New Post
Search
HelpRe: Just to make you all know...
in reply to a message by queenv
How could he genuinely love her? Isn't she just an image for him to project some weird fantasy onto? No point in feeling sorry for him. Whatever drew him to her was something he was repressing in himself. People's attractions are there for a reason, they're part of who they are.
Archived Thread - replies disabled
1
Replies
Initially, she was an image for him to project a fantasy onto. But I think he really loved her because even after she grew out of the age with which he'd always been obsessed, and began doing things that normal adult women do which had always revolted him, such as wearing make-up, he still wanted her and he still went crazy when she left him.
Even after he found her as a 17-year-old, aged far beyond the pre-pubescence which had initially attracted him, heavily pregnant and married, he wanted her back. And his final words to her, again when she had reached a point in which she would have strongly repulsed him physically if not for his love, have always stayed with me, and I think that they speak strongly of love: "Be true to your Dick. Do not let other fellows touch you. I hope you will love your baby. I hope it will be a boy. That husband of yours, I hope, will always treat you well, because otherwise my specter shall come out of him, like black smoke, like a demented giant, and pull him apart nerve by nerve. ...I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita.”
I'm surprised that both you and RDZNL think he didn't really love her. That was the strongest thing that came through to me. But as they say, YMMV.
Even after he found her as a 17-year-old, aged far beyond the pre-pubescence which had initially attracted him, heavily pregnant and married, he wanted her back. And his final words to her, again when she had reached a point in which she would have strongly repulsed him physically if not for his love, have always stayed with me, and I think that they speak strongly of love: "Be true to your Dick. Do not let other fellows touch you. I hope you will love your baby. I hope it will be a boy. That husband of yours, I hope, will always treat you well, because otherwise my specter shall come out of him, like black smoke, like a demented giant, and pull him apart nerve by nerve. ...I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita.”
I'm surprised that both you and RDZNL think he didn't really love her. That was the strongest thing that came through to me. But as they say, YMMV.
This message was edited 7/30/2016, 7:37 PM
1
Of course you are supposed to identify with Humbert and understand him, but that isn't the whole point. The point IMO was for you to reflect critically on how you could be seduced into apologizing for immoral behavior. It was to make you (general reader) curious to figure out -- what is it about the way you think and feel, and about the story, that made you so available to relate to a character whose behavior was so selfish, self-absorbed, and self-destructive?
It's all too easy to just accept the narrator's cleverly self-serving descriptions, and fail to give Lolita's character credit for being a human being, always existing for herself, independent of his desire. There is no love in that speech you are quoting - it's madness. If we take that to be love, then we can rationalize most any amount of depravity for the sake of desire. I think the book shows us how hideous desire can be, and demands that we think about when and how it becomes immoral and insane.
It's all too easy to just accept the narrator's cleverly self-serving descriptions, and fail to give Lolita's character credit for being a human being, always existing for herself, independent of his desire. There is no love in that speech you are quoting - it's madness. If we take that to be love, then we can rationalize most any amount of depravity for the sake of desire. I think the book shows us how hideous desire can be, and demands that we think about when and how it becomes immoral and insane.
This message was edited 7/31/2016, 11:25 PM
1