Lolita

"I now think it was a great mistake to move east again and have her go to that private school in Beardsley, instead of somehow scrambling across the Mexican border while the scrambling was good so as to lie low for a couple of years in subtropical bliss until I could safely marry my little Creole; for I must confess that depending on the conditin of my glands and ganglia, I could switch in the course of the same day from one pole of insanity to the other—from the thought that around 1950 I would have to get rid somehow of a difficult adolescent whose magic nymphage had evaporated—to the thought that with patience and luckI might have her produce eventually a nymphet with my blood in her exquisite veins, a Lolita the Second, who would be eight or nine around 1960, when I would still be dans la force de l'âge; indeed, the telescopy of my mind, or un-mind, was strong enough to distinguish in the remoteness of time a vieillard encore vert—or was it green rot?—bizarre, tender, salivating Dr. Humbert, practicing on supremely lovely Lolita the Third the art of being a granddad."


In this last two weeks we have been reading Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. When I was first told that we had to read Lolita I had no idea what it was about and had no idea that it existed. Then my teacher told us about how this book was going to be “disturbing” and is not like a normal book. That it is mean to make your skin crawl.  I did not give it much thought and I started to read the book.

Right off the bat I was shocked.

“WHA! What?… What is THIS?” Was what was going through my mind as I red more and more of the book? This is one crazy book. I older man wanted to have sex with little girls and the very descriptive of all the little girls that he like and wanted to have. I think I was on chapter fourteen when I had to stop reading this disturbing book. I did not want to finish the book, but I had to for class.  

In the last class that we had I was up to chapter 31. My teacher broke us up in to groups and asked us questions about the text that we have read so far. One of the questions was the book “real”. Do you think that the main story line is a true story?

My group was on the fence about it. Some of the story line made since and could be believable. But then there are some parts and how he words them that make you feel like he is not telling you the truth. For an example he brings up the reader and reminds you that this is a journal and only his thoughts. Also you can get the feeling of parts on the story that you know that he is hiding things and they do not make since if you break them down. For me I believe that this book is not real because I do not want it to be real because it was so discussing and how the main character talked about the little girls.

I feel that the book got more and more “odd” and harder to read. The part of the book that really shocked me was when Dolly and the main character are in the hotel with the flower convention and a church retreat. It was when he gave Dolly sleeping pills and drugged her so he can have his way with the little girl. It seemed so easy for him to give her the pill and that he was tricking doctors to give him strong sleeping pills. Also the other odd, crazy, and mind blowing part of the book is how he talks about or says about Dolly, “Lolita.” I find it really hard to read the parts on how Dolly “wanted” him and “made love” with each other. It was disturbing in how he describes all of it.

My over all thought about Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov was that it is a disturbing book. If you want to read a book that will make your skin crawl.

 I will never read this book again. *o*