Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Posted on October 24, 2008

I did it! I finally finished Lolita.  (Okay, I finished it on Saturday, but today is the first day I thought I could actually write about it.)

This book was confusing for me.  Of course, the subject disgusted me, which didn’t help.  But, I actually kind of enjoyed the style of writing.  It was raw, and honest.  It was painful to read because the narrator didn’t hold anything back.  It was written as a confession of his misdeeds, as an explanation for why he did what he did.  He talks about his obsessions with young girls in poetic and romantic terms, sexualizing the innocent actions of adolescents.  He is despicable, but pathetic enough where you almost almost forgive him.  (Of course, I still wanted to see him eaten by dogs.)

One major issue I had with this novel is it felt a little over written.  Some of the phrasing was too calculating.  At times it was confusing because the narrator had different names for each of the characters and he used them interchangeably, so if you aren’t paying attention, you have NO IDEA who he’s talking about.  Oh, and he frequently speaks in French.  I don’t speak French, so I had to skip over a lot of that.  If I was still in one of my college lit classes, I would have found a French dictionary, or used the Internet, to translate it all.  But, I wasn’t, and so I didn’t.

Anyway, it was a tough read, but I am proud of myself for finishing it.

I give it 3 stars, mostly because it made my brian and my soul hurt.