Humbert Humbert and . . . Dexter?

I’ve watched Dexter since its first season.  If you don’t know, it’s the Showtime drama about a serial killer who rather methodically and ritualistically murders bad guys who have slipped through the loopholes of justice.  I remember well the moment I looked away from the television screen and down at my white knuckles and clenched fists during some suspenseful scene when Dexter was about to be caught (or killed), and I thought . . . Wait a minute . . . this isn’t right.  I’m rooting for the serial killer?!!? 

Dexter is a show that messes with you.  If you don’t stop to think about what the writers and directors are actually doing, you might wonder, “What is wrong with me?  How could I on any level believe that this might be okay?”

But I think that’s exactly what Dexter is designed to do.  It’s supposed to make us squirm.  It’s intended to generate what feels like an unnatural reaction.   We hear Dexter’s internal thoughts and motivations, we witness his struggle to channel his urges, we see that there are people he actually cares about and wants to protect . . . and we sympathize with him.  We pity him.  We start to understand him.  And then we realize (with horror) that we aren’t repulsed by him.  We might even like him.

And that’s frightening.  After all, he’s supposed to be the bad guy.  We’re supposed to see him as this sick, vile creature who we’re glad to see caught and locked up, finally tucked away from society.

I experienced a similar moment while I was reading Lolita. At some point during the first half of the novel I realized that while I wasn’t exactly rooting for Humbert Humbert, I wasn’t completely disgusted by him either.

And that is the real shock of Lolita.

More outrageous than any event in the plot or the subject matter, is how we react to it.  When we catch ourselves – even momentarily – being sucked in by Humbert, being carried along by his persuasively eloquent arguments, his charm, his sensitivity, his eloquence, we might feel just a little bit icky.

Though Humbert’s appeal fades by the end of the novel, he begins as a seductive character.  He’s intelligent, eloquent, and convincing.  He works hard to justify his heinous acts in his mind and because we are reading his thoughts, we are carried along with him.  When we understand a character’s internal motivations, things can get complicated, muddled, and messy. Things get fuzzy. And in the case of Lolita, it’s easy to get caught up in the language.  Nabokov opens up Humbert, puts all of his thoughts and memories and insecurities before us and asks – do you hate him now?

I’m not going to postulate on why this novel is condemned.  That’s kind of a no brainer.  I will only add that maybe, just maybe, it feels safer to denigrate the novel than to have to face what considering that question might say about society, ourselves, or human nature?

And then there’s the beauty of Lolita :

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.”

Nabokov takes Flaubert’s idea of “poetry is everywhere” to the next level.  He explores an undesirable subject and he elevates it with beautifully rich, poetic language.   I can’t help but think that perhaps Nabokov was similarly demonstrating how the consideration of any subject can become “art” depending on how the artist handles it. *  Beauty and cruelty coexist.  And that’s perhaps the second most shocking thing about Lolita.  Nabokov dared to turn what is essentially a pedophile’s memoir into something beautiful.

A Note on the Annotated Edition:

I highly recommend reading the annotated edition of Lolita, though I will admit that at some point I backed away from the annotations and just read the book.    I think this book contains more allusions to culture, art, and literature than any other book that I’ve read.  (There’s something like 10 references just in the first two paragraphs so it can get pretty dense.)While some of those allusions provide clues to the plot, many, if not most, seem to be more showy than meaningful.  Nevertheless, I found it enjoyable to explore the plethora of references in Lolita, whether they propelled the plot or not.  In fact, Lolita inspired me to compile a book of literary allusions (separate from my Common Book) that I plan to keep updating as I move on to other works.

Books added to my Reading List after reading this book:

• The Magician’s Doubt: Nabokov and the Risks of Fiction by Michael Wood
• Strong Opinions by Vladimir Nabokov
• The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe
• Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• Ada by Vladimir Nabokov
• Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

* I should offer the disclaimer that I know next to nothing about Nabokov – these are just my initial thoughts.  But you knew that already.  :)