>I touched her hot, opening lips with the utmost piety, tiny sips, nothing salacious; but she, with an impatient wriggle, pressed her mouth to mine so hard that I felt her big front teeth and shared in the peppermint taste of her saliva.gross
nabo thread?this dude was insanely good at writing.the part in the real life of sebastian knight where the protag was about to fuck some girl was insanely vivid and enthralling.he described some of his books as if they were puzzles, which were meant to be pieced together through multiple re-readings. the puzzle aspects of sebastian knight are pretty obvious, but are less clear for lolita. I think the main thing is that he is an unreliable narrator and that dolores was not a willing nymphet but a victim. many many pedos imagine that the children are willing and enjoy it and I think one point of this book is displaying this.
>>23963247I think the puzzle of Lolita is partially trying to spot every time Humbert lies to you. You don't have the authority to say anything is untrue, but you can spot many contradictions across the novel, right down to Lolita's age. Then you of course have a scavenger hunt of literary references.
Can people post their favourite bits of prose from this book
>>23963280bro is edging
Dolores did, more than once, want it.
>>23963280>If a roadside sign said: "Visit Our Gift Shop" we had to visit it, had to buy its Indian curios, dolls, copper jewelry, cactus candy. The words “novelties and souvenirs” simply entranced her by their trochaic lilt. If some cafe sign proclaimed Ice cold Drinks, she was automatically stirred, although all drinks everywhere were ice-cold. She it was to whom ads were dedicated: the ideal consumer, the subject and object of every foul poster. And she attempted unsuccessfully to patronize only those restaurants where the holy spirit of Huncan Dines had descended upon the cute paper napkins and cottage-cheese-crested salads.Could've been comfy road trip kino if he wasn't pissed off all the time
I watched the 90s adaption of Lolita and couldn't believe how misguided it was. Its pretty obvious Humbert is a narcissist and only cares about himself. He doesnt see people as people but as metaphors and illusions of life. I remember one chapter where he spent a long time commenting on the motel they were staying in and the foliage on the trees only to mention briefly towards the end that Dolores was crying again. The ending of the novel is actually hopeful from what I remember because he starts to see the world in simpler terms (after killing his doppelganger Quilty).
everyone tolbe me this novel was surprisingly unsexy but i found it to be hot as fuck.
>>23963134I don't see the meme of Humbert Humbert being a silver-tongued devil who tricks the reader into liking/sympathizing with him. While I enjoy reading his sentences, I just feel a mixture of pity and contempt for him because of how often he contradicts himself and says of poor me while doing indefensible things.
>>23963863He does become more and more unlikable as the novel goes on probably because when his conquest is realised you are left with a man and the fantasy is over.
>>23963927>when his conquest is realised you are left with a man and the fantasy is over.This happens everytime a man fucks a child
>>23963863I agree, but when I read the book I found the very things you're describing endearing. HH didn't somehow convince me that he was a good guy, but his delusions and flimsy self-justifications are themselves kind of charming. Same reason I can't help but like Trump.
>>23963342Well yeah, duh.
>>23963863Everything he did was due to events that occurred during his own childhood and also to manipulation by the little vixen, Lolita. He is unironically the victim of the story.
>>23963134I had so many fucking boners when reading this book. The part where Humbert rubs her legs against his penis and cums in his pants made me rock hard, as did the part where she masturbated him in the library behind an unsuspecting girl. Each time i had to wank the boners away.
>>23963863>who tricks the reader into liking/sympathizing with himThe trick is to get you to read the book and thus contribute to his immortality.
>>23964014That's an extremely charitable interpretation that isn't supported by the book itself.
>>23963927I haven't even gotten to that part yet. I'm only up to the point where they've gone to the The Enchanted Hunters. I've felt this way since chapter 6 at least. >>23963993I don't find anything endearing about that sort of behavior. That behavior makes me dislike someone even more intensely. It's childlike.
>>23963280>in the course of the evocations and schemes to which I dedicated so many insomnias, I was able to filter out all the superfluous blur, and by stacking level upon leven of translucent vision, evolved a final picture: naked, except for one stocking, spread-eagled on the bed where my philter had felled her; so I foreglimpsed her. A velvet hair ribbon was still clutched in her hand. Her honey-brown body, with the white impression of a rudimentary swimsuit patterned against her tan, revealed to me its pale breast buds. In the rosy lamplight, a little pubic floss glistened on its plump hillock.I have it memorized but probably still get a tiny detail wrong here and there.
>>23963855People who were told it was pure pornography discovering it's ackshually serious litachur vs people told it was the greatest English language novel of the 20th century finding out it's just porn with a 2000+ Scholastic Lexile Score
>>23965595that's just a couple pages after the OP, also gross.
>>23963134Im gonna rewrite Lolita so HH is a hot milf instead of a gross old guy so its actually hot
>>23965130It's not even the subtext of the book, it's just exactly how events unfold in the novel.
>>23966266But what about the feelings of the fat hags?
>>23963305This fr fr
>>23965595Swimsuit tanlines are the best. True man of culture.
>>23963134A female should be married to a suitor of adequate means, of her father's choosing, after her initial monthly cycle.
>>23963261how old was she when humbert first saw her?
>>23965517well if you don't find childlike things to be appealing then maybe lolita isn't the book for you! badum tss
>>23963134Do this book started a new genre of lolibooks like openly explicited like this one with literacy merits? I don't want to search it on google for obvious reasons. Yeah I know hentai exist
>>23969173I aspire to be part of this genre. I have spilled oceans of ink and semen on it already.
>>23969173There seems to be a severe lack of loli books. It's strange, artists depicted child nudity all the time, but writers seem to avoid it.
>>23963247>he described some of his books as if they were puzzles, which were meant to be pieced together through multiple re-readings.Pale Fire too.Absolutely filled with faggotry, though...
>>23963261This. The entire book is unreliable narrator Humbert Humbert trying to justify himself and make himself look good. It was never a pro pedo book.
>>23969173>>23969429There is a french one that gets posted here all the time. It has an image of little girl legs and man legs on the cover. Can't think of the title.A Story of Mr. Tom or something like that.I think Tampa is kind of pedo too. never read it.
>>23963134That's really hot
The notion that Lolita is just about Humbert trying to justify his actions is so reductive and lacking in nuance that it makes me think that whoever says it is just repeating what they heard in a shitty video essay. Throughout the novel he constantly reiterates how pathetic, beastly and neurotic he is and gives anecdotes about Dolores crying herself to sleep every night or him denying her candy in the morning until she has sex with him.
>>23969624>There is a french one that gets posted here all the time.La Confirmacion/Confirmation. An anon here posted a PDF of it a long time ago and I read it. It was pretty good, though I liked it for its descriptions of the sleepy little town that the protagonist stays in, more than anything else, I didn't find it incredibly arousing. Also unlike Lolita, it doesn't seem to be making any type of statement and is just blatant erotica fantasy. The main character even gets away with it in the end and continues to enjoy himself. Strangely enough, Tampa kind of ends in the same way.
>>23969888Well yeah, I think it's clear he's not trying to justify himself to anybody, except maybe himself.
>>23963863Yeah I've always seen him as being frustrated and bullied by various women and ultimately being cucked by a little girl, seems like the victim of the story to me desu
Anyone who has ever encountered the female creature knows that this is a story as old and real as time. Every girl goes from doe-eyed bambi to razor-toothed vixen in the time it takes for every boy to realize he has gone from hunter to prey.The only people who complain about Lolita are unironic KVs and roasties.
>>23969173>>23969624There’s Gabriel matzneff's novels... But he is a real pedo
>>23969888He's using self depreciation to get you on his side. He is constantly mitigating his circumstances, and those reiterations are a way of getting you to side with him. He's also careful to be very oblique about what's happening with Lolita, and most scenarios can be read as>If you thought I meant that, it was your filthy mindHe's less oblique about Lolita's crimes. Kissing other girls was something which could get you institutionalised for life, and her not being a virgin makes her likewise wayward. The stuff Humbert cops to himself wasn't anything like >I like sucking cockWhich would have actually got the book banned.
>"Humbert ... himself resembles the devil in some ways (even in appearance)>Nabokov's heroes involved with the forces of the Unclean are characterized by a specific Semitic appearance: swarthy hairy skin, brightly-colored lips, etc. Accordingly, the plot of “Lolita” revolves around the theme of racial crime. Cf. the scene of the first intimacy of Humbert and Lolita in the hotel: the hotel owner refused to accept the “suspicious brunet”, but “whatever doubts tormented the scoundrel were dispelled by the sight of my Aryan rose.” As a result, however, perhaps the “Aryan rose” seduces the simple-minded Semite. Kuprin's theme is continued by the “talented twaddle” in a quite classical way.
I have never kissed a girl before.
I've never read this book because I'm afraid what people might think of me if they see it on my shelf.
>>23963134The only part of this that I remember made me think while reading that Humbert was lying was his insistence that he was handsome, when his behaviour and the reactions of those around him tell a different story of a very average looking man who may have once been called handsome when he was younger.
>>23971277>he vividly remembers that one time someone called him handsome a decade agoHe's just like me fr.
>>23963261I didn't spot any lies because I take everything at face value. I liked Humbert because he was funny. The second half of the book was my favorite. Most of Nabakov's other works outside of Pale Fire's poem are trash
>>23965595>in the course of the evocations and schemes to which I dedicated so many insomniasAwful fucking sentence.
>>23970792retard
>>23969914Can't find anything on this La Confirmacion book, can you give some more info on it, like who wrote it or something
>>23972570Why, specifically? >>23972879The author is Gianni Segre. There is an epub on libgen, I wish I would have had that to read instead of a PDF. Have fun.
>>23970991Just go buy it from your local book store and stare the cashier down. What's she going to do about it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIb3cRvQYw8This scene is pretty funny.
>>23973614It's horribly butchered in the movie, and this whole "normal guy" bit is corny. I hate movies so much is unreal. Glad Kubrick is dead
>>23973614What the fuck is this?
>>23972570That's not the complete sentence. It's fitting when you consider who the perspective is from. Gratuitous and self-satisfied.
>>23963280>Bourbon Street (in a town named New Orleans) whose sidewalks, said the tourbook, "may [I liked the "may"] feature entertainment by pickaninnines who will [I liked the "will" even better] tap-dance for pennies" (what fun), while "its numerous small and intimate night clubs are thronged with visitors" (naughty).Humbert is so cynical and dismissive of virtually everything in life excluding some art that meets his standards and fucking little girls. It's funny to read his diatribes on culture, cinema, etc., but becomes kinda miserable when he tries to force Lolita into the same tastes and then becomes frustrated when she doesn't, forgetting she's a kid. This, maybe strangely, made me sadder than the abuse itself. The fact that years of her childhood were wasted travelling alone with this sad prick instead of with other kids. Similar to how her mother treats her like adult competition for Humbert instead of a kid.
>>23973614Is this scene actually in the book?
>>23969616>is unreliable narrator Humbert Humbert trying to justify himself and make himself look good.Yes -- it is like the excuses of an alcoholic - " No no I am a wine connoisseur.!!" Yes that's it , no I 'm a part of the Jetset who enjoys Cocktails all day yada yada yada . Second part it is about Romanticism, he has romanced the idea of a 13 year old as the ideal sex partner / girl, now that he has it , he hates it . Rather then challenge his ideal .. he complains about the surrondings . Third it is a wonderful skewer to the 1950's advertised romanticism .. Car trips and motel stays , Dot reads magazines all day -- just like the Liberals feeling "informed" and intellectual reading Atlantic Monthly and 6 other magazines etc ..
>>23973614Peter Sellars is the only great part about that movie. >>23974567It's completely different, Sellars improvised his whole role and it's kind of great, but in the book this scene is like three-quarters shorter, and it's actually one of my favorite parts. >Suddenly I was aware that in the darkness next to me there was somebody sitting in a chair on the pillared porch. I could not really see him but what gave him away was the rasp of a screwing off, then a discreet gurgle, then the final note of a placid screwing on. I was about to move away when his voice addressed me:>"Where the devil did you get her?">"I beg your pardon?">"I said: the weather is getting better.">"Seems so.">"Who's the lassie?">"My daughter.">"You lie--she's not.">"I beg your pardon?">"I said: July was hot. Where's her mother?>"Dead.">"I see. Sorry. By the way, why don't you two lunch with me tomorrow. That dreadful crowd will be gone by then.">We'll be gone too. Good night.">"Sorry. I'm pretty drunk. Good night. That child of yours needs a lot of sleep. Sleep is a rose, as the Persians say. Smoke?">"Not now.">He struck a light, but because he was drunk, or because the wind was, the flame illuminated not him but another person, a very old man, one of those permanent guests of old hotels--and his white rocker. Nobody said anything and the darkness returned to its initial place. Then I heard the old-timer cough and deliver himself of some sepulchral mucus.>I left the porch
I need to hear more about these sparse lolibooks.
>>23969914>describes the relationship between TWO young girls and an older manPlease someone let me know if there is lesbian stuff involved so I don't waste my time in case there is.
>>23974663>and it's actually one of my favorite parts.Same here.One of the few interactions in the books outside those of HH and Lo that genuinely entertained me.I tried looking up what the "sleep is a rose, as the persians say..." sentence meant, but couldn't find anything.Is anyone familiar with the actual saying and it's meaning?
>>23974657The solution to this, Humbert's creation of Lolita who fucked everyone in town before he raped her. Lolita the 8 year old who loved dick, but had to seduce Humbert. Lolita whose cavities were filled and who attended camp climax.This Lolita is contrasted with the young mother who views him as not even entertaining like Quilty, and certainly not worthy of prosecuting.The worst self-condemnation of Humbert was the echos of the girl he raped behind the character he created…the echos of that girl's utter indifference to having 12 flaccid French centimetres of prick up in her, even when compared to a Dentist or being made to fuck dogs for Quilty. At least the dogs were enjoying themselves.
>>23975516Towards the end, an adult woman joins him in his fun, so yes I think? >>23975517I didn't get to that part yet in The Annotated Lolita, I'll have to skip ahead and check. It's gotta be a reference.
>>23975517>>23975593Yep, I checked, and sure enough, Quilty is making a reference to a line from the Edward Fitzgerald tranlation of the Persian poem collection "The Rubaiyat" by Omar Khayyam. He also references it at other points in the novel.
Bump.
>>23973600I don't even want to read this book and I was just considering doing this for the lolz.
>>23963280Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
Why is it so hard to find a good epub of this book online. None of them separate the chapters and it's annoying as shit.
>>23963134Op, Houellebecq understands this novel perfectly by saying that Nabokov is wrong about Lolita for 5 years. He says something like: what every man desires is not what precedes puberty but what comes immediately after. Understanding this, the novel can be understood as a man without destiny who finds his object of desire and devotion in what society says is the panasea: a young pussy.
>>23977301Nigga where you looking at? I've had like three digital copies of it over time and I never experienced that.
>>23970656>unironic KVs and roasties.what's an ironic roastie then
>>23977555Finally found one on Anna's but it has the inferior cover.
>>23977624That, incidentally, is the physical copy that I own. I don't hate it, but I know Nabokov would have.
Bumparooni.
Is Nabokov the final boss when it comes to literature?
>>23966266Are you really that fucking stupid that you can't figure out what an unreliable narrator is?
>>23963247>and that dolores was not a willing nymphetI don't know how anyone could think otherwise even on first read; not much of a puzzle there.
>>23969616>It was never a pro pedo book.It was never an anti pedo book either.Let me posit that there are two major camps in modern literature. Camp A thinks that the purpose of literature is to teach: every book should have a moral, a lesson, a message of some sort. Anything else would be sterile, or at least juvenile, on the level of nursery rhymes for children. Camp B, on the other hand, believes in Art for Art's sake, to communicate the intangibles, to make meaning of our emotions and lay bare the soul in hopes that other souls will resonate.Nabokov was firmly in Camp B, as he explicitly states in his own words in various interviews and essays. To him, Camp A is a bunch of philistines and sanctimonious retards, a gaggle of dumb children trying to play at being adults. Incidentally, he is 100% correct, but the point is that Lolita is neither condemnation against nor apologia for pedophilia or hebephilia. If he wanted to make some statement on the matter to let his stance be known he would do so explicitly in some essay or something, not through some scenic cometragic novel narrated by a bumbling, pompous blowhard who is very distinctly not him. If he ever wanted anyone to know what his feelings on the subject of love, lust, or romance between "nymphets" and adults were, I'm sure he just fucking told him; he wasn't one to hold back his judgments on anything. And he didn't write fiction to condemn or excuse social mores.>>23974224>Similar to how her mother treats her like adult competition for Humbert instead of a kid.The jealousy of the average woman knows no bounds.
>>23971817>I take everything at face valueCould it be--no, that's impossible--and yet.... are you, perhaps, and please don't take this the wrong way, it's a mere suggestion, nothing more, and probably an entirely misguided one, but grant if you will the possibility, however slight, or if not the actual possibility, the faintest whisper of plausibility, in a purely hypothetical sense, that you-- based solely upon the scant data available, as that's all I have to go on (and my apologies should this conjecture prove inaccurate, as I very much hope and suspect it is)-- that you are, perchance, mayhaps.........autistic?
>>23980505my nigga over here missed every single point of the misery humbert's pedophilia (or if we must, hebephilia) brought about. I don't blame you for skipping or skimming the second half because it's boring (but on purpose!), but don't dirty the air with your projection.
>>23963855There's like one scene in the whole book that is erotically charged, a single page out of like 300. Pretty much everything else sexual in the book happens "off screen", though I guess humbert spends plenty of time describing his desires. Ada or Ardor has a lot more erotic energy, though I honestly can't remember if it has any proper "sex scenes" other than the main character off-handedly mounting the local whorelet intermittently when he's young.>>23963863A lot of people don't get that humbert is meant to be a guy who is better educated than his intelligence merits, and also not nearly so educated as he thinks. This is exacerbated by Lolita being the first (and often only) Nabokov people read, so they don't know how well he can write when he's really going all out in his own voice.>>23964018I've completely forgotten that second scene, so I guess there's two.>>23972570He's talking about fapping if you didn't realize. Recall that this book was published in 1955 USA (now 2024 JewSA). "Evocations and schemes" is actually a pretty poignant way of describing fap fantasies, certainly one of humbert's better lines.>>23966257Only a few college-age lesbians will read your book.>>23980911You are completely fucking retarded if you think Nabokov is trying to moralize through some unreliable narrator meta-fiction.
>>23980934Did you miss the part where Lolita cried every night? Did you miss her failing to develop into a post-pubescent? Did you read the second part at all?
>>23970991most of the women i've dated were somewhat interested in the book, had read it, or already owned it. also since the book isn't actual pedophilic smut, you have nothing to fear. there's no point in concerning yourself with anyone who gets upset by it. however, it would stand out in a bad way if you don't own many books. i feel weirder about owning and having read ada, but most people don't know about that one.
>>23980971Did you miss the part where humbert is clearly a narcissistic asshole? If Nabokov wanted to write some saccharine, didactic novel for pearl-clutching housewives and NPC's, he'd have made humbert and lolita two star-crossed lovers born at the wrong time, hopelessly, selflessly in love with each other. But oh no, their love affair is witnessed through some happenstance and humbert is arrested. Lolita denies anything untoward has happened, but she breaks down under the barrage of inquiry and victim interrogation from parents and prosecutor. Humbert is given a lengthy prison sentence, and the trauma of guilt leads Lo to an early death, by suicide or misadventure, who cares. Or maybe there are no witnesses but Lo gets pregnant, the scandal destroys her family, and she dies while giving birth. Either way, the novel is humbert's suicide note detailing their cruel fate, because even if their love was pure, romantic love between a tween and 40-something man is bad, and wrong, and BADONG.But instead of that we get humbert the scheming narcissist trying to fuck her from day one and lolita the vain, spoiled little brat hopping from one grown man to the next. Nabokov is absolutely, unambiguously explicit about the lack of any message or moral in the story. You don't need to take my word for it, nor my "projection", you can just listen to Nabokov himself spell it out for the dunces in the audience:https://youtu.be/Ldpj_5JNFoAhttps://youtu.be/0-wcB4RPasEStick to children's literature if a story without a moral axe to grind is beyond your ken.>>23981152>i feel weirder about owning and having read adaWhy? Ada is a very pure story, basically as heartwarming as nabokov gets.
>>23981163it was the first book i've read that was that indulgent with underage sex. i agree that it's very pure for the most part. i only recall one scene in lolita that felt as indulgent as the scenes in ada. i don't have any moral objections to it and found it to be a very beautiful book. i just put it above lolita as far as 'provocative' works go, because of all the many graphic, indulgent descriptions of child sexuality.
>>23980934>>23981206just noticed you also mentioned only one scene being erotically charged. what scene did you have in mind? all i remember is her feet being in his lap or something, it has been a long time since reading.
>>23981226nvm that was mentioned already. i didn't finish reading the thread.. forgive me
>>23981226Lo and hum are alone at the house for a moment while the mom is out iirc, and then hum uses his thumb to get her off while she's sorta sitting on his lap. I think they're on the couch in the living room. I dunno, it's been quite a few years since I read lolita but I think that was the gist of it, maybe 1/3 or lessway through the book. I don't think anyone mentioned it, as I completely forgot about (and still don't remember) the stealth handjob scene.
>>23981243stealth handy is only a few lines long, the couch masturbation is an entire chapter.
>>23980934>There's like one scene in the whole book that is erotically charged, a single page out of like 300. Pretty much everything else sexual in the book happens "off screen",If you have a brain, nearly the whole book is fap material. Describing how he sits in parks and observes little girls, the infamous couch scene, her giving him a handy in a classroom, this >>23965595 And all the anticipation and tension in between all that. It's a literate's erotic paradise.
A video essay incidentally came up in my Youtube algorithm so I decided to give it a listen.>beginning is a summary of the novel>sinister music plays>Lolita is about a man who kidnaps a twelve-year old girl and repeatedly rapes her >he lodges with a woman with the intents of having sex with her daughter>the mother dies and he takes the daughter on a road trip where he rapes her over and over>eventually he leaves her and she goes to Claire QuiltyThe first comment is "the horrifying thing is, in the end, Humbert won." Is it even possible for normies to fucking understand this book?
>>23965595>people will tell you this guy is a better writer than actual authors like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky
>>23981798You mean that's not good writing?
>>23980013>an unreliable narratorNo such thing. The narrative is exactly as it is laid out and if you want to disagree you literally have to contradict the text and just make up head cannon. Sad.
>>23981871>in the course of the evocations and schemes to which I dedicated so many insomnias>followed by describing little girl pussy Fantastic writing bro
>>23982027The content is irrelevant. Criticize the actual writing. I think it's a very evocative description of a child's pussy. After all, it evoked you.
>>23981263Yeah, I just reread it. Longer than I remembered but still only five pages, and the only fully fleshed out and visible erotic scene if the stealth handy is indeed just a couple lines.>>23981679Nabokov himself describes the book as a road trip book, and laments that he should have been a landscape painter rather than a writer. Read Ada or Ardor if you want to see nabokov write a story that has erotic energy on every page.
