Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

The fall from grace of House Representative Mark Foley and Senator Craig (for sexual offenses) made me think of Humbert Humbert, the infamous narrator and main character of Nabokov’s Lolita. If we ignore the sordid theme of seduction of a minor─or perhaps the other way around: the minor’s seduction of a pervert─and focus on the language itself, we can appreciate Nabokov's mastery of the English language. A fact even more remarkable since he--being Russian--wrote the novel in his second language. I can only think of a handful of authors who have dared write English fiction in their second language: Rafael Sabatini, Joseph Conrad, and Nabokov. I have also written a novel in English, though Spanish is my native language; that is not say that even for a nano-second I'd consider myself in the category of the aforementioned authors. (I'd wish!). Lolita is a veritable trove of puns, double entendres, hidden literary allusions, and other rhetorical devices. If you love the rustle of language, some passages will make your spine tingle and send you to heaven with aesthetic ecstacy. The invention of neologisms such as the word nymphet, places Nabokov in the class of literary tricksters such as James Joyce and Borges. To enjoy the fireworks--the glow and sexual heat--I’d recommend an annotated edition of the novel. Written with due respect for the formal structures of the English language, the novel endures; and it will delight many generations in the future. But why is this so? The answer is that a literary work seizes the imagination of many generations simply because it creates strong, powerful characters that become prototypes: Don Quijote, Tarzan, Ana Karenina, and so on. Just as Thomas Mann created in Death in Venice the prototype of the tortured, elderly homosexual infatuated with a youth─Tadzio, a “Lolito” himself, so Nabokov created two protoypes: Humbert Humbert and the immortal nymphet Lolita. Augustine, City of God Austen J, Pride and Prejudice Austen J, "Marriage Proposals and Me" Austen J, Emma Borges, The Aleph C. Bronte, Jane Eyre Burroughs E,Tarzan Cervantes, Don Quijote Chaucer, Wife of Bath Coelho P,The Alchemist Coyle H, They Are Soldiers Dante, New Life Dickens C, David Copperfield Dostoevsky, Crime&Punishment ConanDoyle,Hound of Baskervilles Dubner S, Superfreakonomics DuMaurier D, Rebecca Ellis B. E. American Psycho Fitzgerald S, Great Gatsby Flaubert G, Madame Bovary Fleming I,Doctor No Freud S, Leonardo Da Vinci Friedan B, Feminine Mystique GarciaMarquez, Of Love & OtherDemons GarciaMarquez,OneHundredYrs Guerrero M,ThePoison Pill Grass G, The Tin Drum Harris T, Hannibal Rising Heidegger M,House of Being Ishiguro K, Remains of The Day Johnson S,Rasselas Kafka,Metamorphosis Kosinski J, The Painted Bird Lee H,To Kill a Mockingbird McBain Ed,Gutter and Grave Murakami H,Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Nabokov V, Lolita Meyer, S, Twilight Ortega,Dehumanization of Art Poe E A, Gordon Pym Prose F, Reading Like a Writer Rushdie S,Midnight Children Sabatini R, Scaramouche Spark M, Prime of Miss Brodie Stendhal, Red and Black Sterne L,Tristram Shandy Stevenson R, Dr.Jekyll & Mr.Hyde Stoker B, Dracula Thackeray W,History of Pendennis Tolstoy L, Anna Karenina Trollope A, Autobiography Unamuno M, Tragic Sense of Life Voltaire, Candide Webb J, Fields of Fire Wharton E, The House of Mirth Woolf V, To The Lighhouse The secrets of 'no-doze' prose: Mary Duffy's Sentence Openers Image via Wikipedia Lindsey Vonn Back to main page

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