Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov (pub. 1955)
Amazon; B&N; Goodreads; Penguin Random House; TV Tropes; Wikipedia

Introductory thoughts, pre-review (or you could just jump straight to my review, if you like)

First I want to say that it was a bit difficult for me to decide where to put my review. I guess it's kind of a "classic," but it's still a bit too modern for me to be entirely comfortable with that. (In fact, it can even be classified as "postmodern," but I don't have a category for that.) It has been called a "black comedy," but I don't find remotely enough humor, however dark, for me to see it as such. I also don't see how it could be considered "magical realism," though that might be because I don't have a sufficient understanding of the term. It's also been called an allegory, though I'm afraid I'm unable to discern that aspect of the story. So... I was kind of thinking I might want to go with "literary realism" (a category whose name I'm not entirely comfortable with at all, and may change some day). But ultimately, I decided to go with "crime fiction." It's certainly not a mystery novel, but there are crimes that are central to the plot. (In this respect, I suppose it reminds me a bit of The Secret History, or at least of my previous attempt to decide how to categorize that novel.)

Sigh. Anyway, the book came out about twenty years before I was born. I don't know when I first heard of it. It was adapted into a film in 1962 by Stanley Kubrick, and another film in 1997 by Adrian Lyne. I expect I must have heard of both the book and the earlier movie sometime before the latter movie came out. In fact... I remember in the 1980s, Derek McGrath had a recurring role on "Cheers," as a deranged guy who was obsessed with Diane. I always remembered him having a double name, which... I'm not sure if this came before I ever heard of the main character of Lolita, "Humbert Humbert," or after. It's quite possible when I first heard of the book's character, it reminded me of the character from Cheers, but it's also possible it's the other way around. In any event, I couldn't remember what the Cheers character's name was until I looked it up while writing this review, and found that it was "Andy Andy." Really, I'm a bit surprised it wasn't something more interesting than that. I suppose none of this has anything to do with the book, but I wanted to mention it because it's just a weird little association I've always had. Maybe it's just me... or maybe Andy Andy got the double name as a reference to Humbert Humbert. Maybe that was even mentioned on the show. I wish I remembered. Whatever. Where was I? Oh yes, I don't remember when I first heard of Lolita. I suppose I should also mention that the book created a certain association for that name with the idea of sexually precocious young girls (or the attraction of adult men toward young girls), and that in turn led to other things like Lolicon (though it should not be confused with Lolita fashion).

I also feel like I should mention that I have, some years ago, written a bit about my thoughts on attraction, which includes various issues, one of which is the ability to be attracted to underage girls. Attraction in general makes me deeply uncomfortable, and attraction to young girls even more so. It's not something I worry too much about, because it's impossible for me to see women or girls of any age as objects. They're people, obviously, with their own agency and autonomy. But I was nevertheless a bit worried that I might be able to empathize to some degree with Humbert Humbert, because I could surely feel some attraction to some girls as young as the ones he's attracted to. In fact, one of the reasons I even wanted to read the novel was as a prerequisite to watching the Kubrick movie. (I finally got a collection of his movies on DVD in October 2017, and picked up the book sometime later, which I read in 2018.) And one of the reasons I wanted to see that movie (and possibly eventually the 1997 version) was because of attraction to the actress(es) playing Lolita. So... yeah, all of this made me uncomfortable and apprehensive. But there's one scene in the book, fairly early on, when... Humbert does something that disgusted me so much that I put the book down and for at least a few weeks I wasn't sure whether I'd ever continue reading it, let alone watch the movie. But eventually I did finish the book. And if anything, the absolute disgust I felt toward Humbert throughout the whole thing made me feel a bit more secure in the knowledge that I am nothing like him. Anyway... hopefully I'm not forgetting any other thoughts I had, so I can move on to actually talking about the book itself.

The review
It begins with a foreword by a fictitious psychologist named John Ray, Jr. (It is of course actually written by Nabokov himself.) I suppose it could be said to contain spoilers, in regard to things that happen to certain characters after the end of the book. But then again, not really spoilers, since those events are not truly part of the story we're about to read. Anyway, "Ray" presents "Lolita" as if it were a true story, written by the book's narrator and central character, who uses the pseudonym "Humbert Humbert." Of course, that's not true; the whole story and all the characters are fiction. We also learn that Humbert had written the text as a memoir-like confession of his crimes, while waiting to stand trial for one of them. It is not yet revealed what those crimes actually were.

Part One
Humbert recounts his childhood. He was born in Paris in 1910. When he was 13, he had a doomed love affair with a girl his own age named Annabel. (His narration of his life story is mixed with musings in the present. For example, he wonders if the memory of that childhood romance, and his inability to get over it, might account for his obsession with girls that age, when he becomes an adult.) He is only capable of genuine sexual attraction to girls between the ages of 9 and 14 (i.e., he is a hebephile). However, it's not just any girls in that age range that attract him, it's ones he refers to as "nymphets." I think one of the more troubling aspects of this book is that Humbert believes that nymphets are an objective class of girls, with certain traits that distinguish them as such, and which people like himself are able to perceive, as different from non-nymphet girls of the same age. However, it's pretty obvious that this idea of nymphets is not objective, but rather a subjective impression that comes from within his own mind, not from the girls themselves. It's not that for him to be attracted to a girl, she must be a nymphet; rather, that for her to be a nymphet, he must be attracted to her. As much as he likes to psychoanalyze himself, I don't think that ever actually occurs to him. And if it did, I don't think he'd be capable of believing it.

Well, there are a great many details of his past that I see no reason to include here. As far as the basics go: in 1935, Humbert marries a woman named Valeria, who divorces him in 1939. In 1940, Humbert moves to New York City. He later spends some time in a sanitarium, and later still in the arctic. In 1947, Humbert moves to Ramsdale (somewhere in New England), where he begins boarding in the home of a widow named Charlotte Haze and her 12-year-old daughter, Dolores. This is when the story truly begins. Humbert doesn't particularly like Charlotte, but he becomes instantly obsessed with Dolores, whom he calls "Lolita." To stay near her, he soon marries Charlotte. (During the summer of 1947, while Dolores is away at camp.) But he's always plotting ways that he might rape Lolita without either her or Charlotte knowing. (He might not call his plan "rape," but of course that's what it would be.) He also briefly considers murdering Charlotte, though ultimately decides against that. However, Charlotte eventually finds his diary, which reveals his true feelings about both herself and Lolita, and she plans to leave him. Before she can, though, she gets hit by a car and dies. So, Humbert goes to Lolita's camp to pick her up and take her to the "hospital," pretending at first that Charlotte is still alive. Staying at a hotel called the Enchanted Hunters, on the way back to Ramsdale, Humbert has sex with Lolita for the first time. (Though earlier in the book, before she'd gone away to camp, he'd done... the disgusting thing that almost made me stop reading the book.) He claims that while at the hotel, it was she who had seduced him, but this is hard to believe (and is, I would assume, one of the reasons Humbert is often referred to as an unreliable narrator). Later, Humbert finally tells her that her mother is dead.

Part Two
Humbert and Dolores begin driving all around the United States. After a year of that, they spend several months in the town of Beardsley, where Humbert teaches at a college, and Dolores attends school. I don't feel the need to specify much of what happens during their year of travel or their half-year in Beardsley. But I will say that Dolores gets involved with a school play called "The Enchanted Hunters," which was written by someone named Clare Quilty. Humbert realizes some time sooner than Dolores does that the title is the same name as the hotel they had stayed at once. When it does dawn on her, she calls it "the hotel where you raped me." Which, aside from reinforcing the reader's suspicion that Humbert was lying when he said she was the one who initiated that encounter, also makes me wonder what exactly she thinks about the countless times since then that he's raped her. It's pretty clear that she has never been happy about it, to say the least. In fact, even Humbert has moments of clarity in which he's aware of her unhappiness, though most of the time he seems able to convince himself that the two of them are actually in love. (Of course, that doesn't stop him from threatening her with the idea of how horrible it would be for her to end up as a ward of the state, if she ever left him.)

At the end of the school year, in May 1949, Humbert and Dolores again begin traveling around the country. Before long, Humbert becomes convinced that someone is following them, and that Lolita is conspiring with whoever it is, planning at some point to run away with him, and leave Humbert forever. He seems quite paranoid, but eventually it turns out he was right. Lolita vanishes, and he won't see her again until 1952. We get to know some of what happens to Humbert in the intervening years, but I don't think it's particularly important. As for what happens after he meets her again... I don't want to spoil any of that, except to say that it leads to the crime for which he is awaiting trial, while writing his book.

Well... I must say... this was a really difficult book to read. Mostly that's for the obvious reason that the protagonist is such a repulsive monster. (He describes himself as quite handsome, which may or may not be true. Again, unreliable narrator. But even if it is true, it doesn't make him any less repulsive.) But also, I found Humbert mildly annoying in a much more mundane way. He's obviously intelligent and cultured, but also pretentious. He litters his narrative with countless phrases in foreign languages. (Mostly French, but I think there were others.) I just skimmed over those things, without bothering to look up translations. I'm sure knowing what he was saying wouldn't have added anything to my understanding of the story, or of Humbert himself. There were also plenty of English words I didn't recognize, and I stopped looking those up early on, when I found that some of them weren't even in my dictionary. I suppose many readers might like Humbert's style of writing and speaking. Maybe I would, too, if I didn't hate him so much for other reasons. I can certainly understand enjoying books that are written eloquently, whether or not one understands all that is written. But in this case, I couldn't help but feel that Humbert's style wasn't so much eloquence for the sake of eloquence, as it was for the sake of condescension (or else just plain showing off). In short, he's just too smug. But as I said, I mainly hate him for what he did to Dolores. And for his belief that he loved her. Even when he can finally admit that he raped her, he still believes he truly loved her, and I've never been able to abide people confusing obsession with love.

Anyway, I guess I can't think what else to say. I'm just glad to be done with the book. I'm still not sure if I'll ever watch Kubrick's movie. I probably will, eventually... but for now, the thought of it makes me queasy.