Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Lolita- Vladimir Nabokov

Wanted to read this book after reading "Reading Lolita in Tehran". I really like the prose of Nabokov, the words he used, the manner in which he drew the readers into the mind of the perverse pedophiliac Humbert. 
Humbert fell in love with Dolores Haze (Lolita) the 12 year old child of a widow at first sight. After meeting Lolita, he schemed to "possess" her and it didn't help that young Lolita was similarly attracted to Humbert. When Lolita was away at summer camp, he received a note from Mrs Haze that she was in love with Humbert. Humbert decided then that the best way he could remain with Lolita was to marry her mother and so that was what he did. Much to Humbert's delectation, mrs haze met with an accident right after discovering his dark secret. And this was how he and Lolita began their aberrant and doomed relationship. For two years, they traveled on the dusty roads of America and with Lolita growing older and bored. She finally decided to run away with a man from her old hometown. This man was eventually killed by Humbert for stealing his one true love away. This was how and why the story was written. Humbert wrote to an imaginary jury to justify the murder. 
When Humbert finally tracked Lolita after several years, he said:"It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever ever sight." Lolita then was no longer the nymphet he knew. She was 17, married to an ordinary man, and pregnant. But Humbert still loved her and it was then that Lolita told her the about the man she had ran away with, unknowingly sentencing the man to his death.
I think this is one of the classic books that one must read and it amazes me how people would risk their lives just to read and discuss this book in Iran. 

27sep- 4 oct 2015

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