Lolita (Vintage International) (Taschenbuch)

Ein Dreckskerl also, oder? Klar, nur merkt man das beim Lesen nicht so schnell wie bei einem flüchtigen Blick auf eine Inhaltsangabe. Die Geschichte wird uns nämlich von Humbert Humbert persönlich erzählt. Und dieser ist durchaus eloquent und hat gute Gründe für all seine verwerflichen Taten vorzubringen. Als Leser neigt man ja in den meisten Fällen dazu, die Autorität des Ich-Erzählers zu akzeptieren und sein (oder ihr) Wertesystem zu übernehmen, wenn dieser oder diese sich nicht allzu plump anstellt.
Humbert Humbert tut dies nicht. Er beschreibt nicht, wie er sabbernd, geiffernd und Lolita beim Duschen zuschaut. Vielmehr legt er in geradezu poetischer Art und Weise seine wohl ehrliche Liebe zu dem jungen Mädchen dar. Dass dieses Gefühl nicht auf Gegenseitigkeit beruht, verschweigt er. Dies wird nur an einigen wenigen Textstellen, wie an der oben zitierten, implizit deutlich.

"Lolita" verlangt somit einen kritischen Leser, der sich der manipuliernden Erzählweise Humbert Humberts bewusst ist und sich nicht dem Charme und rhetorischem Geschick des pädophielen Protagonisten hingibt.

Helfen Sie anderen Kunden bei der Suche nach den hilfreichsten Rezensionen   War diese Rezension für Sie hilfreich?

Rezension unzumutbar? | Kommentar als Link Kommentar Kommentar

Of course what sets Lolita apart from other novels, at least at the time of its publication in the fifties, is its theme. A grown man making love to a pre-adolescent girl was quite a shock for a prudish America weaned on Ozzie and Harriet and Dwight Eisenhower. As such it was a courageous novel and a bit of a daring-do. It was the novel of a man ravenous for the fame and fortune he thought his talent so richly deserved, and so he took a chance.

Originally Nabokov had intended to withhold his name from the title page while dispersing throughout the narrative cryptic evidences of his presence, should he later want to claim authorship; but somehow, even before the novel's first publication in France, he was persuaded to admit paternity. Even so he remained uneasy about Lolita throughout most of his life, maintaining that other, less appreciated works of his were superior, especially Ada and Pnin, while insisting that Humbert Humbert, his nymphet-enchanted antihero, was no part of himself, merely a puppet on the master's string. After the rush of fame had subsided and he was comfortably ensconced en chateau with his fortune, Nabokov even grew weary of the attention Lolita commanded from critics and public alike, attention he saw as detrimental to his scholarly work, his autobiography (the splendid Speak, Memory) and his other works of fiction. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that more than once he spoke aloud the ancient warning and lamentation: "Beware of what you wish for. You may get it."

Still, one can survive such annoyances, and nowhere in Nabokov's life was he seen as more than slightly troubled by the very real belief that such a penetrating revelation of character (Humbert's) could only be achieved by having part of that character as one's own. This he denied to his dying day-as well he might and should. The "biographical fallacy" has a place in literary criticism, perhaps, but not here. His denial, while politically correct, was unnecessary since girls are desirable, and one can feel that desire without being a lecher. What is needed is the understanding, as with avocados and the rising of the sun, that there is a time appropriate to every purpose.

While reading Lolita for the first time, as with any rich piece of literature, you do yourself a favor and don't try to catch all the subtleties. Just read it through. Those familiar with Nabokov know full well that he plays games with the reader just as he does with his characters. He likes to show off, and besides few of us are as erudite as the very learned professor himself. You might want to take a note or two to record how you feel about Humbert and his little charge, and then compare those notes to how you feel after a second reading. Like others, I found myself moved from the amusement and tolerance of a first reading to a fully sober appreciation, after a second reading, of what a "brute" (Lo's fair description) Humbert Humbert really is. It is a curious coincidence perhaps, but this is exactly what happened with the cinematic interpretations of the novel. The first, by Kubrick from the sixties, is a brilliant comedy that has us identifying with the tragedy of Hum's obsession, while the second, Adrian Lyne's more graphic recent production, makes it clear how violated and used and ultimately destroyed Lolita really was.

If you're writing a paper, buy the annotated Lolita with notes by Alfred Appel Jr. Although the annotations add only a little to an enjoyment of the novel, and in some cases seem a bit of a pedantic stretch, they will satisfy a scholastic urge. [751 words; 3620 characters] END

Helfen Sie anderen Kunden bei der Suche nach den hilfreichsten Rezensionen   War diese Rezension für Sie hilfreich?

Rezension unzumutbar? | Kommentar als Link Kommentar Kommentar