Book Report of Lolita

Lolita is a novel written by Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), who was a Russian-born American novelist and critic and once studied at Trinity College, Cambridge.The book was first written in English and published in 1955 in Paris, later translated by the author into Russian and published in 1958 in New York. Lolita is listed in the TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. This book is famous for its innovative written style and its controversial subject, a middle aged white widowed male, Humbert Humbert, a pedophile, becomes sexually involved with a twelve-year-old daughter named Dolores Haze. Lolita has become one of the best-known and most controversial examples of 20th century literature. Though this novel has once defined as an erotic novel and it is not being allowed to be published for a long time. But there is no sensual description in this novel. This book is told through Mr Humbert's angle telling the reader from the first moment he met his Lolita till he killed Quilty(the person who took Dolores Haze to video the pornography).The girl like Dolores Haze is described in this novel as nymphet which also indicate the author's marvelous creativity.Now let me show you the details of this novel.This novel described a middle-aged immigrant who movesfrom France to America, Humbert Humbert. During his childhood he experienced his puppy love with a 14-year-old girl named Annabel. However Annabel died from a serious fever at her early age. And after broken heart by a rich widow, Humbert Humbert began to obsess with those little girls especially those whose age range from 9 to 14 and he also defined those girls as nymphet. These tragic experiences are the reason for how Humbert Humbert became a pedophile. Later in 1947, Humbert, got a job in a small New England town, to write something. There he met the light of his life, Lolita. He rents a room in the house of Charlotte Haze, a widow, mainly for the purpose of being near Charlotte's 12-year-old daughter, Dolores Haze (also known as Dolly, Lolita).Then he married charlotte and became Lolita’ stepfather.While Lolita is away at summer camp, Charlotte (Lolita's mother) finds Humbert's dislike for her and his lust for Lolita until she reads his diary. She makes plans to flee with Lolita and threatens to expose Humbert's purpose. But as she runs across the street in a state of shock, she is struck and killed by a passing car. And this part of this novel is the most significant turning point of the whole story. After this unexpected accident Humbert Humbert begin his erotic travel with his daughterDolores Haze. They drive around the country, moving from state to state and hotel to hotel. Humbert keeps the girl under control by giving money, beautiful things to her. After many years traveling Lolita began to feel dislike to her stepfather. She thinks nothing worse than have an incestuous relationship with her stepfather. So she use some trick to escape her stepfather's control. And later Humbert starts a search to find Lolita and the person who took her away, but eventually he gives up his search.One day in 1952, Humbert receives a letter from Lolita, now 17, who tells him that she is married, pregnant, and in desperate need of money. Humbert goes to see Lolita, giving her money and hoping to kill the man who abducted her. She tells the truth: Clare Quilty, the writer of the school play, is also a pedophile and amateur pornographer. He fell in love with 12-year-old Lolita, checked Lolita out of the hospital and attempted to make her star in one of his pornographic films; when she refused, he threw her out. And Humbert wanted Lolita to leave her husband and return to him, but she refuses. This is also the most important part of this novel, for it reveals the reader why Lolita will develop such kind of characteristic and lead the whole story to it highlight. Finally, HumbertHumbert killed Quilty. And according to the novel's fictional Forewords, Humbert dies of illness upon finishing his manuscript. Lolita dies giving birth to a stillborn girl on Christmas Day.That is the end of this tragic comedy . According to Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita is not only a novel focused on incest but a book related to love. It was something about using lust to test the true love. As for me, I also have the opinion that this novel is not only a masterpiece in the field of psychology related to pedophilia but a weird love between a 12-year-old girl and his stepfather. “LOLITA, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. '' As we can see from the first sentence of the whole novel, we can experience that Humbert Humbert is utterly mad about Lolita. And this kind of crazy love always haunted Humbert Humbert till the last moment of his life. After knowing Lolita's pregnancy, Humbert Humbert sill showed his inclination to let Lolita return to him. Though Lolita is not the nymphet long ago, Humbert Humbert still showed his willingness wanting Lolita to be with him to continue their life like before. But Lolita refused him. This fact absolutely indicates that Humbert Humbert loved Lolita through heart and soul, regardless of what a person Lolita had become. You can see how greatly he was fascinatedby Lolita. However, as for Lolita, she never once loved Humbert Humbert, and she just regarded him as a sinner who ruined her life. To some extent, Humbert Humbert really should responsible for Lolita's misery in her life. Lolita only loved that dramatist Quilty. But the dramatist is only an abnormal person who covered himself with an appearance of a gentleman. And Humbert Humbert means nothing to Lolita, and Lolita just hated him from the deepest part of her heart. If she didn't lack money, she'll never contact Humbert Humbert. What a selfish girl! We can't judge Humbert Humbert is really a good or bad guy, and it is only known by the protagonist himself. Whether it is love or betray, it will finally become a miserable memory. And the whole novel is also ending with a miserable consequence. To put it in a nut shell, I think what we love is all illusion, and the ultimate fancy is the thing we really love. And the person we love is only acts your illusion. So love is just a kind of illusion we human being always pursue but we never have a chance to really catch it.The causes of “Lolicon”“lolicon” (a proper noun of the tendency of loving li ttle girls, probably from the word Lolita), I summarized the causes of this phenomenon into the following aspects.1. Childhood InfluenceSomeone believes that what a kind of person we are could be predicted from our childhood experiences. it can be true that newly born children are similarly innocent to the dazzling human world. They are just like pieces of white papers, what will be drawn on it would permanently leave the imprints in their adult lives. In other words, a man’s grown-up behavior could more or less be connected with his childhood, which is evidently proved by Humbert, the main person of the novel “Lolita”.At the very beginning of the novel, the writer relatively briefly depicted the early loving and sexual experience of Humbert. He was madly hopelessly in love with a girl named Annabel, who later died ,leaving Humbert’s soul to bleed from that day on. From the erotic descriptions of their being together, it’s easy to be predicted that the love and sex between the two teenagers are romantic, memorable and could never be erased from Humbert’s mind.2. The Characteristics of LolitaI think this tragic story causes not only by Humbert ,the girl also has responsibility for it.Lolita, who is particularly early maturing, actually has certain vague feeling towards Humbert. Frivolous enough, when sending breakfast upstairs to Humbert, she deliberately stands on his feet and flirts him with blurred eyes looking directly at him. Any man who is physically and psychologically normal can hardly avoid this obvious temptation from a pretty girl, let alone one who naturally possesses this “loving girl” character.Lolita enjoys chewing gums all the time, reflecting her wild, unconstraint trait and the maturity belying her age. Her particularly barefaced seduction even causes the suspicion from her own mother, who repeatedly warns that “she should not interrupt Professor’s work”, She bickers with her own daughter who always steals her show in front of the attracting man.On the way traveling with her step father, Lolita’s seductions are fully displayed. Outside, they are step father and tamed daughter, while closing the door; they are lovers, especially sexually. Lolita even negotiates with Humbert on the pin money he gives her, touching his thigh upward, which is minutely erotically depicted by the author, showing the extremelyphysical and mental maturity of the little girl. Sure enough, Humbert can scarcely successfully resistant her temptation.Someone may quote that Lolita is one of the typical corrupted generation of the United States; they are passionate, bold, unrestrained and untrammeled. Moreover, it was a time when hippies emerged, reflecting a completely new conception of living and philosophy of life.3. The Characteristics of HumbertHumbert is the most significant role in the story.He is sensitive, nervous and stubborn. The author portrayed him in a way as extremely as he could. Humbert possesses a strong desire to control Lolita, while facing her betrayal; he is totally at loss.i think he devotes himself to love.love Lolita.his love is careful ,he doesn’t want to hurt Lolita at all, but to some extent ,he destroys her youth time.It is moving us but it turns to be controversial.“I stood listening to that musical vibration from my lofty slope, to those flashes of separate cries with a kind of demure murmur for background, and then I knew that the hopelessly poignant thing was not Lolita's absence from my side, but the absence of her voice from that concord.”。