Thoughts on Lolita
Posted by Lynne on August 06, 1998 at 01:10:34:
In response to reading Lolita, written by Art on August 03, 1998 at 08:24:27
] Has anyone here read it, and if so, would it be all right for a 15 year old to read?
] Lolita isn't a pornographic book by any stretch, although it does make explicit reference to the urges of a pervert. It's a very great, in some respects ugly, book but the ugliness has more to do with the nature of the main character and his obsession rather than with any sex scenes the book contains.
I always felt the character of Lolita represented addiction...you mention obssession...or anything that drives us to become mentally unhinged. You could replace the name "Lolita" with any other kind of word: "acohol", "drugs", "money", and then the meaning of the book becomes a little clearer, it seems to me. I think Nabakov used pedophile behavior because it is so digusting, and he wanted us to be repelled by this guy's obsessive needs. He wanted us to think about what kinds of obsession we might have that could cause us to destroy ourselves or one another. In fact, a person never has to have even an slightly lustful thought about a child to have problems in other areas---problems just as serious and just as prone to poison the psyche--as HH's need for young girls.
And of course, there are many, many different ways to interpret this book...I just gave my own (probably inaccurate) opinion above. Just the same...a book worth reading.
- But he wanted us to like humbert as well. Cassia 19:40:59 8/06/98
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- Very true Lynne 14:34:51 8/07/98
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- Very true Lynne 14:34:51 8/07/98
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