Banned Books: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov


                Humbert Humbert is in love with Lolita and has fantasized about loving her for months. Lolita, at twelve years old, is not yet a woman and he lovingly refers to her as a nymphet. His nymphet. His love for her spawns from his love of another in his youth, one who was taking him from him at the age of thirteen. When Humbert first laid eyes on Lolita, it was his first love that came to mind, and so the obsession began. A man of his age lusting for a nymphet was maddening, sickening, he knew. But he could not resist anything about her. He would do anything to have and to keep his Lolita.
                Nabokov created a very intense, unsettling, disturbing rendition of a love story with his novel Lolita. Humbert is a maniac possessed with “knowing” in a biblical sense, a young girl. The most important thing to realize is that he adores her because she is a young girl. He finds her youth and undeveloped body extremely attractive. He is drawn to the fact that she is not yet a woman and he is willing to do many unbelievable, unimaginable things to possess her. Love is what he calls it and to him it truly is love that he feels. Lolita chronicles Humberts passion, through the narration of Humbert, as he confesses his crime.
                I’ll be the first to admit that I was struggling through the pages of this novel when I first began. The idea of reading a novel about a man’s unhealthy obsession with a young girl was troubling. I was trying to make a sense of where a novel of this nature could possibly be going. It wasn’t until I was half way through this book that things start to come together to me. It was at this point that it can became less about desire and more about the admission of maniac tendencies, Lolita as a person and a growing adolescent, and the fear that encapsulated the (for lack of better word) couple. Humbert recognized his flaw and pedophilic nature from the beginning of the novel and admitted, whole heartedly, his faults but that didn’t make him a likeable character. I began to sympathize with him later in the book and though I could never understand him, he was trying to make more sense. Could I ever believe that he did what he did in the name of love? I don’t know. He definitely tried to plead his case within these pages but the crime itself could give any reader pause.
                Lolita to me is the most obvious example of a banned book. People are very sensitive to the idea of rape and pedophilia. It is most people’s worst nightmare. I can imagine many parents berating a school board over this book being on any school list. As history will show, this book was banned in France, Argentina, England and New Zealand, because of its obscene nature. Here in the United States it has been banned as well from high schools. All of the bans mentioned have been lifted at this time. The subjects present in Lolita deal with a lot of psychological issues. This was not in any way a light hearted read. By dealing with pedophilia, incest, and rape you are automatically swimming through sensitive subject matter. What this book did do very successfully is divulge the mind of a madman and the lasting effects he had on a young girl. Everyone won’t want to read this book. Those that want to try to understand and comprehend this types of situations, by reading this novel, should be allowed to. There are men out there with the perverted mind frame described in these pages. These people exists. Banning a book about them won’t change what is happening every day in our society.



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