Lolita, Light of My Life...

Let me start by being honest.

I am not the reader I used to be. Ten years ago, as a young Lit. student, I'd have embraced the challenge, searched out the foreshadows and allusions and anagrams. These days, not so much. I am a lazy reader now. And that's why Lolita has taunted me from my nightstand since February 18. (How do I know when I started reading it? Because I put a Post-It on the title page with the date to see how long it would take me to finish.)

Lolita beat me up. It was difficult, revolting and sometimes even exasperating to read, not only for the story line but also for the ornate language. I never wanted to throw it across the room in frustration, but I certainly let it languish by my bed for long stretches.

I felt like Nabokov and I weren't getting along.

I decided to tackle Lolita because the last few books I've read have been lackluster at best, ( horrid is another way I'd describe them), and being that Lolita is one of Jen's favorites and Jen is one of my favorites, I felt it was a good choice. And it was a good choice.

I'm happy to say I have read Lolita. My pop-culture understanding of the character Lolita and the novel couldn't have been more wrong. Lolita is a tragedy wrapped in a terrible love story. Toward the end it switches to almost a detective novel and about 100 pages from the end it becomes utterly heartwrenching.

It was the last 100 pages that sent me to bed early to pick it up again and then kept me awake afterwards, turning Lolita over and over in my mind.

There were plenty of times I wanted Nabokov to get on with it, move the story forward. I didn't pick it up for prolonged periods because I felt like nothing else was going to happen - this pedophile was going to continue to abuse this girl ad nauseum forever and ever. But as Lolita ages, it turns. She becomes more cunning, less accomodating and the conflict that before was between Humbert and society (or the reader in this case) becomes more of a conflict between Humbert and Lolita.

There were pages upon pages of the book that I read to no avail. I didn't understand what was happening, I missed clues and events and would have to go back. The language was so dense and the writing so intricate it was hard for me to follow. Like I said, I am not the reader I once was.

But there were passages that I know I've never read anything more heartbreaking, more eloquent, more stunning. One of these is when Humbert sees Lolita again after her vanishing three years prior. The description of his love for her during their final visit is so rife with heartbreak and truth it took my breath away. I've never read anything like it.

And when he asks her - defeated, wan and worn at age 17 - to come back to him, I felt sorry for him, actually felt sorry for this vile man, that she didn't.

And that is why I understand why Jen so loves this book. Because in the end, after everything Humbert's done to destroy this girl, Nabokov is capable of making you feel sorry for him. Sorry for this man, the man who listened as Lolita cried herself to sleep every night the minute he feigned sleep.