Lolita
(Vladimir Nabokov)
Years of experience, honourable maturity and the best of education: these are the qualities that count for nothing in the eyes of careless youth which scorns seriousness and rejects knowledge with thoughtless bravado. A bitter truth indeed, but as it is the case with truth there are two sides of the same coin. A scandalous love affair between 40-year-old Humbert and 12-year-old girl triggers off Nabokov's brilliant and profound analysis of the eternal conflict bewteen nature and culture. And nature seems to win the battle, but only on the surface. Upon the ruins or, better, (and literal), upon the grave of the fundaments of knowledge and self-establishment, wild instinct will not perpetrate an act of profanation of the sacred values. It will not happen because instinct has been civilized, just as Humbert's instinct escaped Freudian sublimation. This is a battle indeed: no winners, but losers on both sides. Two victims. There is no place for winners either in the nature camp nor in the culture camp. Lolita is in fact a sad reflection on the drama of unfulfilled love on one side and cynical game of love on the other. But Nabokov is no moralist, he doesn't want to preach. Nabokov is first of all a modern artist who is immersed within a space of cultural artefacts which he uses creatively. Nabokov is also a literary man aware of the medium of his creation. There is a conscious play with various literary conventions in his novel. There is cheap romance intertwined with detective story, theatre of the absurd and catarthtic tragedy. Lolita is also a masterpiece of style: there are rich stylizations, a constant movement between various types of narration, linguistic puns. All this makes the novel an unusual reading, as Nabokov brings many artistic contexts and cultural perspectives into one text.
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