No vacancy

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

I briefly heard of the book, but nothing specific and I started reading it with a strong sense that it was a love story. What else would you guess from a title like that.

In a very small nutshell, the main character, Humbert Humbert has an obsession for ‘nymphets’, a profound addiction to a very specific age group, girls around 12 – 15. When he was about that age, his first love and the discovery of the beautiful pure body of Annabel, traps him for the rest of his life. His attempts at a normal life fail each time more spectacularly. Through a sequence of ‘favourable’ events, Lolita becomes his partner in a journey with an American suburban background to hide in.

While I followed them around, I was a witness to the mind and soul of the character, exposed as raw as could be. There was an interesting struggle as a reader to surpass the lure of obvious judgement that came with the theme. It is really very open and obvious the knowledge that what happens is disturbing, the main character makes it easy and points it out for you. But these moments of lucid honesty are not ingredients for a path to redemption and although he tried to control his unhealthy obsession, both at home and medically, he fails miserably. We tend to classify people in very simple boxes, especially when it comes to criminal behaviour. So it is quite unsettling to read a book which shows you how complex that box is.

By the end of the lecture, I was exhausted to witness these lives. At the beginning of the journey he teaches you how to say Lolita, and as you say it out loud you feel there was a great love there. The poetry found in that love, as obsessive and hurtful as it was, made me stay with him from one motel to another until the whole sordid story culminated and ended.

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