Vladimir Nabokov discusses "Lolita" part 2 of 2

I must respectfully disagree with the assertion that it was Lolita who seduced Humbert. The only way one could draw that conclusion is if one trusts in Humbert Humbert's narration. That would be a dubious mistake.

One must also not forget that it was HH who tried to drug Lolita. Have you read the book?

In any event, it is easily a rare and delicate work of genius; equal in the respect to Don Quixote.

Arguing that L seduced HH is ridiculous. But I don't think the issue is whether to trust HH's narration. L was undoubtedly promiscuous for a 12 year old, and she had Hollywood inspired fantasies about HH, but claiming that she seduced him (an adult male, who should know better) is like blaming children for believing in Santa--as if their naivete was to blame for the invention.

wow you must know like 100 things about everything you're so smart you must have 100 friends.

you don't even know what dubious means and you're trying to talk down to people. what a dweeb!

Chris Hansen: What are you doing here?

In my opinion, Humbert was honest throughout the whole novel, knowing it was bad to fall for a 12-year old girl who really didnt know anything about love or sex. Humbert IS a pervert, and the best part is that he accepts it, he knows its bad and everytime you turn a page, you see him fighting with his deamons, knowing that he will be found guilty throughout the trile and everything else. I really like Humbert Humbert because he has like a sad aura in him, he shows his love though a disorted view

'Early defenses of 'Lolita' by Hollander and Trilling center on the insistence that it was an authentic love story.....I marvel that acute readers could take it as a portrayal of human love, since Humbert and Lolita are hardly representations of human beings. They are deliberate caricatures...solipsistic nightmares.'- Harold Bloom. I entirely agree.

Yes, that's exactly my experience. From which of Bloom's books did you take that quote? thanks..

vanderbilt. Novelists and Novels. I happen to love the inexhaustible old buffalo even though he over-estimates Pynchon and Delillo and, however slightly, under-estimates Roth.

book because of this. I simply don't let myself be fooled, unlike some people here, into liking and defending Humbert. Yes, Lolita seduced Humbert. So what? How would a normal, sexual healthy person respond to that I may ask? Like Humbert? By solopsistic I mean a very important quality of Humbert's personality; I don't care whether it's a new tag or not. I've never given a damn about intellectual fashions.

I like the novel precisely because it doesn't seek to explain Humbert's pedophilia like some Bildungsroman with all the asociated cliches, but simply presents it as fact. Humbert, of course, does give some reasons in order to convince the jury of his innocence, but none are convincing. In fact, Humbert, being no fool, recognizes this himself, and even says at certain point in the novel that if the audience was really expecting him to be cured of his pedophilia, they're basicly idiots.