Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, pp.62—109 and pp. 109—140

The novel Lolita, by Nabokov is a very interesting book, with a very interesting writing style, as well as the subject Nabokov writes about. During his time, the 1950's writing about sex in general was looked as almost a sin, and the fact Nabokov writes a novel about a middle aged man becoming sexually attracted to a 12 year old was insane. As far as the writing style goes, the overall novel itself is a plea from the narrator to the reader. Another reason Nabokov novel was so different from others of his time was the language he used and how vivid he was in this story. For example, "She had very vulnerable legs, and I decided I would limit myself to hurting her very horribly as soon as we were alone", here the narrator explains how Humbert wants to kill his first wife Valeria after she has an affair. This line itself has very vivid imagery and puts the reader right into the story. I personally think Nabokov was one of the first real writers to draw the reader into the narrative, even though most readers still didn't like the idea of a novel over a pedophile.

In the beginning of Lolita, Humbert describes much of his childhood and the reader begins to get a good sense of what Humbert personality is like. The reader learns that Humbert has mainly a European background, mainly from a mixture of countries. For example, in the second chapter,"My father was a gentle, easy-going person, a salad of racial genes:Swiss citizen, of mixed French and Austrian descent, with a dash Danube in his veins." This so called "salad of racial genes", is very important because the reader can see how Humberts character traits resemble a Europeans. Moving on into the novel, the reader sees a very important reference made to Edgar Allen Poe's Annabel Lee, in which Poe writes to his very young wife. The fact that Humbert's so called first-lover was also named Annabel Leigh, could suggest a pre-teen lover of some sort. Humbert then basically throws it out the reader that he wants and desires nymphets. And for Humbert these "nymphets" were the lost youth and or a pure-girl, who was unattainable to the adult man.

Much of what Humbert seems to do from a reader's point of view is asking for sympathy, however almost by accident. For example, the reader becomes so involved with what happens between Humbert and Valeria, the reader becomes distracted from Humbert’s rage. Humbert wants the reader to feel sorry for the fact she just cheated on him and left him, and by not killing his wife, he ultimately gets the sympathy he wants. Through chapters 10-15, the reader learns even more about Lolita through Humbert's descriptions. However Humbert, describes more of Lolita's bad moods, for example, "Later heard her volley crude nonsense at Rose across the fence". The reader begins to see Lolita more as an object, and Humbert is purely focused on Lolita for her "nymphet" qualities. Even though Humbert describes Lolita's bad moods, he still desires Lolita very much. Moving on throughout the novel, the reader now finds out that Lolita's mother falls in love with Humbert and writes a letter to him. Basically telling Humbert that he must leave unless he marries her. "Now, my dearest, dearest, mon cher, cher monsieru, you have read this, no you know.", Mrs. Haze is dearly in love with Humbert and the two of them end up getting married. However I feel like the only reason Humbert did this was to stay as close to Lolita as possible. After getting married Mrs, Haze finds the journal where Humbert basically wrote down how much he loved Lolita so much more than anyone. When Mrs.Haze discovers Humbert’s secret she feels jealous that he would prefer Lolita and to her the fact that an adult man wanted to molest her daughter seems to be irrelevant to her. This could have been the case of her downfall, just plain ignorance and she eventually gets killed. During the next few chapters Humbert seems to be more of a griever.

The reader now sees the relationship between Humbert and Lolita transform from a friendship to a sexual one. And once again the reader can see a very persausive Humbert as he explains how he was the one who was seduced by Lolita, rather than the other way around. Reading on shows how Lolita is very curious in her sexually explorations, and at times really feels interested in Humbert and seems to almost fall in love with him, but then seems to become bored at his interest in her. This is a very common trait among immature pre-teens, and teens in society today. I also realized that much of Humbert's descriptions of Lolita are just almost like dreams.When Humbert drugs Lolita for example he doesn't have sex with her, he mainly looks at her body, almost like he has romantic feelings that are very strong.