Warning 1: pedophilia; Warning 2: a very wordy literary read – I found it hard-going at times.

I just read this book recently and I want to gather my thoughts.

This book does not endorse pedophilia. Let's just get that out of the way. Nabakov thought pedophilia was deplorable, and actually wrote a previous short story where a pedophile kills himself after trying once and not succeeding in raping his orphaned stepdaughter (she screamed too much, so he ran out in front of a truck). AFAIK, Nabakov himself was a pretty decent person.

The difference between that short story and the novel is that the novel is about a pathetic monster who actually succeeds in abusing a girl (age 12–14) for a couple of years. I'm assuming the novelist went this far because of a real-life abduction that he'd seen in the news, where an 11-year-old girl was kidnapped by an unfamiliar man who lied to her to get her to comply. She was able to get away after 21 months with him. She died in a car accident at age 15, before Lolita was published.

Humbert (the narrator's pseudonym for himself) is so pathetic he doesn't even realize that someone else had already been grooming her for a couple of years before he came along. It's through a series of unlikely events that he's able to abduct her in the first place (prior to then all he'd ever done was sit in playgrounds). She eventually leaves him for the first guy (whom she loves), then he kicks her out when she refuses to participate in filmed group sex with other children and men. She starts working menial jobs – she actually seems pretty sensible, all things considered. At the end, Humbert finds out where she is (she's 17 by this point, and married) because she's written him asking for money. He takes her the part of her inheritance that's available (ten times what she asked for, and there's still the house to be sold) then goes and murders the other guy. He then surrenders easily to the police after drawing their attention in traffic. He says at the end that he feels guilty for the rape and thinks he should get at least 35 years for it, but none for the murder.

At some point I could have sworn I read someone saying that at the end of the story she condemns him for ruining her life. But she doesn't. She's actually fairly happy to see him, or at least friendly (habit?).

He does ask her to leave her husband and spend the rest of her life with him. She refuses.

“You are sure you are not coming with me? Is there no hope of your coming? Tell me only this.” “No,” she said. “No, honey, no.” She had never called me honey before. “No,” she said, “it is quite out of the question. I would sooner go back to Cue [the other abuser]. I mean—” She groped for words. I supplied them mentally (“He broke my heart. You merely broke my life”). [ch. 29]

Over the course of the novel, Humbert is an unreliable narrator, claiming among other things that she seduced him the first night when he needed help working himself up to do it, but he does mention that she cries every night when she thinks he's asleep. Little things like that sneak through.

I think Nabakov's "sin" is that he didn't take Lolita (Dolores)'s side. He knew Humbert was evil, but he was interested in the workings of a mind that was pretty bad to begin with, then deteriorates (as he does) as he actually gets to pursue his depravity. Kind of reminiscent of how some AGPs deteriorate as they transition.

I have no idea how accurate his portrayal of a pedophile was.

I looked around a bit at responses and found a variety:

1. Pedophilia is evil therefore writing from the pedophile's POV is evil.

2. The narrator is sympathetic so therefore the child must have been the aggressor.

3. Pedophilia is wrong but it's interesting to analyze (and other approaches with more ambiguity).

Do I think he should have written it? I have no idea. He said it was inspiration not intellectual.

Do I think this book should be available? Yes, and I'd rather have libraries carry it than people have to buy their own copies to see what he actually said. I was afraid I would have to buy it (it's for a research project) but then the public library added digital editions, plus one book about it, so I didn't have to after all. Whew.

I've come out very strongly on freedom of speech in the last few years, so I'd support Nabakov's freedom of speech no matter what, but having read the book I don't think it's as bad as some have said.