Help. Why Do Critics Love Lolita?
This is a literary question that has baffled me for decades: why do literary critics love Nabokov's Lolita? I read it (or most of it) a long time ago (college in the 1970s) and it creeped me out then. To put it crudely, it's the story of a middle-aged pedophile who has a sexual relationship with his 12 or 13-year-old stepdaughter. Yet, Lolita is included on Time's Best 100 English-language novels since 1923, Modern Library's 100 best 20th century novels, and World Library's 100 Best Books of all time. D.G. Myers, a literary critic who contributes regularly to Commentary (and who seems to have a keen sense for good literature), ranks it no. 1.
My question is, given it's subject matter, why? Does it explore universal themes that help us understand the human condition? Does it uplift the reader? Is its prose sublime? Am I completely missing the point of the book because it's an allegory about bigger themes? I honestly don't get it. Help please.
Why not Marilynne Robinson's Gilead or Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop or My Antonia (all books that go to the heart of the challenges of life and which portray truly good characters in a beautiful, ennobling way)?
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Oct '11
Re: Help. Why Do Critics Love Lolita?
Yeah, but D.G. Meyers also panned Harry Potter, then admitted he hadn't read any of the books, then read the first two, declared them awful, and stopped reading the series. All to say, don't assume he's actually read (all of) Lolita.
Edited on February 22, 2012 at 3:44amMay '10
Re: Help. Why Do Critics Love Lolita?
It's not my cup of tea either, TR, but I understood it better after finishing Reading Lolita in Tehran. The secret ladies' reading circle meeting in Islamist-controlled Iran found it a potent and liberating analysis of the master/slave dynamic at the bottom of all evil "social structures."
They saw, through the depiction of its reverse, how human beings ought to be treated, how they deserve to be treated, and how destructive it is when they are treated instead as the mere objects of someone else's purposes and desires.
Edited on February 22, 2012 at 4:18amMay '10
Re: Help. Why Do Critics Love Lolita?
Regarding My Antonia and Death Comes to the Archbishop, I'm with you 110%.
Jun '10
Re: Help. Why Do Critics Love Lolita?
katievs: It's not my cup of tea either, TR, but I understood it better after finishing Reading Lolita in Tehran. The secret ladies' reading circle meeting in Islamist-controlled Iran found it a potent and liberating analysis of the mater/slave dynamic at the bottom of all evil "social structures."
They saw, through the depiction of its reverse, how human beings ought to be treated, how they deserve to be treated, and how destructive it is when they are treated instead as the mere objects of someone else's purposes and desires. · 9 minutes ago
Maybe that's the point I'm missing, and I suppose reading it in Iran is a quiet act of defiance.
Edited on February 22, 2012 at 4:17amNov '11
Re: Help. Why Do Critics Love Lolita?
i will persist in my belief that it is a literary prank. nabokov wanted to show that, for the critics, aesthetics trumped goodness, and the praise the book received (as a 'love story,' rather than as a sick rape that leads to an early death, which is all right there in his introduction) proved his point. he was basically saying, 'you guys have such a lack of a moral compass, i bet I can write a profile of a pedophile, and as long as I write it beautifully, you will adore it.'
keep in mind that a lot of nabokov's writing was filled with hidden meanings, such as a short story the new yorker rejected because they thought it was pointless since they missed its secret message (The Vane Sisters).
anyway, i'm probably wrong, but i will cling to that wrongness!
Edited on February 22, 2012 at 4:56amJun '10
Re: Help. Why Do Critics Love Lolita?
This little passage is a perfect example of the power and beauty of Cather's writing in My Antonia. Jim, the young narrator, and Antonia visit two Russian bachelors eking out a living on poor, remote farmland. As they sit in the Russians’ ramshackle cabin, Jim describes the sound of the wind:
I'd give at least one digit to have written those three sentences. Powerful verbs, and an unforgettable image of the wind rolling across open prairie.
Dec '10
Re: Help. Why Do Critics Love Lolita?
Tabula,
This is why I wrote my essay "Marriage in Western Civiliztion: Monotheistic Monogamy, Exactly Defined". The left lives in it's fantasy world that morality in Western Civilization is not based on a priori truths but rather arbitrary superstitions. It is, of course, the exact reverse. It is secularity that is founded on arbitrary superstitions. We see that Strict Darwinism is a superstition. Since, Freud and Jung are agnostic formalist versions of Darwin we can see their folly. In my essay I demonstrate that Jung is following the rational religious logic and recognizing homosexuality for what it is, serious mental illness. Of course, the reaction to this is complete denial. It is the superstitious secularists who can not let go of their irrational fascination with perversity. So Jung must not have said what he said even though it is patently obvious.
Nobokov's Lolita is exactly that. It is an admission of perversity and worse a justification of it. Religious morality must be wrong so perversity must be right. If we just twist ourselves around enough pseudo-intellectual concepts we'll find the justification. Of course, they never find justifictation but just create more perversity.
Regards,
Jim
Mar '11
Re: Help. Why Do Critics Love Lolita?
An intriguing idea, so something akin to the Sokal affair? That would certainly be rather delicious. I think I would rather like it to be true too much to ever believe it.
Sep '10
Re: Help. Why Do Critics Love Lolita?
I never had any interest in Lolita, no matter how the literati gushed over it. But I liked Nabokov's humorous, heartbreaking Pnin. This sentence from the 3rd chapter alone is worth the price of admission:
Nov '10
Re: Help. Why Do Critics Love Lolita?
I realise it's not originally of the English lexicon but I wonder how Lolita holds up against Tolsty's epic Anna Karenina? I got immersed in the latter, which is also a (rather more gentle) portrait of incremental moral failure. Or, if one wishes to explore the depraved recesses of the human condition, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz?
Nov '10
Re: Help. Why Do Critics Love Lolita?
On the merit of translated works: witness the remarkable resilience of this 2500 year-old Hebrew gem's potency across both time and translation
Remember your Creator
Edited on February 22, 2012 at 7:15amin the days of your youth,
before the days of trouble come
and the years approach when you will say,
“I find no pleasure in them”—
before the sun and the light
and the moon and the stars grow dark,
and the clouds return after the rain;
when the keepers of the house tremble,
and the strong men stoop,
when the grinders cease because they are few,
and those looking through the windows grow dim...
Nov '10
Re: Help. Why Do Critics Love Lolita?
...when the doors to the street are closed
and the sound of grinding fades;
when men rise up at the sound of birds,
but all their songs grow faint;
when men are afraid of heights
and of dangers in the streets;
when the almond tree blossoms
and the grasshopper drags himself along
and desire no longer is stirred.
Then man goes to his eternal home
and mourners go about the streets.
Remember him—before the silver cord is severed,
or the golden bowl is broken;
before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,
or the wheel broken at the well,
and the dust returns to the ground it came from,
and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
Aug '10
Re: Help. Why Do Critics Love Lolita?
James Gawron:
Nobokov's Lolita is exactly that. It is an admission of perversity and worse a justification of it.
I thought part of the point of Nabokov's writing is that the "justification" the unreliable narrator gives is obviously faulty. That is, it's no justification at all, and we're supposed to see that.
So I would be more inclined to call it a parody of perversity, not a justification of it.
Nabokov is very good at using grotesque characters to parody human beings' chronic little acts of self-deception, the lies we tell ourselves and others, big and small, our propensity for self-aggrandizing our most pathetic wickedness... our poshlost.
I believe Lord Byron said that "Don Juan" was the most moral poem he had ever composed... and I believe he was right.
Not all literature that shows wicked, perverted behavior means to glorify it. Some literature exists as a lesson in how ugly and unglamorous that sort of behavior really is.
Dec '10
Re: Help. Why Do Critics Love Lolita?
I have never read the book, but I have heard so much about it I almost feel I have. I cannot debate the literary merits of the book. However, there seems to be some confusion in terminology. Pedophilia is the desire for sex with prepubescent girls. A thirteen-year-old is not prepubescent. Through most of history girls (women?) were married off at 13/14. In some countries this is still true. In Kansas, with parental consent, a girl of twelve can marry.
I point out the above not to advocate the return to the practice of marrying girls in their early teens, but to point out that if sleeping with a 14 year old is a perversion, then St Joseph was a pervert. I do not believe for a second that St Joseph did not have relations with Mary. The bible refers to his brothers and sisters, not his cousins.
Jun '10
Re: Help. Why Do Critics Love Lolita?
Foxman: I have never read the book, but I have heard so much about it I almost feel I have. I cannot debate the literary merits of the book. However, there seems to be some confusion in terminology. Pedophilia is the desire for sex with prepubescent girls. A thirteen-year-old is not prepubescent. Through most of history girls (women?) were married off at 13/14. In some countries this is still true. In Kansas, with parental consent, a girl of twelve can marry.
I point out the above not to advocate the return to the practice of marrying girls in their early teens, but to point out that if sleeping with a 14 year old is a perversion, then St Joseph was a pervert. I do not believe for a second that St Joseph did not have relations with Mary. The bible refers to his brothers and sisters, not his cousins. · 1 hour ago
In the book she's twelve and his step-daughter. That changes the equation dramatically. I don't care much about the terminology: it's creepy and morally disgusting.
Edited on February 22, 2012 at 4:39pmRe: Help. Why Do Critics Love Lolita?
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
I thought part of the point of Nabokov's writing is that the "justification" the unreliable narrator gives is obviously faulty. That is, it's no justification at all, and we're supposed to see that.
So I would be more inclined to call it a parody of perversity, not a justification of it.
Nabokov is very good at using grotesque characters to parody human beings' chronic little acts of self-deception, the lies we tell ourselves and others, big and small, our propensity for self-aggrandizing our most pathetic wickedness... our poshlost.
I believe Lord Byron said that "Don Juan" was the most moral poem he had ever composed... and I believe he was right.
Not all literature that shows wicked, perverted behavior means to glorify it. Some literature exists as a lesson in how ugly and unglamorous that sort of behavior really is. · 9 hours ago
Very well put. I love Lolita, it is one of my favorite books. It lays bare the perversity in all of us and how good we are at justifying our perversions. It could not be more of a morality tale, is brilliantly organized and beautifully told.
Jun '10
Re: Help. Why Do Critics Love Lolita?
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
So I would be more inclined to call it a parody of perversity, not a justification of it.
Nabokov is very good at using grotesque characters to parody human beings' chronic little acts of self-deception, the lies we tell ourselves and others, big and small, our propensity for self-aggrandizing our most pathetic wickedness... our poshlost.
. . . .
Not all literature that shows wicked, perverted behavior means to glorify it. Some literature exists as a lesson in how ugly and unglamorous that sort of behavior really is. · 9 hours ago
Very well put. I love Lolita, it is one of my favorite books. It lays bare the perversity in all of us and how good we are at justifying our perversions. It could not be more of a morality tale, is brilliantly organized and beautifully told.
This makes sense. But aren't there critics out there who love its transgressive nature? If they do, aren't they missing MSR's and Mollie's point that Lolita is a condemnation of perversity, instead of its defender?
BTW, this thread is one reason I love Ricochet. I'm clarifying a question that's bugged me for years.
Edited on February 22, 2012 at 5:13pmAug '10
Re: Help. Why Do Critics Love Lolita?
As far as I'm concerned, you're not supposed to be sympathetic to Humbert, but because the story is told in the first person it's difficult not to. It's a sort of literary Stockholm Syndrome.
Humbert is clearly a diseased maniac, and Nabokov saw him as such.
But Humbert is telling his own story, and he's doing so honestly. Humbert doesn't believe he's a diseased maniac. He believes he's in a healthy, loving relationship.
He's also an English professor (if my memory's correct), and he knows how to write well.
As a reader, how can one not sympathize when someone, even a diseased maniac, eloquently makes their own case. Just look at how a jury can acquit someone who is clearly guilty.
Now, does that mean that Lolita should qualify as a "great" book? I'm not so sure.
After all, if while reading you sympathize with Humbert, and then when you've finished reading, and you have time to reflect on the character, you become repulsed and you feel guilty for sympathizing with him, that means Nabokov's goal is to make the reader feel bad about themselves.
Jerk.
Feb '12
Re: Help. Why Do Critics Love Lolita?
Roberto
I've often thought Shel Silverstien's The Giving Tree was essentially the same dare, just in a children's literature context. "You people are so sick that I can take a portrait of an abusive relationship, put it in small words and line drawings, and you will think it's a guide for how to love someone and use it to teach children."
Mar '11
Re: Help. Why Do Critics Love Lolita?
I actually think a lot of quote top novels are over rated. I really don't understand why half the books are considered so great. They seem pretty average if not silly stories to me even if they are written very well if not brilliantly. I think a great books needs to have great prose and story. A book should never be consider best of if it has a poorly written story but brilliant prose.
Also, I have found an Authors best novel will not be on the list but another of their novels is. For example, London's Sea Wolf is a lot better than Call of the Wild.
Also, I have found Sci-Fi and to some extent Fantasy is discriminated against. If you take many of the great Sci-Fi stories and put the story in a historical setting it would be in a best of list in a heartbeat. Dune is a prime example, a brilliant piece of writing and story telling. It is on the top 3 of any best of sci-fi list. Yet almost no one in Literary critic circle considers it a best of modern classic.
Edited on February 22, 2012 at 9:57pm