Lolita

This book was rather hard to place within a genre. It wasn't written to fit a certain genre. Although it is close to a prison memoir because of the innocence of the writer, "I'm the victim". This novel was interesting but it took a lot to get into it. It is tricky to read, because one has to constantly remind themselves that this is an untrustworthy narrator. He is trying to convince the reader that everything he did was alright. He even gives us the events to back up his innocence, but how as the reader do we know that these events occurred as he says or if they even occurred. It is very one sided.
At first glance many might confuse this with a love story, but in my opinion, it was more of infatuation, or idolizing. There are some aspects of love such as fatherly love, but it isn't really there until very late in the novel. It is quite unnerving that he bestows another name on Dolores. Even though Lolita is physically the same as Dolores, they are quite different in his mind. Dolores is more educated, and even older. Lolita is his mind is younger.

We loved

each other with a premature love, marked by a fierceness

that so often destroys adult lives. I was a strong lad and

survived; but the poison was in the wound, and the wound

remained ever open, and soon I found myself maturing amid

a civilization which allows a man of twenty-five to court a girl

of sixteen but not a girl of twelve pg14

This quote gave rise to interesting discussion between my classmates and I. Every societ