/lit/ - Literature

>>11866202
just look at that picture you posted

>>11866202
Nabokov writes it in a way that makes Humbert sympathetic.

I'm not a female, and I greatly sympathize with Humbert Humphrey's anxious desire to recapture the beauty of his youth and to possess a beautiful young maiden whom he may touch as he pleases.
Even though I've never fallen in love with a child desu

>>11866230
This. The way Lolita is written endears you to Humbert and helps you understand his fucked desires.

>>11866202
It is because most females are pedos or have those tendencies

>>11866202
daddy issues

>>11866273
It's quite clever. It suits the unreliable narrator that Nabokov seems to love, manipulating the audience's opinion. It's very clever, in fact.

Are either of the film adaptations any good?
I've heard that both of them miss the point to some degree, with the 90s version being downright sleazy.

As for the question, Hummy on the surface level is kind of endearing. The bits where you can see him for the monster he is are kind of few and far between, plus he does half repent at the end. I dunno, maybe girls can empathize with Lo making the first move, thus moving the onus away from Humbert in their minds.

>>11866393
The films are more about Lo and Humbert's relationship rather than Humbert's struggles. Kubrick's film is better in terms of theatric significance, but the one from '97 is the one you want if you're after accuracy.

>>11866202

A superficial reading of the book makes it look romantic because the truth is delivered in disguised segments.

For example early on Humbert mentions that Lolita has been solipsized which should frame your understanding of the story, but 90% of readers won't even see the word.

>Why do females who read this sympathize with Humbert so much?

I don't think females sympathize any more than men do. Perhaps they feel less social pressure to disguise their feelings.

>>11866393
>>>/tv/104313019

'97 is dogshit and far from "accurate" as the anon below you claims. accurate perhaps in that things happen the way they do in the novel, if laid out on the most basic of levels ("humbert picks up lo from summer camp", etc). everything else it gets wrong

in any case it's a waste of everyone's time, unless you enjoyed baz luhrmann's romeo and juliet and others of that very peculiar and bizarre type of tacky '90s movies that are all-out assaults on aesthetic sensibilities and shot like trashy music videos. lyne's lolita is unfortunately not even interesting as a relic of its time

>>11866838
lol why is doghshit? explain thyself

>>11866393
Humbert literally does nothing wrong in the movies.

Unlike the book, where it constantly reminds the reader that Humbert is a monster.

>>11866319
The entire novel is basically a giant fuck you from Nabokov to his critics. He set out to make you root for the villain and prove he’s the greatest author of his time

misinterpretation of the book as something romantic. women love the idea of being "nymphets" apparently

>>11867015
This pretty much.
I've spoken to two girls who have read Lolita and they both greatly misread it and fetishized it. They didn't say it but they I guarantee they both want to be Lolita and wish they had a Humbert. They literally can't read into anything, they did not want to admit Humbert did anything possibly questionable. It was almost uncomfortable talking with them about it.
Also when I bought my copy there was a note in it that said "All I want is a life like Lolita's" Girls are fucked, although so are guys cause I know half of you are jealous of Humbert.

Also, it's best to forget that it's technically written by Nabokov, and just view it in the context of the story that it's Humbert writing it. It become much more clear how manipulative he is. His "sympathetic" qualities as many in this thread have said suddenly become much more transparent and fake.

I've just started reading it (am at page 60ish) and I feel a strange mixture of disgust, pity and jealousy for Humbert.

>>11867093
>I've spoken to two girls who have read Lolita and they both greatly misread it and fetishized it. They didn't say it but they I guarantee they both want to be Lolita and wish they had a Humbert. They literally can't read into anything, they did not want to admit Humbert did anything possibly questionable

they have daddy issues, that´s why

Nabokov wrote the character that way, for any audience. The reader is bombarded with romantic lines and prose, pages and pages of fantasies about what their lives will be like or simply in the sensual pleasure of the moment but look past when he mentions that Lolita is weeping in the back seat and cannot be consoled, unlike the reader

>>11866393
neither are great, both are worth watching.

Irons does a fantastic Humbert

>>11867211
I always like to point out this line to people who think Humbert did nothing wrong and that Lolita was the initiator, etc

>"We had been everywhere. We had really seen nothing. And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy, enormous country, that, by then, in retrospect, was no more than a collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour books, old tires and her sobs in the night—every night, every night—the moment I feigned sleep."

>>11867311
Its been a while since I read Lolita, but I think this was the line in particular I was referring to. There were some moments before this obviously where I could just feel Humbert influencing my thinking and me constantly resisting it, but this line really just slammed home that I wasnt thinking of all the horrible details that were not being said

I had to put the book down at that point. That was when I decided this was the best book I had ever read up to that point

>>11866202
modern females are attracted to broken men and he's attracted to an idealized unattainable form of beauty. females then think "I could have been the unattainable beauty" (even though this is probably nonsense) because females in general have an instinctive desire to become pregnant through a bond with a male of status at a young age which conflicts heavily with societal pressures. lolita is the victim of the narrative because of the specific conditions, not the general ones.

>>11867335
People really forget that it's all written from Humbert's perspective. He totally manipulates you.
That's the biggest problem with girls infatuation with wanting to be a "Lolita". "Lolita" doesn't exist, the sexy little nymphet who teases Humbert and truly knows what's going on isn't real. In actuality she's a little kid who still picks her nose, prefers comic books over the intellectual works Humbert provides for her, throws temper tantrums, etc.
Her real name Dolores, means suffering. Humbert prefers to call her Lolita, his own creation, a personification of the perfect nymphet, thereby ignoring her suffering.

I place a lot of blame on Lana Del Rey

read lolita when i was the same age as dolores (at the beginning anyway). i checked it out from the library and read it over the course of 4 days.

obviously being a 12 yr old I didn't get everything out of it that I could have if I was older, but I saw myself in Lolita's shoes in a more literal way than an older woman reading it would, I think. She would see herself in lolita in perhaps a *fetishistic* way. as a fantasy, kind of like ddlg not literal pedophila

but as a little girl it was a horror story made especially horrible by my occasional, misguided jealousy of Lolita. that she had had a kiss and i had not, that she had admirers and I had none. but those feelings of jealousy made me sick.

after i was done reading it i thought about it often like u think about a horror movie, like it just popped into my head in this vile slimy immediate way. as a kid, even his name 'humbert humbert' sounded like a creepyass clown's name and since i'd never seen the movie (probably not even the posters) i imagined him as being clownlike and ugly.

>>11867359
>I place a lot of blame on Lana Del Rey


lol who is she? and why you´re putting the blame on her?

>>11866202
>ctrl+f
>stockholm syndrome
>0 results
So not one of you 22 posters actually reads. Yikes.

>>11867359
lana del rey is a symptom not cause and her music is beautiful trash

>>11867410
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnIfpj0FRNI
>>11867442
>lana del rey is a symptom not cause
Yeah you're right, I was just being hyperbolic.

>>11867425
>if no one posted the exact phrase I was thinking about, you're all a bunch of liars
the relationship didn't even exemplify stockholm syndrome, it's the result of active manipulation.

>>11867446
>that music
>cringe

>>11867451
OP's question:
>Why do females who read this sympathize with Humbert so much?
It didn't have to be a part of the book for today's passive culture to feel this way about it now. This inability to extrapolate is concerning, but telling of our culture.

>>11867425
You misread Lolita if you thought Lolita had stockholm syndrome

>>11866202
As a male who has read, this I sympathise with Humbert. I'm not condoning paedophilia but in Humberts case, he struggled finding love since his childhood and even after finding Lolita (he is sexually attracted to her) he doesn't want to have sex with her and take her innocence. It's Lolita that starts the sexual relationship after she goes to camp. It is still degenerate having sex with a 12-ish year old girl, but saying Humbert took advantage to have sex with her and thus is undeserving of sympathy is wrong in my opinion.
He isn't a good guy by any means. He is a bumbling, manipulative, sympathetic narrator

>>11867517
Why do you think he isnt manipulating you, especially considering how the book is framed in the beginning and the ending

>>11867517
wow you fell for humbert's ploy hook line and sinker there chief

>>11867517
>believing Humbert

>>11867517
Confirmed never read the book. He was going to drug and molest her that night anyways.

LEAVE LANA ALONE

Never really found Humbert a sympathetic character apart from when Lolita runs away, even then I couldn't help but feel that he deserved it. Did feel sorry for Lolita though, especially when we see her grown up and she refuses to come back with Humbert. He finally admits the guilt of what he had done, so he gets some pity here. It would probably have been too dark and too on the nose at the same time, but I was actually expecting Humbert to kill Lolita when he saw her again. Thought he kind of pussied out when he left her and her hubby alone, but looking back now it seems like that would have actually been a terrible idea. Totally agree with Humbert's closing lines though, where he admits his guilt for what he did to Lolita, but that he shouldn't be charged for killing Quilty. Quilty deserved it one-hundred percent, Humbert did nothing wrong, revenge ethic best ethic.

The authors afterword really got me. When Nabokov is talking about the trouble he went to get Lolita published, he states that some advisors said that they never got past page 188 due to Humbert being too boring and that part 2 was too long. I actually stopped reading exactly after page 188 for about a month before I decided to pick it up again. Well he sure showed me.

>>11867909
t. roastie

People go on about Lana Del Ray but France did it earlier, and the singer was only 15 to make it even more egregious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfXBNQMj2SE

>>11867917
>Never really found Humbert a sympathetic character

me either because i´ve always found obnoxious how he idolized lolita

muh lolita
muh virgin
muh perfection

get over it humbert

test

>>11866279
>most females are pedos or have those tendencies
They're more like reverse pedos in that they are attracted to older men who have a father figure vibe from a young age

>>11866319
>unreliable narrator
Humbert is entirely reliable, and if he wasn't reliable, he wouldn't have had any reason to outright admit to pedophilia in the first place when all the police had proof of him doing was murdering CQ. The whole "unreliable narrator" thing is just a response people tend to have when they become uncomfortable with the fact that they are genuinely rooting for a child rapist, so they assume he must be obfuscating to make himself sound better. We have no reason to believe he is. HH was an urchin, but there is no reason he'd admit to pedophilia if he was trying to make himself seem like a squeaky clean guy. When HH tells us he feels like a victim, even though it's clear he isn't, we have no reason to believe that he's intentionally lying, and should just assume that he's being 100% honest with how he views the situation, even if his view is distorted.

If you read Lolita as a kind of morality experiment, I think it might be very easy to miss the point of the novel. You're supposed to take HH at face value.

>>11867921
Oh France...
Though I really doubt you'd be able to make something like this again these days.

>>11867961
Wrong. He writes it as if he's defending himself. That's why he says things like "ladies and gentlemen of the jury".
He's defending himself and trying to make himself look better, he distorts everything to his benefit

>>11867977
>He writes it as if he's defending himself.
So wouldn't a better defense be to deny that you're a pedophile when all they have on you is murder charges?

>>11867965
i for one am quite enjoying this era of misguided social justice puritanism, in spite of all the flaws and cherrypicking. i can't help but feel that they're installing a framework that will be easily appropriated by far more malevolent players down the line

>>11868019
>a framework that will be easily appropriated by far more malevolent players down the line

like whom?

>>11868025
governments under (including but not limited to) cyberfascists, technojuntas, neo-inquisitors or colorful combinations of all the above

>>11868025
Pretty much any brand of authoritarian.

>>11868043
>cyberfascists, technojuntas, neo-inquisitors or colorful combinations of all the above

>>11868043
>governments under (including but not limited to) cyberfascists, technojuntas, neo-inquisitors or colorful combinations of all the above

more like sjws and the new left in general, the right isn´t too popular towards the system nowadays

>>11867410
Del Rey is a dreamrock singer who has a lot of daddy issues and makes music fetishizing abusers and old pedos. She's obsessed with the book and the Randian Hero boyfriend that will dominate her and be a good sugardaddy.

>>11867461
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H53q4K3D9V0

>>11868067
she looks (and sounds) like a slut lmao

>>11868069
mega-cringe

>>11866202
not a female, but it reminded me so much of my own experience being on the wrong side of an asymmetrical relationship. adoring someone wholeheartedly, and assuming that they feel reciprocally towards you, only to discover that you meant an awful lot less to them than they mean to you, and are actually quite disposable.

>>11867996
Either way you're going away
Also the Quilty murder didn't even happen

>>11868073
Interesting, she does sound like a slut. Like just the tone of her voice screams the fact that she loves sucking cock

>>11866230
I never understood this, he was a major douche all the way through the book, and I don't even talk about his relationship with lolita. He was douche to his first wife, to lo's mom, to a number of non-loli's girls and so on. I don't understand why people think him to be sympathetic.

>>11868102
>Also the Quilty murder didn't even happen
What? Anon I must have missed a bunch then. In the version I read he killed Quilty and drove off in the other lane like a tard, heard a bunch of kids playing on the playground, then they hauled is ass off to jail.
Was this actually the fan fic alternate ending? I have to say it was a very well written fan fiction.
Whoever wrote it has a bright future as a writer, that's for sure.
Please enlighten me as to how that differs from the real one.

>>11867359
>People really forget that it's all written from Humbert's perspective. He totally manipulates you
Because most people are idiots beyond all help

>>11868254
The dates don't line up

>>11868348
True! I read Lolita for a college lit class and we all seemed to acknowledge that Humbert manipulated the reader to try and garner sympathy for himself. None of us mentioned finding him sympathetic, though.

>>11867359
>People really forget that it's all written from Humbert's perspective. He totally manipulates you.
i find this to be such a meme. you dont know if that means Lolita didnt initiate the sex. It's not like her doing so would excuse him going along with it anyway, so idk why people always want it to be this way. It would be completely in character for Lolita to do that

>>11868073
>not appreciating lana del rey's sluttery-as-art
not based or redpilled in the least

>>11868254
There are a few pieces that indicate the later portion of the novel could be fabricated. Stylistically, Humbert's fight with Quilty is at odds of the rest of the book. Until that point the book is florid but grounded, however the fight is intensely psychotic and dreamlike, culminating in a tumble where Humbert and Quilty are continuously changing places.

From a factual perspective, the dates given in the forward of the book suggest that Humbert was already imprisoned during the time he was fighting Quilty. Nabokov either made a mistake or was playing games.

Humbert also remarks that "the story hasn't even started" about three quarters of the way through the book, which makes it possible that the facts are a prelude to a fiction where he reconciles with Lolita and and kills an aspect of himself.

This theory is pretty far out there, but the book is nearly flawless under both interpretations so I find their coexistence satisfying.

As an aside, I do not agree that Humbert is writing to inculcate sympathy in the reader. While he addresses the story to the "jury", he is clearly aware that he destroyed Lolita and is forthcoming with the consequences and his regret. I think Humbert wants the reader to *understand* why he did what he did, not forgive it.

>>11868750
>you dont know if that means Lolita didnt initiate the sex.
She could have, doesn't mean Humbert doesn't still manipulate other aspects. And that doesn't make him any more sympathetic or innocent.
But there are many other factors that point to it.
>It would be completely in character for Lolita to do that
And what exactly is her character?

>>11869119
I literally said that in the next sentence, it absolves him of nothing morally, but it would change the story if he had actually forced her, rather than her being a dumb kid and wanting to experiment and not know what she was doing, he couldnt have maintained his delusions about romance and love if he had physically forced her. Now later on it becomes a lot less clear and a lot more like he is basically coercing her into sex every day in exchange for money, essentially forcing an orphaned child to be a prostitue, but this happens gradually and in concert with her increasingly not caring about Humbert as she is exploring the world.

Her character is vaguely sociopathic but mostly just a precocious teenager who is being put into abusive situations and developing maladapted habits and proclivities. She's a child, she doesn't really understand what's happening, and is trying to both control and be taught by a man who she is attracted to in her adolescent way but sees also as a father figure. It's a very complex twisted scenario.

But again, it's not out of character for a girl like that to try to seduce someone older, what normally doesn't happen is that the guy allows it to actually occur. Remember back when you were 12, imagine if your teacher who you thought was hot would actually hook up with you, and youd already banged on of your classmates, wouldn't you basically try to make it happen, even if it frightened you? It's the same thing, it's preying on the nascent sexuality of a child, just doubly perverse because he's a father figure.

>>11869169
>he couldnt have maintained his delusions about romance and love if he had physically forced her
Doesn't he knock her the fuck out with sedatives their first time?

>>11867503
Not only did you fail to make the connection between the OP and my post, you failed to notice the sole response to my post that made the same hasty mistake you made. See >>11867487

>>11868069
What the FUCK

>>11868069
>fire of my loins / Gimmie them gold coins gimme them coins

>>11869463
>not being acquainted with the sublime degeneracy of lana del rey since her first breakthrough single appeared in 2011

what levels of plebery is this board actualy operating one

Can somebody please explain this line to me:

>...she was the sweetest, simplest, gentlest, dumbest Rita imaginable. In comparison to her, Valechka was a Schlegel, and Charlotte a Hegel.

Schlegel? and why Hegel?

>>11869097
doesnt he near the start of the book say that he isnt a killer too?

>>11867607
>He was going to drug and molest her that night anyways.
i thought he said he would do stuff with her but not full on sex, or am i remembering it wrong

>>11869954
>in comparison to her, valechka was [smart person] and charlotte [another smart person]

that's it, just wrapped in a humbertian manner

>>11870757
And there's no particular significance in it being Hegel of all people? Is he used just to allow the Hegel-Schlegel wordplay?

>>11866202

A man's abuse is a reprieve from the misery of being a woman.

>>11867311
What really breaks Dolores is that when he finally gets her alone, he's the instigator; up until then it had been her, beginning to find out about the power women hold over men, but the minute they're alone it becomes quite clear that she, in this case, doesn't have enough power to stop him.

>>11866202
Source? Oh wait you are just projecting.

>>11872291
t.roastie

>>11872346
Not an argument. Post a source please.

>>11872355
whatever roastie, go with chad and don´t bother me anymore

Fucking insane how hot she was in this scene

>>11868153
This, is everyone fucking stupid?

>>11872466
He very clearly doesn't love her, she doesn't like being with him.
I'm an actual pedo and this shit wasn't even slightly subtle. You faggots are retarded.

>>11872374
>>r/incels

>>11866202
Because HH's lust for Lolita can be related to by anyone who does a bad thing despite knowing its bad and then rationalizes it to themselves (which is everyone).

>>11866230
I think Nabokov himself said something along the lines of being perplexed that so many people sympathized with Humbert. He's relatable and human, but he's still selfish and conniving. And Nabokov definitely DID say something along the lines of "relating to/sympathizing with a character is the lowest level of appreciating art".

>>11867977
He's an unreliable unreliable narrator.

>>11867961
hes not defending himself from a literal jury lmao. specks of his conscience keep leaking through his 'fancy prose style'. your reading just doesnt fit his personality of a cliche oldschool european intellectual at all. he might be a victim of his desires but definietly not of lolita herself

>>11866202
we don't

>>11869472
>The rainbow crosswalk was installed as a symbol of hope and love, inclusion and belonging and to recognize and celebrate the LGBTQ2S+ community in Burnaby, which exists and has always existed, and vandalism to this crosswalk shows a fundamental disrespect for the residents of Burnaby, particularly the LGBTQ2S+ community
These people are insufferable. They make me want to become a fascist out of pure spite.

>tfw first girl I ever went on a date with kept talking about how great the book Lolita was and wanted to go see the movie at the hipster theatre in our town
>she was 20 I was 17 but looked real young
Was she trying reverse Humbert me? D-did I miss out on the perfect straight shota /lit/ relationship?

>>11874364
Just imagining someone unironically say "LGBTQ2S+" out loud is just surreal.

Young women love older men

>>11868069
Jesus one of those comments
>People talkin about joker and Harley literally kills my vibe, this song is based on the book Lolita and just because you watched suicide squad doesn't mean your a true fan because harley and jokers relationship was horrible, joker treated Harley like shit. And just to let you know I'm twelve and I know this shit.

>>11870008
But doesn't he also have a line about how you can trust a murderer to have a fancy prose?

>>11868019
>i for one am quite enjoying this era of misguided social justice puritanism
Why the hell are you enjoying this? It's like enjoying the inquisition as a branded heretic.

>>11868069
It's terrifying how many of the comments are from women who just gobble this shit up. Really gives you a terrifying look into the female psyche.

>>11868069
Is this intentionally bad?

>>11872291
Read the comments of >>11868069, retardimus maximus.

>>11866283
This is the correct answer, by the way.

>>11876486
I'm not familiar with english enough to properly understand the association of "daddy" and "issues". What lies behind it, someone cares to explain ?

>>11868043
is this an nrx reference

>>11867446
Jesus I've always known *of* Lana del Rey but never listened to her stuff. This is so terrible. Why is this popular? Couldn't they at least afford a real drummer and strings section instead of drum machine and synths?

>>11866202

Are there any theories that Humbert maybe killed Charlotte by pushing her in front of the car?

The scene immediately before she dies where he makes a drink is written with a lot of violent imagery:
"...and opened the refrigerator. It roared at me viciously while I removed the ice from its heart."
"Why do faucets sometimes whine so horribly?"
"The little pillow-shaped blocks of ice... emitted rasping, crackling, tortured sounds as the warm water loosened them in their cells."

To me these lines seem to describe someone dying and also seem like a convenient excuse for why he didn't hear the car accident and only knew when he got a phone call.

However, the driver describes Charlotte running across the street so I'm not sure. Maybe Humbert was chasing her rather than pushed her?

>>11866393
I didnt like Kubricks at all. Censorship of course played a big part but I think the book is just untranslatable

>>11876754
it think those lines refer to the tension he felt

How do they handle them fucking in the movie adaptation?

I fapped on the cover.

>>11867359
Lana did nothing wrong.

>>11878824
They do not fuck

>>11879133
she rides him whilst they watch TV

did you watch a censored version?

>>11867359
good post