abersonc;2094249 said:
Man, the way she just keeps getting younger and younger throughout the book as more layers of the situation are revealed... That's spectacular. The level of insight is eerie and very uncomfortable.
As I recall, at the beginning of
Lolita, Humbert Humbert insinuates that Lolita is between ages of 14 and 15. By the end of the book, we learn that she's far closer to 12.
The most amazing aspects of
Lolita are Nabokov's skillful use of first person POV and irony. Although the book is a first person narrative from the perspective of Humbert Humbert (the pedophile), Nabokov makes it quite clear to the audience that Humbert Humbert's perception of events is not always reality. Consider, for instance, Humbert Humbert's incessant defense of his sexual relationship with Lolita: Thoughout the book, he reiterates on several occasions that it was Lolita, not he, who instigated their first sexual encounter. This defense utlimately rings hollow because, as we the audience know, Lolita was just a precocious 12 year old girl who had seen far too many movies and was far too confident in her imagined sense of worldliness.
Regarding your latter points about the "eery and uncomfortable insight" of the author, I should mention that several of Nabokov's work contain pedophilic undertones. Eery and uncomfortable are apt descriptions.
