Feel my heart, reader, feel it, its throbbing and beating, beating me to death. The death of normalcy, simplicity, and all that my earlier normal and simple writing stood for – or shall I say banality? The tip of the tongue takes a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth – Lo – Lee – Ta.
I am in love. In love with Lolita, her simple attire (she looks black and white, but now, she is hardly that, is she?), her appeal’s complexity, my inability, or if you generously will, my incapacity to understand her completely, and most of all, that dolorous fact that she will never be mine, fully…..Lolita, you adorn my shelf and my heart. Worn out, you shall be, no doubt, some day; I will buy a new copy then, whatever your price might be. Did I tell you I loved your dog-eared cutie-two-shoes look? Oh, I might not have, due to my adolescent, almost juvenile principal principle that I will shun vulnerability.
Humbert “The Humbug” Humbert: passionate, pedophile, psychoanalyst, prurient, petulant, poetic, pathetic, promantic, pdigusting, padorable, pintriguing, and rest assured, light years far from being non-chalant, or any such “heroesque” trite traits, like Sir Pelham’s cheap dandy. Hombert dear, I am so boringly straight.
Lolita: Lo, lore, brat! I hope your readers, those cheap voyeurs, like you the way I do; I, voyeur-extraordinaire. Ma femme, be good to them, in all aspects and respects. Don’t kill them. Don’t make them hate themselves, and you naive reader! yes, you! Read her, lest your life remain ingloriously incomplete. An exercise in bliss; in literary heaven, let mirthful chuckles run amuck. Feel the hot and cold ends of disgusting imagery and chilling wit.
In a singularly repulsive nutshell (the customary conclusion), its just Humbert and his brethren, Lolita and her ilky silky nymphets, star crossed. O queasy reader, don’t be cross at the intricate incestuous labyrinth (of the self-referential type) that is Lolita. Go grab her, and feel her end to end. Trust me not, but you have not felt anyone like her before.
ps: Ulysses, here I come.
pps: Insincere apologies to the scrambled Mr or Ms. Vivian Darkbloom.
Man, it does seem like you’re in love 😛 And if that’s Nabakovian style, then I think i’ll like it 😀
Yes , it is the Lolita Haze and the Lolita style…..I’ve heard the most special part of Loilta is that the narrator is unreliable and misguides the reader…Not sure whether the blog post is also doing the same thing!
Go grab her, and feel her end to end.
Heheh, I will get a copy of the book and start reading …
I think Kubrick has also made a movie on Lolita….. I need to check that one too!
Glad to meet a fellow Nabokov fan :).
As far as unreliable narrators go, Nabokov’s masterpiece Pale Fire features the best of them all. Highly recommended.
I wrote a review of Pale Fire on another blog, but I’d rather you read it after the book itself.
Lolita was a book banned in Indian society when it was released.
It was deemed “not-appropriate” and even wicked.
Thankfully the society has moved on since those hang-ups. I haven’t read the book, but I did watch a play which centred around the theme of this book. However, the protagonist of this play was a guy who had developed pedophilic tendencies after reading this book. Again, a social mindset preceeding appreciation of a work of art.
How Romantic ! Word verification says – Lo – Lee -Ta
“Men came to this book looking for pornography but found,alas,a masterpiece”
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@Jo: I am in love with Lolita, maybe even lust. Have ordered the Annotated Lolita, and a couple of other Nabakov delights, and can’t wait to get my hands on them nymphets.
@Sudeep: The author is unreliable while in third person.
@Sudarshan: Am waiting for the Pale Fire to come my way.
@Dhimant: From the stallion’s mouth: “In this course I have tried to reveal the mechanism of those wonderful toys — literary masterpieces. I have tried to make of you good readers who read books not for the infantile purpose of identifying oneself with the characters, and not for the adolescent purpose of learning to live, and not for the academic purpose of indulging in generalizations. I have tried to teach you to read books for the sake of their form, their visions, their art. I have tried to teach you to feel a shiver of artistic satisfaction, to share not the emotions of the people in the book but the emotions of its author — the joys and difficulties of creation. We did not talk around books, about books; we went to the center of this or that masterpiece, to the live heart of the matter.”
@Venus: Cosmos loves this romance.
@Anonymous: Touche, anonymous (I love your name), Touche.
@Lo: Darling, I don’t want this naive world to misinterpret your comment. I know. And yes, I feel it too, and yeah, right there. You know me like I could never. Sleep, dear pet, sleep.
u should be writing more:)
Hi! Came here reading your comment on Desipundit!
Well written post 🙂
You have mentioned in your comment that you have seen some Marathi and Kannada blogs – Can you please guide me to some good Kannada blogs? I have wanted to read some, but have no idea where to look.
Thank you!
imitation.. flattery etc. Hmm… very well imitated, I say… impressive! 🙂
fwiw, found my way here from the 360 invite.
– smriti