Bloom's Literary Themes - ymerleksi - home

98
Vladimir Nabokov
that the point of the book is “don’t sleep with people a quarter of your
age,” or “don’t marry your girlfriend’s mother,” or “don’t murder your
rival for the affections of a child.”
The “moral” or “theme” of Lolita is to be found in its magical prose.
To read Lolita, or to re-read it, is to heighten one’s sense of the power
of words, to see them dance and hear them sing. It is certainly not
impossible to have read Lolita carefully and still write sloppy prose.
But I believe it is not possible to read Lolita with care and not recognize
poor writing, one’s own and that of others. At the beginning of
the novel, its protagonist laments that he has “only words to play with”
(Lolita 34). Nabokov’s novel teaches us that we might as well play with
the best.
NOTES
1. The novel was first published in 1955, in Paris, by the Olympia
Press, a somewhat shady concern, which printed both legitimate
authors and naughty novels.
2. For example, Lolita made Time magazine’s list of the 100 best
English language novels written between 1923 and 2005. On
the other hand, when it was first published, the editor of the
London Sunday Express described it as “the filthiest book I have
ever read.”
WORKS CITED
Nabokov, Vladimir. The Annotated Lolita. Ed. Alfred Appel, Jr. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1970.
. “Foreword.” Despair. New York: Capricorn Books, 1966.
. “On a Book Entitled Lolita.” The Annotated Lolita. Ed. Alfred Appel,
Jr. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970.