Lolita: Second Set of Readings

I didn't want to blog on the first set of pages, because I was still getting a feel for the main character. Now that I get what kind of person he is, it is easier for me to analyze him in my own personal way. It is now known to me that Humbert is a modern day peophile, and due to my attorney mentality and my many years of watching Law and Order: SVU, I was immediately disgusted. But, I guess it's always good to hear things from other people's views--even if you do not agree. Instead of blogging after reading all of the pages, I decided to blog while reading.

I pick up in section 14 where Humbert was gloating about how he got his personal high without Lolita even noticing: "Thus had I delicately constructed my ignoble, ardent, sinful dream; and still Lolita was safe--and I was safe" (p. 62). But it seems as though Humbert knows his lust for Lolita will not last forever since he says "I knew I had fallen in love with Lolita forever; but I also knew she would not be forever Lolita." This "pet" name that he has given her is her current, childish state, he knows soon she will mature and be a " 'college girl' --that horror of horrors" (p. 65). Being in my fourth year of learning the french language, I love the heavy emphasis Humbert makes on irrelevant lines; yet, criticizes everyone else's french as if they are of lower status than he (even though from my view he has the problems).

The passages are seeming to get longer, especially 15 when Lolita runs back into the house to kiss him before she takes off to the camp.

I love how the letter from Madame Haze is even printed as if it was word for word what she wrote, yet at the end of it he explains that he may have changed up some of her words, which leads me to believe that he is a classic unreliable narrator. About this letter, I found it funny tht he actually thought, had an ounce of hope to think that the "schoolgirl's scribble" (p. 67) could be that of his young love. She also has this way of being emphatic with her French. In this letter, from what the reader knows is her writing, she is uses alot of reverse psychology by simplying stating things like "I am nothing to you" and "do not even read this absurd note to the end" (p. 67) knowing he must continue to read since anything concerning M. Haze concerns Lolita as well. The note also throws strange hints that M. Haze might know of his love for her daughter when she claims he would be a "criminal--worse than a kidnapper who rapes a child" and alludes to her husband that was "twenty years [her] senior" (p. 68). I found the end of the letter a challenge or a test, basically telling Humbert to go to church and pray away his sin.

Humbert's idea of marrying M. Haze in order to get closer to Lolita is so far-fetched, but he seems like he has it all planned out: "killing her by placing five bichloride-of-mercury tablets in her preprandial sherry or anything like that" (p. 71). M. Haze starts becoming more social and keeps herself more decent when she realizes that she may be getting married. She constantly asks him about his past and Humbert admits to the reader that "never in his life had [he] confessed so much" (p. 80). He is starting to get used to her jealous nature, but he still dislikes her feelings towards Lolita and describes one of many episodes when M. Haze goes out of her way to make Lolita seem like a bad child.

My favorite description in the readings comes from section 20 when they go out to the lake. He wants to kill her! Seriously! I knew he was crazy and everything, but this pushed the envelope. They go out just far enough and Humbert's thinking is of that of a true murderer. He thinks, "[t]he setting was really perfect for a brisk bubbling murder" (p. 86). So chilling! I felt as if I started suddenly reading Agatha Christie. But there are two workers close by (they just had to ruin it!) "They were near enough to witness an accident and just far enough not to observe a crime" (p. 86).

It seems quite irrelevant, but it goes to mention that Humbert locked his love for Lolita in written love letters that he willingly admitted was hidden. Guess who finds them? M. Haze! She starts reading the mean things he wrote about her aloud, and he brushes it off while making her a drink claiming that he is writing a novel. By the time he makes the drinks, she's dead, a car hit her they say. I just want to add that this is not the way I wanted M. Haze to die! Ugh.

John and Jean are annoying, at least to me. Humbert was happy that M. Haze died. But, he wants the reader to at least see that he felt bad (for getting caught!) and directly addresses the audience by saying: "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury--I wept" (p. 103). I don't know if this has any relevance to the shortest passage in the Bible which is also mentioned in "The Color of Water" a memoir by James McBride. (one of the greatest books ever!) Then out of nowhere, comes a kiss from Jean. This is getting out of hand!

He plans to take Lolita away and buys her all kinds of gifts including clothes. The weirdo even knows her measurements. Oh boy. In the last section, a little over one hundred pages, he realizes he isn't really going anywhere and asks the publisher to write her name out in order to fill a page.

One word:

strange.