 |
| picture from google |
I am behind blogging about this. We made a made dash down south to look at and buy a caravan. It is all part of the master plan. *evil cackle*
OK, on to Lolita
Again I have loved the process of reading this book as it is taking me out of my comfort zone of Young Adult Fiction. Obviously I am no longer a young adult, it just happens to be the type of book I can read easily. Never in a million years would I have bought this book prior to the read along challenge. I definitely did not think I would read a book about a peadophile.
To me it is written in the style of a narrator telling the story of another and painting a picture. Quite a good pace and I felt quite a fast read.
Again I learnt new words, which sent me to the dictionary.
The book does make me query, if the author, knew someone who was a peadophile or he himself was the victim of one. The book was written in 1955, it wasnt like today, where you can google everything and I doubt at the time he would of had a researcher.
A very interesting read, there were moments when I thought OMG! Especially when I thought he was going to kill his 2nd wife.
The book is his confession, and is as if he is constantly talking to the jury.
8/10
Will I read it again? Hmm that is a question. I like to think I would, maybe in a few years.
7 comments:
I'm relieved and pleased at your reaction, Sol. I'll come back here tomorrow and post my own comment, in the hope that by then there might be a further contribution or two. Of course, my opinion will not change purely as a result of what people say (it hardly need saying!).
Hey Ray, I havent seen the film so I had no real idea of the book. I am open to reading most things as long as it isnt Stephen King, he is 600 pages of something of nothing and then 6 pages at the end where you are like... ok thats it? oh, alright then... you know what I mean.
Off to put an eye mask on. My eyes are really tired today, looking at too many spreadsheets.
Sorry I didn't read this. Sounds unusual to say the least. I know the basic plot...most people probably do, it's so well known. I'll read it one day.
It bothers me when people think Lolita is erotic. It means they didn't really read the book. Nabakov was a great stylist.
Love,
Janie
Hi Linda, it is really well written and I believe at the time it would have been extremely shocking, due to people taking offence rather than actually reading it. He would have come up against a lot of comments I am sure.
Hi Janie, as you can tell I am not the most learned of people and am trying to read as many classics as I can to expand myself. I am not sure I thought it erotic. More it was the confession, as in painting the scene and a man who had many mental break downs where he clearly wrestles with his compulsion and how he thinks he should act in society. Its a very interesting book and it would be something to hear of how the author could make such minute details. And its as if he bargains with himself. Like a kid, Dear God, if I am really good for the rest of my life, please can I have that blue bike.... I cant explain it properly.
Hope you are both well.
Okay, Sol. Here goes:-
Did my second reading of 'Lolita' confirm or confound the very high opinion I finished up with after my initial encounter of several years ago? It absolutely DID reinforce it! I was astonished all over again, and make no apologies for declaring so. It's not so much the story, on which more than enough has been written already so that many who have not read it and others who flatly refuse to try it themselves do know at least the backbone. No, it's Nabokov's use of language that captivates me so, doubly extraordinary when one considers that English was not his mother tongue. I make a comparison here with another much better-known, non-English writer from eastern Europe, whom I've simply never been able to get into despite numerous attempts, namely Joseph Conrad, whose tortuous use of English (admired by some, admittedly) tires me out rapidly and distracts from the subject matter on which he applies his literary invention. None of that with 'Lolita'. I was with it from the very start - and felt captured like a fly (as John Betjeman puts it), "fizzing in a web". Not lost from an instant, captivated by his utterly enviable use of words, the story gripped me all along its twists and its suspense, of which latter there's a generous helping - and considering that I found it about as 'erotic' as any 100% heterosexual woman would, even though I say it myself, I feel I'm in a position to judge it dispassionately.
As for the story, it's truly unusual - the story, I mean, not the situation. (I haven't the foggiest notion how unusual THAT is!) The aforementioned suspense largely arises from Humbert Humbert trying to deceive the world into believing that there's nothing at all untoward with regard to him vis-a-vis the 12-year old Lolita - and which he largely - no, entirely - gets away with. The only truly shocking event for me in the whole novel is his late-in-the-book encounter with the mysterious Quilty. It happens at such an advanced stage that there's no real time to give what happens any follow-up in terms of vindication (if any) or subsequent retribution. The ongoing physical relationship between H.H. and L. I had no trouble with actual reading, though there was always the cloud of society's censorious attitude hanging over it. Justifiably? It's got to be 'Yes!'. There's surely hardly enough salacious detail in the descriptions of the act to get any genuine paedophile excited - or even more than very mildly 'stimulated'.
I thought the 1997 film with Jeremy Irons in the H.H. role, at the time a pretty good film. It's been many years (at least 40?) since I saw the Stanley Kubrick 1962 version with James Mason as H.H., and Peter Sellers in the Quilty role, much enlarged from the fairly paltry, though important, presence in the novel. I can hardly recall that film now but I believe it was rather tarnished by Lolita being portrayed by an 18-year old Sue Lyon as a girl of 14 - hardly reflecting the early pubescence of the novel's character.
As for the book of Nabokov's 'Lolita' I remain unashamedly transfixed by it. In fact I already look forward to reading it for a third time, and I shall be doing that. I fully endorse all the praise it's been showered with from many quarters, and would urge those with an open-enough mind to give it a go, and see if it doesn't also draw you into its remarkable world.
Now, where did I put that 'Mansfield'?
Hey Ray, wow, what a review. I completely forgot that English was not his first language, that makes it better.
Post a Comment