Lolita...my sin, my soul

I breezed through the book. Read it in a record two days; a record considering the fact that my work commitments did not leave me with too much time to indulge my love of reading. If there has ever been a book which can be called "unputdown-able", this is it.

As soon as i finished reading the book, I felt an urge to discuss it with someone. The book left me so confused. Morality dictated that I should despise Humbert Humbert. He is a pedophile after all. But all I could feel for him was a strange tenderness; in my mind, his love for Dolores Haze redeemed his failings. I felt almost ashamed to admit this. 

So I found out a friend who had read this book. She was shocked at how I felt about Humbert. She was very clear about it all. He was a villain, a scoundrel, a hateful creature molesting pretty little girls. Therefore, you hate him. You NEVER EVER LIKE HIM!

I think the problem lies in the fact that my love of all love stories, however twisted, make me misty-eyed and oblivious to anything wrong. 

But coming back to the book, there is one thing that has to be said. The characters in the book are hopelessly two-dimensional. There are not many instances where the characters would almost come alive and stand in front of you like real people (isn't that the test of good character sketching?). Lolita is almost a stranger; actually, most of what we see of her is through Humbert's eyes. And Humbert himself...he is almost like an illusion, like an idea lost in the poetic language of the book. 

And if truth be told, the idea, the premise of the book is pretty sad. A lustful, lascivious, degenerate man falls in "love" with a teenage girl and probably scars her for life. It is immoral, it makes us wince.

So what is it that made this book so beautiful for me? The language. The poetry in the prose. The book was so wonderfully written, I really haven't read anything like it before. Every sentence seemed to be...dancing- turning, twirling and skipping. Nobokov made everything lyrical and almost beautiful, even pedophilia (and that should be a feat!). I'll say it again, it is mostly the language that made it such a pleasure to read this book. And my favourite quote from the book is "Lolita, light of life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul." B-e-a-utiful!

But I keep coming back to the same question over and over again. Is there any way that we can see Humbert's affections for Lolita as something akin to love and not a mental disorder. Is there any place in this universe where it is forgivable to be a Humbert? Was he really that bad? Did he not love Lolita?

The question of the morality of the book plagues me to this day.

P.S.- I can't get rid of this thought. It has been tickling me ever since it came to my mind. Do you know which is Humbert Humbert's favourite song? My Sharona. 

Oh my little pretty one, pretty one

when you gonna give me some time Sharona

When you make my motor run, my motor run

gun it coming off of the line Sharona.

Never gonna stop, give it up

Such a dirty mind, always get it up

for the touch of the younger kind

My my my Sharona.


Haha.

Vernon God Little

Vernon’s “artwork”, his last words to the world before he died, read “Me ves y sufres”. And suffer I did, with Vernon, through it all. ‘Vernon God Little’ is an evocative story of a teenage boy caught up in a psychotic world, where his only fault, albeit a big one, was not crying out loud “Innocent!!” Vernon, a resident of a typical American town, is a regular, teenage, school-going kid. Regular in the sense of being a little twisted. For which teenage kid is not. His obsession with underclothes and profanity are nothing unusual to a teenager. We all know that. Admit it!

Vernon just cannot seem to catch a break. He just cannot. His bowel movement comes at the most inappropriate of times, his mother ends up falling in “love” (“…a woman can sense these nancies…”) with the guy who wants him convicted and even the girl, Taylor, who seems to be going out of her way to help him turns out to be a covert media spy. The world is out to get him. He becomes a victim of a town crazed by the recent violence and looking to pin the guilt on someone. And they find the suitable scapegoat in Vernon.

The book is wonderfully written. And before I go on to extol its beauty, I must confess to something. I began the book and was instantly reminded of ‘The Catcher in the Rye’. And I was so sure that I would not be able to go beyond a few chapters. But I persisted, because I just cannot leave a book having read it halfway. And I was in for a surprise. I actually ended up liking the book so much that I read through the last pages slowly to make it last longer.

I found so much that I could relate to in this book. The knife in Vernon’s back? I think we all have that. And it twists, and it makes living miserable. And the world we live in today, it’s mangled beyond any sense. We take everything at face value and make all the trivialities in this world, our motive for existence. And when, like Vernon you are one of the few standing outside, looking in; there is little hope for you. And Fate songs? Oh my, I have so many of those…

The book is not about an incident where a kid goes berserk with a gun in his hand, taking it out on his fellow classmates. It is about what we as people have become. The media wants to sensationalise it all; no one wants the truth as long as they have someone to blame things on. It is about teenage and human angst, about feeling helpless at the hands of fate, but still living on and not blowing our brains out!

One amazing read!

If You Forget Me

I want you to know

one thing.

You know how this is:

if I look

at the crystal moon, at the red branch

of the slow at my window,

if I touch 

near the fire

the impalpable ash

or the wrinkled body of the log,

everything carries me to you,

as if everything that exists:

aromas, light, metals,

were little boats that sail

toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,

if little by little you stop loving me

I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly

you forget me

do not look for me,

for i shall already have forgotten you.

if you think it long and mad,

the wind of banners

that passes through my life,

and you decide

to leave me at the shore

of the heart where I have roots,

remember

that on that day,

at that hour,

I shall lift my arms

and my roots will set off

to seek another land.

But

if each day,

each hour,

you feel that you are destined for me

with implacable sweetness,

if each day a flower

climbs up to your lips to seek me,

ah my love, ah my own,

in me all that fire is repeated,

in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,

my love feeds on your love, beloved,

and as long as you live it will be in your arms

without leaving mine.

~ Pablo Neruda 

There is something about love that makes people go mushy, sappy and all those things. They write poetry vowing their eternal love, how they will die of unrequited love and how there can be no one else for them. In my opinion, what bull!

Neruda gives it just as he sees it - “If little by little you stop loving me; I shall stop loving you little by little.” No one dies of a broken heart. Hearts heal and memories fade. And we all find someone new to love.

Love, like all other matters of the heart, is selfish. It wants something in return, it demands love in return. The ending lines of the poem are some of the most beautiful and evocative lines I have read.

My love feeds on your love, beloved,

And as long as you live it will be in your arms

Without leaving mine.

I always wondered if I was a freak of nature to move on so effortlessly every time I had a broken heart. But seems like, if no one else, Neruda understood me J