Lolita

Lolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov. It was written in English and published in 1955 in Paris, in 1958 in New York, and in 1959 in London. It was later translated by its Russian-native author into Russian. The novel is notable for its controversial subject: the protagonist and unreliable narrator, a 37-to-38-year-old literature professor, Humbert Humbert, is obsessed with 12-year-old Dolores Haze, with whom he becomes sexually involved after he becomes her stepfather. Lolita is his private nickname for Dolores (both the name and the nickname are of Spanish origin).

After its publication, Lolita attained a classic status, becoming one of the best-known and most controversial examples of 20th-century literature. The name Lolita has even entered pop culture to describe a sexually precocious girl. The novel was adapted to film by Stanley Kubrick in 1962, and again in 1997 by Adrian Lyne. It has also been adapted several times for stage and has been the subject of two operas, two ballets, and an acclaimed but failed Broadway musical.

Lolita is included on Time's List of the 100 Best Novels in the English language from 1923 to 2005. It is fourth on the Modern Library's 1998 list of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th century. It was also included in the 100 Best Books of All Time, compiled in 2002 by the Norwegian Book Club.

My Thoughts on the Book . . . (And the only book that I’ll offer my thoughts on).

Vladimir (Vladimirovich) Nabokov is one of my favorite authors. My tidy collection of Nabokov works are the only books on my shelf that I’ll never lend out. His intriguing blend of poetry and fiction is entrancing and strangely uplifting. Some of Nabokov’s phrases are so beautiful that you can actually hear the cellos and violins accompanying his prose. Yet after watching the 1997 remake of Lolita, it is no longer my voice that I hear when rereading Nabokov’s work. It’s the rich drone of Jeremy Irons’ tone that steals into my quiet time. It also happens that Lolita is my unsurpassed favorite book of all. Nabokov took flack for Lolita and insisted that it wasn’t pornographic. Perhaps in his mind, or should I say, in the mind of Humbert Humbert, that may be so. Good writers fall deeply into their character’s psyche. In Lolita, Humbert narrates his serene upbringing on the Riviera, where he meets his first love, the twelve-year-old Annabel Leigh. Annabel and the thirteen-year-old Humbert never consummate their love, and Annabel’s death from typhus four months later haunts Humbert. Although Humbert goes on to a career as a teacher of English literature, he spends time in a mental institution and works a succession of odd jobs. Despite his marriage to an adult woman, which ultimately fails, Humbert remains obsessed with sexually aware young girls. These nymphets, as he calls them, remind him of Annabel.

Perhaps young Humbert died right along with Annabel. Perhaps Humbert was merely the ghost of his former self: still a fourteen-year-old boy in search of that inner peace that he’d lost and a time when his life had been unscathed: those peaceful days on the Riviera.

What I would give to be able to pick Nabokov’s brain, to understand his creative thought process. It’s very easy for readers to assume that authors share similarities with their well-defined characters. That’s the greatness of some authors: they are able to become intimate with a fictitious character that resides inside of the creator’s mind’s eye. What people may not know about Nabokov was that he had synesthesia, a harmless neurological disorder. Synesthesia is an anomalous blending of the senses in which the stimulation of one modality simultaneously produces sensation in a different modality. Synesthetes hear colors, feel sounds and taste shapes. What makes synesthesia different from drug-induced hallucinations is that synesthetic sensations are highly consistent: for particular synesthetes, the note F is always a reddish shade of rust, a 3 is always pink, or truck is always blue.

How interesting. Nabokov’s writings are famous for descriptions in which sounds, shapes, and colors are intermingled in order to form a powerful sensual effect. In addition, synesthetic details are unique proof of the underlying unity of all things. Since this condition influenced his work, it can be said that synesthesia is Nabokov’s unusual gift. The famous novelist was also an illustrious lepidopterist, husband, scholar, and avuncular cutie– “a fat, hatless old man in shorts,” he’d often described himself.

My Review of Lolita

5—The Perfect Sundae

Adrian Lyne deftly sculpts poetic imagery out of perverse intentions, selling sad love in the dark. Iron’s rich tenor pricked my heart at “She was Lo. . .”
—Tanja

LOLITA (1997)

She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.

― Vladimir Nabokov, 

Director: Adrian Lyne
Writer: Stephen Schiff (based on the novel by Vladimir Nabokov)
Starring: Jeremy Irons, Dominique Swain, Melanie Griffith, Frank Langella

This movie is a closer version of Nabokov's novel than Kubrick’s 1962 version (even though Nabokov helped write the screenplay for the 1962 film).

Brief Synopsis of Lolita

USA, 1950s - Lolita was written as the prison memoir of a European professor, Humbert Humbert (Jeremy Irons), who is haunted by the death of his first love, who died of typhus. We follow the middle-aged Humbert, who moves to America and takes up residence with Charlotte Haze (Melanie Griffith) as soon as he discovers that she has a thirteen-year-old daughter named Dolores (Dominique Swain). He becomes obsessed with the child, who reminds him of his childhood love. Charlotte confesses her love for Humbert; although he has no interest in her, he decides to marry her in order to get closer to Lolita. To have some alone time with her new husband, Charlotte sends Lolita off to camp and then discovers a journal that Humbert has kept, detailing his true feelings for her and Lolita. Panicked, Charlotte runs from the house to mail a letter and gets killed by a car. Humbert then heads to the summer camp and lies to Lolita, telling her that her mother is ill. They embark on a cross-country road trip and form a forbidden, yet tumultuous relationship along the way.

The spectacular opening scene, showing a broken Humbert listlessly steering the wheel, with Lolita’s bobby pin pinched between blood-splattered fingers, instantly sets the sad tone of this film. His vacant expression, his cheeks speckled with blood, and his car weaving through the barren countryside mirrors the desolation that he exudes. Howard Atherton’s superb photography ascends to an almost poetic level: the faded magnificence of Cannes, the sharp precision of the small towns, the lonely shadows of a rainy night. Ennio Morricone’s poignant music highlights Humbert’s emotional viewpoint. All of these elements combined are simply soul rendering.

Morricone’s “Lolita”

The film’s mastery was owing to the fact that it told Humbert’s story through his own expressive voice, from his own obsessive, heartbreaking, tormented perspective. There’s a constant feeling of loneliness that is intertwined throughout this exquisite film. As Humbert, Jeremy Irons creates one of his boldest onscreen performances. His facial expressions cross the astonishing complexity of Humbert’s inner life. You find yourself rooting for this manipulative, petal-plucking man, whose ravenous need to nurse his own heart creates a path of destruction, which ultimately ends on that lonely opening scene. 

A clip of Dominque Swain’s audition for Lolita

In the eye of the storm was Dominque Swain, who played the lead role of Lolita. This giggly sophomore had been selected from among twenty-five hundred hopefuls to portray the teen seductress. This was Swain’s first acting job, and she personified the role flawlessly. Fifteen years old when the filming began, she took on one of the most notorious title roles since Brook Shields starred as Violet, a child prostitute in Pretty Baby, directed by Louis Malle.

Unlike the character in Vladimir Nabokov’s novel, our ’90s nymphet wears retainers and, in one scene, dunks those same retainers into Humbert’s drink. Pigtailed and gangly, sporting those platform shoes, her tantrums and quick sarcasm lighten this otherwise dark journey. And Humbert loves every moment of her bubblegum blowing. It’s during these silly moments in the car that every line that wars across Humbert’s face vanishes, and he is fourteen again.

The chemistry between Swain and Irons was undeniable. The two actors wonderfully balanced the scenes with seduction and mischievousness, while subtly reminding the viewers of their true egocentricities . . . which brings me to the next topic, Melanie Griffith as Charlotte Hayes. 

In an interview, Melanie made a comment about the weight she had gained in order to play the role of Charlotte. “Do I have limits? Yes,” Melanie drawled. “I did put on weight for Lolita and I’ll never do it again . . .”

In the book, Charlotte, Lolita’s chain-smoking mother, is a large woman: overbearing, nagging, overly religious, and hard. She’s the one barrier between Humbert and Lolita. The film, however, portrays a different character. Melanie Griffith is ideally cast as the annoying, widowed Charlotte. With her generous pout painted in a brash red, her affected diction, spoken with that spidery soft voice, was almost comedic. As buoyant as she was, she still managed to shimmer and fade, long before her unexpected death.

Frank Langella is effectively menacing as Clare Quilty, who lures Lolita from Humbert. Quilty is a different kind of evil than Humbert. He’s the quintessence of a true pedophile. Langella embodied his role, exposing his true sins while remaining in shadows and low shots. And yet Quilty still manages to steal Humbert’s redemption. The later scene where Humbert attacks Quilty in his mansion was like the last piece of a puzzle that didn’t quite fit. But as a robe-clad Quilty hammers down on the piano keys and as Humbert continues to hammer down on him, that same mismatched piece somehow fit on an almost operatic level.

The film comes full circle, to that spectacular opening scene, with a dejected and bloody Humbert driving recklessly, and the serene countryside almost sighs.

I looked and looked at her, and I knew, as clearly as I know that I will die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth. She was only the dead-leaf echo of the nymphet from long ago—but I loved her, this Lolita, pale and polluted and big with another man's child. She could fade and wither—I didn't care. I would still go mad with tenderness at the mere sight of her face.
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita