100 Great Novels of the World. On Paedophilia?
October 7th 2006 00:44
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Lolita is a book about a paedophiliac, his obsession and his demise. Amongst academics and publishers Lolita is still recognized as one of the finest books in English, perhaps within the first five.
That it’s about a paedophiliac is one thing but being written by a Russian is another. English was never Nabokov’s first language and he never won the Nobel Prize but probably deserved it.
There have been two movies made of Lolita. The first by Stanley Kubrick remains a classic and a masterwork. It starred the incomparable Peter Sellars, James Mason and Shelly Winters. Only Kubrick was capable of the transmogrophication of master literary piece into cinema and the movie is worth buying. The latest version of Lolita starring Jeremy Irons is not worth a mention.
English studies and being literate is probably not something anyone can really aspire to unless they have a working knowledge of Lolita. Humboldt endears himself to the “lady of the household” while looking for digs near his University. Determined to reject the offer from the crass and vulgar widow he changes his mind when he finds the daughter encostumed in togs in the garden. In the movie Sue Lyon is a older and very alluring, but in the novel she is a nymphet, a female child somewhat younger and on the verge of puberty.
While plotting to kill his boring wife, she discovers his diary which describes her in vivid and humiliating detail. In fleeing from the house she is killed by a car and Humboldt is free to complete his seduction of the grieving and vulnerable daughter. This he does while they traverse the USA escaping the prying authorities of the time.
As a portrait of paedophiliacs the book is so chilling and authoritative that it is easy to be convinced that Nobokov was this way inclined himself. This seems very doubtful as he was a somewhat conventional heterosexual. He was born in fabulous wealth in Russia on the same estate where the revered poet Pushkin (see Onegin) was killed in a stupid duel. When Russia fell to the communists he fled to Germany but his father was assassinated and he had to earn his keep from literature.
As Humboldt travels with his sexualized step-daughter he discovers that he has a rival, a corrupt and corrupting playwright called Clare Quilty, played with diabolical humour in the movie by Sellars. Humboldt murders Quilty and dies himself in jail. Lolita goes on to the tedium of lower bourgeoisie life, children and a blue collar husband.
To those who feel that the subject of this book is something that should be swept under the carpet and ignored, this will be a difficult book and a harder movie. To those who cherish literature and want to peek into the ghastly souls of these villains and see what they are about with their pathetic self justifications, both book and film are enlightenment.
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