Finished. While going through discussions online, I’ve noticed a recurring claim that Humbert Humbert is trying to justify his actions (through his prose) or make the reader believe that what he did to Dolores was somehow acceptable, or that she liked it. I don't see this.Throughout the novel, Humbert appears to be honest about his actions. When recalling his conversations with Dolores, he doesn't shy away from mentioning that many of them ended with her calling him a "dirty old pervert." He doesn’t conceal the times she explicitly called his actions rape, nor does he hide his own acknowledgment that he robbed her of a normal childhood. Near the end of the novel, Humbert even admits that a miserable family life would have been far better for her than the life he imposed upon her.I see them argue that Humbert is writing with the intention of persuading a jury, which is why he allegedly tries to justify his actions. But this doesn’t make sense to me. Why would Humbert openly write about and admit to not only killing Quilty, but also to everything he did to Dolores, as well as his involvement in Charlotte's death?Whenever I come across this, the response is always something along the lines of 'muh unreliable narrator!'am I retarded or are they retarded or all of the above
>>24091045I don't think HH is trying to convince anyone: he's engaging in his own negative dialectics. He has genuine love for his loli, clearly, but recognises also (without fully articulating it) that he's destroyed her childhood. He has two contradictory forces guiding the prose, both of which are powerful and true.
I stopped reading after 5 pages or so. Not that i had any expectations to begin with but all "ordinary life" stories are so completely and utterly boring that I've started to detest every "prose" snob and subhumans sneering a "genre fiction".
>>24091045got like 40 pages left, so going to knock it out today, took forever for me to fucking read it felt like, 6 days or so
>>24091045>>24092439Why would Humbert openly write about and admit to not only killing Quilty, but also to everything he did to Dolores, as well as his involvement in Charlotte's death?He wants to be seen as a romantic and try and build some empathy for him, same reason why HH uses french so often, he wants to be seen as an intelligent, semi-romantic. He's just trying to build himself up to take away from heinous acts.
>>24091045I think it comes from people who can't comprehend any nuance. The idea that she might have had a crush or initiated at any point is beyond them. Pedophilia is such an iron taboo to them that they can't even interrogate it enough to come up with any actual argument against it other than "its bad because its illegal." So they definitely can't process what happens in the book.And I'm not saying its not bad, I'm just saying they're retarded.I also found it very easy the understand the process of denial and then finally admitting his guilt. You're listening to his own internal monologue essentially its usually quite obvious when he's lying to himself which is why even he has to admit it.
>>24091045>another booktok lady puts this on her redflags list if a man says its his favorite
>>24092439Let us know what you think of the ending, I loved it>>24092558I understand that Humbert is attempting to present himself in a more favorable light, but I feel he could have done a much more convincing job of it
>>24091045It's almost like if you were some dead dude someone could like steal your identity and hide their involvement in real crimes under a series of fantastical stories implicating you.
>>24093281I don't think he is trying to present himself in a more favorable light I think he's just giving us his raw internal monologue.He lies to himself to preserve his own self image in a very organic way.
