The Lies of Lolita

The Lies of Lolita

Lolita was very interesting to me. It was interesting not only because I was reading about a pedophile explaining his internal and eventually external desires, but it was the way it was presented. At one point, early in the novel, the main character says, ”Don't cry, I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is.” In one sentence, the reader is informed that a lot of what we’re about to be told is a straight up lie. I couldn’t help but feel like almost everything I was reading was a twist of reality. This is in itself interesting considering this is a fictional novel.

                I’m always interested in the ways people tell stories about factual events. It’s something we all do. I do it even when I’m unaware of it. We twist the stories to either make them more entertaining, more exciting, or in some cases to help explain our point of view. Lolita feels like a story being told by someone you’re interviewing in jail. Not surprisingly, that’s exactly what’s happening. It is someone trying to tell you a story about the wrongs they’ve done, but make you sympathize with them at the same time. It made me question how much of it was true or how much of it did he want to be true. It made me re-evaluate scenes and consider if this was a mask of the truth. There is a scene in particular where Lolita is almost begging him for intimacy, but in other scenes we realize that that is completely out of character for her. It reminds you that in some of these scenes, our protagonist, Humbert, is either lying or detailing a fiction that he invented to justify his thoughts and his eventual actions.

                For some people, this story can seem offensive or appalling, but since this particular novel is considered one of the best novels ever written, it proves that there’s some attraction to it. I think we’re attracted to the idea of a well-spoken person trying to rationalize their insanity or faults with us. It’s the same reason why a television show like Dexter can do so well. The main character is a serial killer. He brutally murders someone at least once every two episodes. But, we can’t help but root for him. He describes it as a need. We see it through his mind and it isn’t until we see it through someone else’s mind that we remember that he’s a maniac. We get lost in the humanity of it. When Humbert explains events to us, I feel like I’m falling for it right up until I remember that he’s sexualizing little girls.