On "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov

   Nabokov's prose style allows us to become self aware about the way we respond to the plot by letting us see the mask of literature.It makes Us question how we acquired this understanding. Also the questions purposed directly or indirectly throughout the book and the way we choose to answer them.

    Humbert's style: Enchanting, Love trumps morality? Like an MRI's  magnetic field applied over our body that aligns the nuclei of hydrogen atoms, (dont expect a science student not to brag when they can), Humbert's style aligns our minds in order for us to share his extremely sensuous experience, to whisper Lo.Li.Ta! to physically respond. In a way, to precess. To draw us in at least.
Then come the questions he assumes we will ask, rightfully so. But the order he chose is designed to make us analyze and understand him the way he wants us to. We were seduced my Humbert, not Loita. Humbert, from whom the rhetoric of this love story rose, but built on the logical ground of Nabokov's thought process, as Humbert's problem ( I chose "problem" because Humbert referred to aches and pain not because of any judgement on his character on my part.) needs a solution and we are the solvers of his puzzling feelings and thoughts.

   We never did scape out of the head of Humbert Humbert, never detach from his subjectivity in the course of the novel. Perhaps only accessing the subjectivity of Lolita when shades of Nabokov himself blends into Humbert.

   Is the tissue between imagination and reality so light that it can be pierced? can one tamper with the other? This is one question from the book I found difficult in the sense that I see no way of even thinking about how to find the answer to this question.

   the word "Throb", used in different contexts in multiple occasions in the book. One being reference to the rising desire in HH, one being the romantic throbbing of one's heart. The word having appeared with increasing frequency in Nabokov's work before Lolita, specially in his memoir can shed some light on Nabokov's character's personification through parts of Lolita.

   Did Nabokov dislike cliches? Is that why we sense a dismissal of morality? In his style we see him talking about cliches just for the sake of averting from it to a surprise. 

   One point I did not pick on while reading the book, and an obvious one, was the repeating phrase "ladies and gentlemen of the jury". A reference to us, silent readers who are judging Humbert, who are answering his questions and those we asked ourselves. Also, us who are present when Nabokov courts this question of morality. Another take from the book, Nabokov's intolerance and detest for the simplified black and white.

 And at last, Humbert's defense: It was the poetry! The poetry made me do it! reference to Poe's Annabel by the sea.

Thank you Yale university's open course and Proff. Amy Hungerford.