We Came Along with a Hammer

So, this is a bit of a sidebar from the main goal — I promise I’ll have something up on Arrowsmith soon, but Matthew Baldwin at Defective Yeti has picked Lolita for his National Novel Reading Month book (NaNoReMo, for those in the know — a take-off on NaNoWriMo). And I volunteered in his comments to tag along as a fellow traveler, as Lolita’s my favorite novel.

I realize, perhaps too late, that this is a bit of an awkward thing to do — at this point, while I can remember clearly what it was like to read Lolita for the first time, I don’t think I can recall what it was like never to have read it. I am constantly struck and chagrined by people’s preconceptions of the book—even though if I think about it, I’m pretty sure the first time I heard it referenced was when the Amy Fisher case broke when I was in junior high. The wife-shooting mechanic’s paramour was called the Long Island Lolita by the tabs. People still have that impression of the book now — that the girl in it is a seductress, and that’s very far from the case. Plus there’s another whole subset of people that just think the book’s sick, that it’s a hair’s breadth from a crime to even write about such a topic.

But a lot of the first time readers—the ones who actually like the novel—there is perhaps and even more common take, one mentioned by one of the other commentators at Mr. Baldwin’s site: “My understanding is that when Nabakov wrote Lolita, his goal was to take the most vile subject matter possible and turn it into a beautiful love story.”

Upon reading that, I rushed to the battlements to fire back—because I think the book’s a good deal more complicated than that—and I think perhaps I was a little unfair. For when I think back to reading Lolita for the first time myself, Humbert’s quite genuine passion and grief are what stuck out to me, too. His voice has all the power that Nabokov is able to give it, and Nabokov was a genius. It’s hard to blame the reader for falling under its sway: Humbert is both brilliant and obsessed — and so people tend to forget he’s a bastard.

In part, too, I think Nabokov wants you to forgets, tempts you to forget. I remember the first time I read it I kept waiting for Humbert and/or Nabokov to slip up, to do the one thing that was clearly unconscionable, that would allow you to loathe him plainly, cleanly. But Humbert never does, quite — in fact Nabokov toys with this line in several places, deliberately. (Several examples come to mind — but too far into the book to discuss that this juncture, I think.) By sidestepping the obvious redlines, Humbert remains still capable of seducing the reader. And given the descriptive powers, the wit, the sensitive perceptiveness and depth of meaning which Humbert’s capable of — it’s easy to be seduced.

So I guess, if I’ve a word at this point for the first time reader, first of all it would be to enjoy yourself — a few chapters in and you ought to be able to tell whether you delight, as I do, in Nabokov (and Humbert’s) style, and if you do there’s much yet to come that will be worth the savoring — picnic lightning, a weak solution of Marlene Dietrich, two flies beside themselves with a dawning sense of unbelievable luck. But remember too that Humbert is a bastard, that he lies and cheats, that in this as in much of Nabokov’s work another story is bubbling beneath the surface of the narrative. Most of VN’s books are narrated by madmen, and this one I would not except. In fact, in many ways I didn’t fully appreciate this book until I read it though the second time — but perhaps I’ll leave the explanation for that until later, and quit peering over your shoulder for now.