You are here: Home / Archives / 2006 / June / 12 / Humble Humbert

Humble Humbert

By piny on 6.12.2006

After hunting down a post Amanda wrote about it for unrelated reasons, I’m reading Lolita. It’s amazing to watch an author in love with words and literature write a narrator in love with himself.

Posted in

Author: piny has written 462 posts for this blog.

Return to: Homepage | Blog Index

6 Responses

  1. 1
    Andrea McDonnell 6.12.2006 at 3:04 pm |

    i know this is probably less coincidental than it seems but i too am reading lolita (for the first time) and it really is amazing to see the use of language, especially since its not Nabokov’s first language (makes me doubt my vocab skills)

  2. 2
    Blue 6.12.2006 at 4:54 pm |

    I happen to be reading it for the first time also.

  3. 3
    piny 6.12.2006 at 5:03 pm | *

    Sweet! Maybe we could link back and forth. I wanna talk about deification and dehumanization, and maybe about the “moral” nature of this novel, if any can be established. Amanda called it “moral and angry;” I’m reserving judgment until I get to the end.

  4. 4
    W. Kiernan 6.12.2006 at 8:09 pm |

    Lucky me! Back when I was ten years old I really liked reading my mom’s Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazines. That and lotsa cheap, thrilling ess-eff. Good stuff. So one day I’m scanning the bookshelf for paperbacks, what’s this? Hey, cover blurb says it’s a murder mystery! Cool, I’ll just… hmm! Huh?

  5. 5
    Amanda Marcotte 6.12.2006 at 10:43 pm |

    I’m grinning. I think you’ll love it.

  6. 6
    Andrea McDonnell 6.15.2006 at 7:07 pm |

    i think the issue of idolization and dehumanization is key. I really love the way Nabakov comes up with new names for people/things. McFate, himself, his many names for Lolita. The naming is such a clever dehumanization because it makes the named even more personal, while putting the person/idea at a further level of (sometimes to the point of confusion) anonymity. I don’t want to spoil anything later on, but it gets to the point where it’s clear that he doesn’t even want Lolita as a companion anymore and yet he still craves her. She is this constantly unattainable object for him. Even when together, he cannot have her, and that makes her all the more desirable. I feel like the narrator needs this level of detachment and frenzied desire; it keeps him going in a bizarre way because, like the drink and the pills he consumes along the way, she’s an addiction of sorts.

Comments are closed.