lolita, and is portrayed as a 12-year-old in the new version. At any rate, the Lolita character in the remake is more like the Lolita I had in my head (or H.H. had in his head) than the Kubrick one.
Humbert Humbert was a pedophile, I can’t see how there is a question about that. The beauty of Lolita is in the writing, not the story. Nabokov somehow comes as close to describing sex between an old man and a 12 year girl as is possible without crossing the line into kiddy porn.
I’ve always felt that Nabokov purposely chose to write about such an offensive topic to showcase the beauty of his writing - “my writing is so beautuful, you will like even if I write about pedophilia” kind of thing. And he was so damned right.
There is just no way to capture the written word in film so Kubrick ends up with a movie about a sad pedophile and how he went about his business. The fact that the film is enjoyable with a minimum of creepyness is a testament to Kubrick’s talent.
The quote that has appeared as a blurb on some editions of the book is:
I tried to track down that quote and finally found someone else who did: Sourcing a blurb. As the blog points out, Vanity Fair wasn’t around to review Lolita when it was published. The quote comes from the July 1986 issue:
Thanks, JeffB–in that context, it’s clear that the writer isn’t saying that.
I also agree that the prose is so beautiful that there are times when you forget what he’s saying. Not only that, but the gulf between her physical description and his description of the way she talks and acts is incredible. Which again makes me think that he isn’t in love with a girl who happens to be twelve, but rather sought out another blank canvas that reminded him of Annabel.
I also get the sense that since he never really identifies what a nymphet is…IS there such a thing? I’m reminded of how he was originally meant to live with a family and tutor the 12 year old daughter, Virginia McCoo, and he’s looking forward to that. Then he ends up meeting Lo and Charlotte. And later he finds out that the McCoo girl is lame and mean and not his type at all…part of me wonders, is that just rationalization, sour grapes? If he had moved in with the McCoos, would he have been coming up with grand prose about how gorgeous and seductive their daughter was?