Quarter 2

We're halfway through Lolita! 154 pages, to be exact, and a whole lot has gone down since my last post. If you were already uncomfortable with the secret climax scene, you may want to skip this summary. Since then, Humbert has plotted to kill his wife by drowning her, but fate saved him the trouble, and she was run over right after she found his stash of journals and letters in which he confesses everything. She knew about his obsession with Lolita, his dislike for her, and the fact that he only married her to get close to her daughter. With her gone, Humbert was free to essentially kidnap Lolita, drug her, and claim she seduced him (sounds pretty similar to Abducted in Plain Sight if you ask me). Now, they're travelling the country while having a secret affair. Like I said, quite uncomfortable material to read.

To preface this post, something I really love about Nabokov's style is the carefully chosen details. There is one line in particular that stood out to me. Humbert writes, "Oh, my Lolita, I have only words to play with!" (32). It probably isn't as significant as I think it is, but to me, this line confirms that Humbert carefully chooses everything he says in the novel. Each detail has been considered and added with purpose behind it. Since reading this, I have kept it in the back of my mind.

One of the things I wanted to talk about last time but didn't want to spoil was the foreshadowing of Charlotte's death. Admittedly, the copy I am reading is the annotated version, and I occasionally learn about plot details before I reach them. I have since stopped reading most of the notes for this reason and only use them to translate the occasional French phrase (which I am hopeless to translate on my own). Long story short, the first time Humbert hinted at the death of his wife-to-be, I read all about it in the notes. Therefore, I have known about it this whole time and have been able to pick out the plethora of other references to it.

The original mention of the accident was all the way back in chapter 10 of part one, when Humbert writes, "Speaking of sharp turns: we almost ran over a meddlesome suburban dog (one of those who lie in wait for cars) as we swerved into Lawn Street" (36). Though this one is not particularly obvious, and there's no chance I would've noticed it on my own, they get progressively more blatant as the scene approaches.

He has thoughts of killing her far before the incident, writing, "I did not plan to marry poor Charlotte in order to eliminate her in some vulgar, gruesome and dangerous manner [...] but a delicately allied, pharmacopoeial thought did tinkle in my [...] brain," (71). These mentions of his plotting plants the idea of her death far before it actually happens. Two pages later he also says, "the fool dog of the prosperous junk dealer next door ran after a blue car--not Charlotte's" (73). By now, there as a clear connection between death, the dog, and Charlotte.

From then on he is no longer subtle, stating "a bad accident is to happen quite soon" (79). Because of Humbert's discussions about murderous thoughts, it would be easy to assume he would have played a direct role in her death. He nearly does at the lake but finds himself unable and foreshadows the real cause of her death once more: "Oh, my poor Charlotte, do not hate me in your eternal heaven among an eternal alchemy of asphalt and rubber and metal and stone--but thank God, not water, not water!" (88). So, her death will come by pavement, not water.

It's interesting--Humbert takes credit for Charlotte's death as though he orchestrated it, essentially stating, "had I not been [...] such an intuitive genius," she never would have died. Yet simultaneously, he shifts the blame off of himself throughout the novel for his crimes, placing it on fate and his victims. He continues, saying that even if he had played a role by his intuitive genius, "nothing still might have happened, had not precise fate" taken control (103).

This is the other aspect of the style I find so captivating. Given the frame of the novel, Humbert frequently references the "ladies and gentlemen of the jury," as though it is a persuasive piece of work designed to clear his name. Therefore, the scenes are constructed in a way that anytime he commits a crime, he addresses the jury and attempts to shift the blame. Perhaps the best illustrative example of this is when Humbert and Lolita first engage in intercourse, and before even stating that it happened, he addresses the jury, then describes how "it was she who seduced [him]" (132).

The effect of these techniques is fascinating. As a reader, I fall prey to his manipulative nature and persuasive style. I don't want to like him, but as disturbing as his crimes sound and are, I don't find it as hard to read as I thought I might. He is so good at shifting blame and painting a picture in which he is both incredibly intelligent in creating and carrying out a master plan to fulfill his desires and also not entirely responsible for any of it. After all, it was fate who killed Charlotte and Lolita who seduced him.

This brings in the question of how much we can trust our narrator. In this case, Humbert is a manipulative, intelligent, and detail-oriented character who is actively trying throughout the novel to clear his name. Therefore, I have no reason to believe he deserves anything less than complete blame for the events of the novel. I don't believe that Lolita seduced him, and I think he exaggerates her willingness to participate in the affair. Additionally, I do not believe he had a direct role in Charlotte's death, but I fully believe he would have if the accident hadn't occurred. However, I also know this is a fictional story and no one actually died or seduced anyone else.

If the goal of the novel is to enlighten the reader about the manipulative, persuasive nature of pedophiles and criminals, I would say it's incredibly successful, and a lot of that success comes from the style of writing. I genuinely find this novel fascinating and cannot wait to read the next quarter. Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll tune in next week!