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.
http://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/classics/reasons retrieved 5/27/2014
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