61
Finished Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov for the Casual Classics Challenge and my 30 by 30 challenge.
This is a brilliant book, one we've all heard of. I don't think I'd go so far as to say that I liked it, but it's an amazing book and I'm glad I've read it.
According to the front cover and Vanity Fair, it's "the only convincing love story of our century."
I really hope that's not true, because Lolita has nothing to do with love.
Humbert (the narrator) tries to convince himself that he loves Lolita and that she loves him back, but in his more honest moments (there aren't many, but they are there), he knows that she doesn't and that she stays with him because she feels trapped. (He tells her that if she tries to go to the police or to tell anyone, he'll go to jail and that she'll be put into the foster care system or in some sort of facility for wayward girls.)
The book's more about obsession (on his part) and helplessness (on hers). He tries to paint it as love and as concern for her (he decides at first that he's going to drug her before touching her so that she can stay pure) but really, not so much.
Comments
I saw both versions and I preferred the Jeremy Irons one. I haven't seen it in years though and I'm rewatching it when I visit Jen in April. :)
There's a part in the book not long after she learns that her mom died (but after he's already raped her--or she seduced him, depending on which account you believe) and they're at a motel with separate rooms and she goes into his room and he knows it's because she has nowhere else to go. Her mom's dead and she has no other relatives and so it's basically Humbert or foster care or the streets.