Why is Lolita so hard to read?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 29 чер 2024
- I hope everyone is doing well! Thank you so much for sticking with me after such a long time without posting. It was a tough session, but I survived. This video took forever to make because I thought the themes were too heavy to treat them lightly. I had to give them the importance they deserved.
Bibliography and works cited:
-Connolly, Julian W. A Reader’s Guide to Nabokov’s Lolita. Academic Studies Press, 2009.
-Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique, Norton, 2001.
-Loftus, Jamie. The Lolita Podcast, Spotify.
-Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. Vintage International, 1997.
- Thomières, Daniel. “Cherchez La Femme: Who Really Was Annabel Leigh?” Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 23, no. 1, 1999, pp. 165-71. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3831825. Accessed 30 June 2024.
music credits:
Impromptu in Blue by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Source: incompetech.com/music/royalty-...
Artist: incompetech.com/
There's Probably No Time by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Source: chriszabriskie.com/uvp/
Artist: chriszabriskie.com/
Last Kiss Goodnight by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Source: incompetech.com/music/royalty-...
Artist: incompetech.com/
If you're a student, please do not hesitate to reach out to your professors when you feel uncomfortable reading a book. You will be surprised to see how much many of them understand❤🩹
Its not hard. Its a masterpiece
I found Ada to be very difficult to read. Lolita I found thrilling and enlivening to read. Its set my mind aflame. And that is what makes it the most unnerving novel I have ever read. Martin Amis said something along these lines, that many novels through history were controversial because they challenged the conventions of the time, which needed to be challenged. However, Lolita is a novel about something that can never be redeemed, being about the grooming, kidnapping and rape of a child. It took me more than one reading to notice the moments of suffering of Lolita. Humbert is a pederast and a narcissist. He erases Lolita totally. He writes with the aesthetic beauty of a genius and angel, yet he writes to erase the actions of a devil and a rapist. The morality of Lolita is located here. And yet it is unnerving. It seduces us aesthetically. It involves us in the thrill of Humbert's voice, which is witty, rapturous, infinitely full of life and aesthetic transcendence and brilliant. And yet we are unnervingly seduced into this narcissist erasure of innocence and suffering. The misery of Lolita is erased by the narcissist rapist, who 'loses' to another pederast rapist who Lolita escapes with. And finally, her death in childbirth. It is a tragedy, that is glimpsed only when we see beyond the aesthetic justification of it all by Humbert. In a wider sense, I try and think of what emotional landscape led to this poise. Nabokov witnessed atrocity covered up and justified by apologists for the Bolsheviks who sent his family into exile. This is just speculation. We can never know what hinterland within the subconscious gives birth to genius. But Lolita is unnerving in a way no other novel is.
THIS! I thought the 1997 movie did a great job capturing the aesthetic of Humbert's prose but it never questions his reliability as a narrator. It's crazy how Dolores's story is not only erased by Humbert but also by the adaptations of the novel. The story is already tragic, but society's interpretation makes it even more.
This was a great literary analysis! I’ve never read Lolita myself as I had been apprehensive toward it, though I’ve heard others’ analyses before and found them interesting. Your video has finally convinced me that I need to read the book for myself. I am a psychology student so the psychological nature of the book is very intriguing to me in particular. You’ve brought up some interesting points in this video, I can’t wait to explore them further in my own reading.
Your way of speaking is very nice to listen to, I really enjoyed your video!
Thank you for watching and for your comment. I'm 100% sure that as a psychology student, you will find this novel super interesting. I'm very insecure about my way of speaking, so thank you for the compliment 🤗
Happy belated Independence Day mrs Eva . Iam Arabic lady subscriber to British and American UA-cam channels. I sent comments to you from long times . Thank you for your wonderful cultural channel.
before I watched the video, when I was doing my reading assignment in high school for a literature class about this book, I was uncomfortable almost from the beginning, so I was not able to read the book till the end, I just got an essay from Google and changed some works. This book really triggers me.
I'm so sorry you had to read a book that made you feel uncomfortable. It sucks when that happens. I think students should be offered the option to choose the novels they want to write about to avoid situations like this. It's only reasonable. I hope you were okay after that 💞
@@evasliteraryparlour yeah i was ok, talkinh with peole helps a lot, but yeah it was funny have to read something like that for a professor that its to much of a square
thank you so much for a new video.
An excellent analysis!
In my view, Pale Fire presents a greater challenge for readers compared to Lolita due to its format as a lengthy poem. While Lolita depicts a disturbing narrative centered around a deceitful man, Nabokov's eloquent writing is beautifully displayed. It's not surprising that some may struggle with the morals of Humbert.
I didn't know he had written a long poem. I NEED TO READ THIS!🤩
Welcome back!
Enjoyed your video and analysis…
Look forward to your next video (sooner or later).
All the best…
Thank you for watching!
Brilliant analysis, thank you.
Thank you for watching!
I've always given this novel a wide berth. After watching your video, I feel that as uncomfortable a read i know it'll be, I should give this a go. After all, I'm basing my thoughts on the complaints and those who hated the book but never read it!! One day, maybe I'll get to it!! Thank you for a great video, and it's lovely to see you again!!xx
Yes! Humbert is grooming us, the reader, as he groomed Lolita. He is a predatory narcissist. And he succeeds. And suddenly, upon finishing the novel, we are unnerved, because to some degree, upon first reading, we are taken in by him. Really, Lolita is an infinite novel, one of the true infinite novels
Yeah ! some scholars have written about how the readers' outrage is a product of Humbert's seduction of them. According to this theory, the readers feel unsettled because Humbert's story appeals to their fantasies. Creepy!
Your videos are great👏
thank you! It makes me happy to know people enjoy them. 🤩
welcome back :)
thank you!!🤗
Leí el libro a finales de mis 20's o inicios de mis 30's; hace una década, aproximadamente.
Me has hecho reflexionar críticamente sobre el mismo y sobre mí. Gracias.
And now I want to re-read it 😊
Realize that the entire point of the novel is that Lolita is actually manipulating Humbert the whole time. Her only goal was to get with Quilty.
That's what Humber thinks. You have to see through that.
After multiple attempts throughout the years, I finally listened to an audiobook of Lolita read by Jeremy Irons who also plays the main character in the movie. It was actually amazing. He brought so much personality to the character that by the end, I was conflicted about my feelings about him (as intended by the author).
Ever since I read the novel, I've been wanting to re-read it on audiobook version. You just convinced me to do it🤭
I kinda recently found this Channel and subscribed a while ago after watching your video about Gothic.
There are some books and a couple movies I simply wont read/watch, because I already feel very much apalled by the premise alone. Lolita feels wrong in a lot of ways. Back when I watched parts of Cronenberg's The Fly, I constantly felt uneasy for several weeks. The same happened after certain scenes of The Thing. Those are very much body gore, but they touched on a nerve that makes my mind feel like cracking. The same feeling comes up thinking about the story in Lolita.
But I always enjoy good analysis, so this video was interesting at the least.
May I suggest a book for future videos?
Bloodmeridian; I currently read through it, as it was suggested to me as a very unique book. It is very much different from what I am used to read - not because of the display of violence, but because the style is so... pale. It doesnt use any of the "classic" writing templates to describe stuff or let characters interact with each other.
You are right! there are stories that are just too much. Thank you for watching and for the recommendation. I'm going to check it out 💕
We should consider HH a criminal in court, and this book a plea to us the Jury.
If majority of readers manage to fall for it and consider it a love story or justify HH, then we have failed as a society, we’ve let HH manipulate our thoughts.
And looking at how Lolita is viewed in general, I think we got there a long time back. 😞
It's refreshing to see someone who notices all the ugly stuff that Humbert confesses to outside of what he did to Dolores.
I think that the novel is heavily inspired by Crime and Punishment and Humbert is a type of character that considers himself an ubermensch who then is led by the author to the conclusion he's just a monster.
My view is that the book isn't about Humbert manipulating the reader, but Humbert manipulating himself to convince himself to not hate himself and that his paedophilia is good and then Nabokov subjecting him to a sequence of events that proves him wrong.
Fun fact, this book isn't written to be presented to the jury. It was supposed to be read after he and Dolores and Humbert and also I think that Humbert simply doesn't care how the reader sees him, that's why he constantly gives out information that shows him in worst light, casts doubt at his own thoughts, etc.
For example he tells the story of Anabell and then says he isn't sure if he became a paedophile because of the trauma or if he was madly in love with Anabell because she was the "right age".
Lots of Humberts statements refer to what he was thinking and how he was explaining things to himself at specific point of time.
Humbert has a basic problem of being unable to control his impulses around Dolores - something that he's sharing with the protagonist of the Enchanter.
The difference is that it results in Dolores being convinced that they are lovers while in the Enchanter it results in the victim screaming in terror.
The part where he says "it was she who seduced me" was basically a joke because he had this great ubermensch plan of exploiting her without her being aware and was actively trying to put her to sleep and have his way with her and then it turned out she's interested in him.
It's certain that Humbert went way further than she wanted and also he sucks in bed.
Another thing that immediately after the event, he starts blackmailing her. Like he was completely unprepared for dealing with her as a person.
Like what's funny about Humbert is that he sucks at what he does. Like he doesn't groom her, doesn't do stuff like telling her that she's exceptional, that she's mature for her age and other stuff that creeps do. He just has his special plan and also no self-control.
The basic problem with the great manipulator theory is that he's really basic at his doing - he's mainly just lying but if he would really be that great manipulator the story would end with Dolores being in love with Humbert and being suddenly surprised that she aged out.
One thing I wonder is if Humbert snapped after Anabell died - like he describes having almost spiritual connection to her and then he describes becoming cold after she died.
I wonder if his narcissism and sociopathy and inability to connect are a result of trauma.
Then there's another weird part where he claims that he has no problem having sex with adult women, he just finds girl-children in specific age range to have a special appeal. That suggests that he's not a real paedophile but rather a fetishist, which sort of makes the whole thing even worse.
I'm so sorry to hear dystopian fiction is a trigger to you. Dystopian fiction is 1 of my favorite sub-genres. It makes me think; do North Korean refugees find 1984 triggering?
I read 1984 and the whole time I had terrible anxiety. That book made me shake, and I had to put it down many times. I have to read it again the next session, and I don’t know how I will manage. However, my brother loves it. That just shows how different our reactions to the same novel can be.
its hard to read because as our resident genius jk rowling tweeted its a heartbreaking love story...
omg! did she really say that? I don't even now why I'm surprised
Lol yes and progressives collectively groaned and laughed awkwardly not merely for the disgusting braindead interpretation but also because shes one of these think of the children reactionaries with her transphobia @evasliteraryparlour
@@evasliteraryparlour she did. queen terf-- blessed be her name and may long be her reign-- in her profound depth of media literacy said nabokovs lolita is a heartbreaking love story rather than what it is: the biography of a pedophile.
this is the woman who claims to be ever so fucking concerned about the health of children in general and transchildren specifically because we all know the penis is evil so transwomen must be too
@@evasliteraryparlour she did. queen terf-- blessed be her name and long may she reign-- in her profound depth of media literacy said nabokovs lolita is a heartbreaking love story rather than what it is: the biography of a pedophile.
this is the woman who claims to be ever so fucking concerned about the health of children in general and transchildren specifically because we all know the penis is evil so transwomen must be too
unfortunately humbert humbert is very boring so i could never get into the book fully
I thought so, too. I was able to read the book because I found the story interesting, and I loved the writing style.
I got sick of reading his endless ramblings
@@pillbox1240 I think that’s the whole point. He is boring and gross 💀
@@evasliteraryparlour His prose is a tangled web of metaphors and allusions. The way he "seduces" the reader is a key part of how the novel works. The aesthetic of morality was a recurring theme in Nabokov.