I just finished Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. I'm not too sure what to make of it. Given the subject matter, I was expecting something much more pornographic. In the novel, Humbert Humbert (H.H.) marries a widow and seduces her 12 year old daughter Lo, short for Lolita (well, he claims that she seduced him in that hotel). However, while the novel starts with some graphic details, the relations between Lo and H.H. aren't made too explicit.

The novel is rather artfully constructed with many literary allusions that went over my head. I say constructed because while it's not a fantasy novel, there are way too many coincidences with numbers and names and other impossible happenings for plot to resemble reality. For instance, throughout the novel, the spectre of Clare Quilty haunts the two at every turn and creates a sort of game between Quilty and H.H. Although it may be that the narrator H.H. is just crazy as he loses touch with reality several times and checks himself into a sanitarium. Perhaps, the biggest break from reality is when a character briefly rises from the dead at the end.

The novel can be read in many different ways and struggles for any clear interpretation or moral. One can see it a satirizing American culture as H.H. and Lolita commit debaucheries across the country on their road trip. What spoke most to me was how H.H. objectifies Lolita, yet he really does come to truly love her despite the large age gap. At first, it's clear that she is his sex toy, for recently after her mother dies, he ignores her crying every night as she falls asleep. While in some sense she did seduce him, he realizes that he's taking advantage of how young girls are bombarded with images of romance, and Lo is acting out a some "simulacron" of romance. During the time in Beardsley, the relationship becomes more prostitute-like as he often pays her in some way for her services.

But he does genuinely love her in the end, as seen in their last meeting between the two. In this love comes the understand of why she despises him more than Quilty in way, for Quilty "broke [her] heart," where as H.H. "merely broke [her] life." I'm not too sure yet why this quote struck me so much. There's some sense that my own ideas of love are somewhat warped, and I may have broken someone elses life given the chance. And so, true love is taking a step back and knowing your "love" isn't the best thing for other person.