Lolita and Morality

So, finally, I finished reading Nabokov's Lolita. The immorality of Humbert Humbert and his actions towards Lolita tell us how far one can get from his or her righteous conscience, the very inner quality of guiding to the rightness. It raises questions about our understanding of ourselves in modern times, such as to what extent the human conscience has lost its moral judgment. This is a chronic affliction that a reader might experience in reading Lolita and this is precisely what Humbert Humbert suffers from.

Lolita is a testimony to our pain and suffering in our modern day, which is defeated by an indiscernible joy. We do not understand what Nabokov really says unless we put aside our preconceptions about the moral issues that the book raises.

I thought it was relevant to bring in Schopenhauer's input. In his essay on pessimism, Schopenhauer says that in order to understand this world’s suffering and misery, one must be accustomed to the fact that this world is a penitentiary, a sort of penal colony--not the sort that is a correctional facility. If we accustom ourselves to such a reality, we can find ourselves in front of a campus that guides us through life and perhaps banishes our doubts about the right path to take. If such a view or feeling is created, and if such a desire has kindled a light in the darkness of our conscience, one can then claim to understand what Nabokov means in Lolita.

Lolita: The Shocking Enchantment

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta." From the book.

For years, I have been desperately seeking the opportunity to read Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, and finally, the moment has arrived. For the past few days, I have been sitting in coffee shops, reading this captivating book. It is disgustingly beautiful, and delightfully troubling. A reader must mentally be prepared to encounter unseen, unheard, invisible, and unthinkable stories and events in Lolita.

It is definitely unsettling for people in this day and age to see a man, probably in his 40s, having a sexual affair with a 13-year-old girl. In the beginning, Humbert Humbert explains that this is the age when marriage and cohabitation before the age of puberty are uncommon, but by doing so, he also tries to familiarize the reader with his perversion. As such, he makes an effort to mask his predilection towards Dolores as something natural, which he says has historically been common. He provides examples of those notable figures in history who have married (would be better to say copulated) girls as young as 8 years old. For instance, he says, old men of Lepcha of the Himalayas copulate with girls of eight, Dante fell in love with Beatrice when she was nine. Since Humbert Humbert's purpose of giving such examples is to justify his own sexual conduct toward Dolores Haze, he could also add Muhammad and Aisha to his list. This is a fact, though it angers Muslims to this day when it is brought up, even though Humbert's psychopathic mentality is rampant among certain cultures in different Muslim countries. I wonder why he didn't mention Muhammad and his child bride, since he brings in Rahab of Jericho from the Book of Joshua in the Hebrew Bible, who was considered to be a harlot at ten years of age, and she helped the Israelites in capturing the city.

Lolita was first published in France. American publishers refused to publish it and editors reacted with aspersion and admonition. Some Americans found the book an insult to all Americans, while others took it personally; in some cases, they became suspicious of the author himself over the whole story. Most of them indicated that they did not finish the book; some read the first few pages and disgustingly put it away, and some hardly read it through.

Nabokov has wonderfully mastered the use of language. The reader will be surprised by how eloquent and elegant the prose has turned out, despite English not being his first language. The author often finds himself confined to using words in English that do not translate the heart of the matter; therefore, the reader will encounter compounds that are abundant.

I will try to reflect on this captivating book, the story of protagonist Humbert and his enchanting nymphet, in further posts.