Review of the book Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Abandoned after 5% because I found it disgusting being inside the narrator’s mind. Reading feels like telepathy.
2022-09-15 – 2023-10-01
finished
I started reading Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov because I had often heard about it and its author, and I thought I could learn something. However, after reading 5%, I felt too disgusted about the narrator’s thoughts that I abandoned it.
I didn’t connect with the main character nor the various girls that show up, and it felt that just by reading it, I was condoning what was happening.
According to the author, there is no moral to the book. He got inspired to write it after reading that an ape drew the bars of its cage after being coaxed by a scientist for months to draw something 1.
How do I grow from this?
- Reading is telepathic. I was surprised to feel so violently guilty just from reading a fiction book despite preparing myself for it. It felt like one of those illusions that, even though you know it’s an illusion, you cannot stop seeing it. I may have also felt compelled to drop it because it felt like feeding my mind unhealthy mental impressions.
Connections
- Power of taboos.
- My reaction to reading The Autumn of the Patriarch: I have no interest in getting inside the heads of people my mind finds repulsive.