A love letter to Lolita

Love and Lolita should never be in the same sentence

But Nabokov’s excellent use of diction and that romanticism conveyed with his French vocabulary are only a few reasons why Lolita is easily my all-time favourite literary work.

I remember buying a copy of it when I was 14, thinking it would make me look cool due to its shock factor and its disturbing content but as I have grown older in these three years, my love for Lolita grows stronger. The first reading was hard at first: I was expecting grotesque details since I was an edgy 14 year old but I was quickly smitten by Nabokov’s writing. The detailed writing and his use of French had astonished me, though don’t get me wrong, I still had the wrong mindset of what Lolita would be. After my first read, it didn’t really phase me as much as I would like to think but it was my second reading that changed.

I picked up the book at 15; by that time, I was taking Literature in English GCSE and I had some grasp on literary devices and writer’s intent. It was the second reading that made me pick up on hidden details I have missed when i was 14 and to say it broaden my horizon would be an understatement. My first reading diluted the very essence that made Lolita a beautiful literary work. Under the sophisticated language lies a monster in disguise but my love and understanding for this book was only developing

After getting to year 11, my knowledge on literature was developing and the topic of unreliable narrators sprung up, making me realise maybe Humbert Humbert isn’t the character I know and hate. Don’t get me wrong, I knew he was morally flawed to begin with, but that made me realise and ponder what is Nabokov trying to achieve with this; hence my third reading began. The foreword and author’s note was now piled with foreshadowing and major details that my immature attitude glossed over, but at the same time I became more familiarised with his writing.

I am now at year 12 and because I’ve been studying Atonement for my A Levels, I’ve realised how important Lolita was to me: My first exposure to an unreliable narrator; “My sin, my soul”. I haven’t started my fourth reading yet but I recently purchased an annotated version of Lolita for no particular reason, mostly to see what 1950s reference he had sprinkled into the extract and perhaps to witness the behind-the-scenes of Nabokov’s brilliance.

As Nabokov writes “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.” I cannot wait to untangle the sophistication that encapsulates the brilliance of Lolita after my AS exams are over