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Lolita 97
of women, not Nabokov. Certainly, Humbert’s efforts to “solipsize”
Dolores preclude his allowing himself to notice or acknowledge that
she has feelings and thoughts of her own, independent of his imagination,
that she can have beliefs and moods that are not in harmony
with his, that she can have an independent existence that has no relation
to his whatsoever. Indeed, one of the things that makes Humbert
a monster is that he similarly transforms everyone with whom he
comes in contact—male or female. Other people are, to this character,
appendages of, or supplements to, his own personality, not discrete
individuals in their own right. This is a mode of living in the world
which is not only inaccurate, but also dangerous, even frightening.
Lolita is a novel which exploits the sexual taboos of our culture
in order to explore, in a complex and fascinating narrative structure,
a number of issues and themes which have nothing whatsoever to
do with sexual behavior. For example, Lolita serves as a splendid case
study proving T.S. Eliot’s thesis that every work of literature builds
upon the works of the past and the literary tradition of which it is
merely the latest manifestation. One of the characteristics which
makes Nabokov’s prose so dense and sometimes difficult is the way in
which his works are saturated with references to a diverse cluster of
artistic predecessors, American, European, and Russian. I certainly do
not, after over a dozen readings of the novel, “catch” all these references,
and first time readers are likely to miss most of them. However
reading and re-reading such a densely allusive novel helps us to begin
to understand the ways in which modern works of literary art build
upon their precursors. Just noticing many of the references to Poe and
to Shakespeare, probably the two most accessible authors from which
Lolita mines, heightens our awareness of the richness and the vitality
of the novelistic tradition.
Another valuable insight that Nabokov imparts, especially for
younger or relatively inexperienced readers, is that good literature
doesn’t really teach lessons. Many of us were encouraged, especially in
high school English courses, to see literature as a kind of repository
of simplistic moral aphorisms (e.g., the moral of Othello is “don’t be
jealous”). Lolita will lead us away from such readings. I have sometimes
asked students questions such as “what is the theme or moral
of Lolita?” just to launch a discussion which will inevitably lead to the
conclusion that the initial query was wrong. Nabokov does not give
us a choice on this. Nobody can read the novel seriously and decide