Important details in Nabokov's novel "Lolita", which are often overlooked even by attentive readers

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

It would seem, who does not know the stories of Lolita and Humbert? But many seem to have missed a number of points that radically change the perception of this book. But Nabokov did not write a single superfluous line - everything, every detail in the novel, plays on his plan.

This is not a novel about a little seductress

Nabokov insisted very strongly that girls should not be allowed on the cover, especially with a sexual connotation. He believed that the focus should not be on the seductiveness of teenage girls for many men, but on the fact that in today's society they have every opportunity to realize their dangerous fantasies for girls.

The story is believed to be based on the kidnapping and forcible detention of a teenage girl, which actually happened in the United States in the middle of the century. The rapist everywhere presented himself as the girl's father. He intimidated and manipulated her, so she did not dare to call for help. Nabokov added a detail: even if a girl was flirting with a grown man, even if she is no longer a virgin, this does not mean that it is normal to drag her into bed.

Nabokov planned to write a book about the tragedy of a grown man - whom the blossoming beauty, of course, would never love. But in the end, he wrote even for him the most difficult novel about the tragedy of girls, whose life was broken by an adult man.

Everything is very clear

To avoid ambiguity, in the book, Nabokov constantly contrasts descriptions from Humbert (a vicious girl, she climbs, so seductive) and Lolita's reactions to a carnal relationship with an adult man and his forcible retention of her in a "relationship." She experiences physical pain, gets nervous, becomes gloomy, behaves badly at school, finally begins to demand money for each episode of intercourse - this is not the development of love, she does not perceive what happens between them as a relationship, but Humbert's "care" - as care, not captivity.

At the end of Lolita's story, a moral is even deduced for the most unobservant: the worst thing is that Humbert deprived Lolita of a safe, cloudless childhood. Do many remember this moral, or is the book still presented as a story of real, simply complex love, despite the prohibitions of society?

Lolita - only cut

The girl's full name is Dolores. This Spanish name was very popular at the turn of the century in the southern United States. Dolores is reduced to Lola or Lolita. After the book was published, mothers began to think of this name as provoking male interest and stopped calling their daughters that. Pre-existing Dolores were often introduced as Dolly instead of Lola or Lolita.

On the one hand, using such a popular name was like calling a girl Nastya in a Russian novel. On the other hand, Lolita's full name translates as “Suffering”. Most likely, Nabokov knew this very well.

Nabokov spoke very differently about the novel

He told me that he wanted to destroy it, frightened of what happened (the manuscript was literally pulled out of the fire by his wife), then he called it "a novel of unrestrained fun." “This is the hardest thing I've ever written in my life,” he said in an interview with the BBC. At the same time, his attitude to the text was reverent - he himself translated his novel into Russian in case of publication in the Soviet Union, because he was afraid that his ideas, images, style would be distorted.

In the same way, readers perceive the novel differently. Some still write on the walls of the House-Museum of the writer "Pedophile", others recommend the book to those who want to understand why the "romance" of an adult and a child is about power, manipulation, and not about feeling.

From the novel, you can really learn the real techniques of pedophiles

Very often, men who seduce children first seek to charm their mother and even marry her. Then they try to eliminate it. Humbert thought about murder, but more often pedophiles conceive another child, because the baby takes a lot of time, effort and attention - and the second child begins to sorely lack attention … And then a pedophile with affectionate words, arguments about sensuality and gifts.

Many children with whom pedophiles have reached penetrating contact become disillusioned with songs about sensuality and the special meaning of such contacts between adults and adolescents - and then the pedophile turns to a complex cocktail of intimidation, cajolement and ostentatious care. He also does everything to ensure that there are as few people as possible around the child that a girl or boy can confide in. The behavior of the abused child also changes noticeably, and this is painstakingly described by Nabokov in the book.

Not only about Nabokov's book, many know little: What confused the censors in the novel "Dubrovsky" and why Akhmatova did not like him.