When Vladimir Nabokov finished “Lolita” in 1953, many English publishing houses turned down the manuscript. After reaching out to international presses for over two years, the author received an offer from “Olympia Press”, a French publisher who released mostly pornographic content. Months went by and despite the book being an underground sensation between mature readers, the reviews from British papers were what really brought it to the public eye. From then on, Nabokov experienced a roller coaster of positive and negative criticism until the French government banned “Lolita“. The buzz around the book fell off then — at least for a while.
The controversy that surrounds “Lolita” relies on something that goes beyond the triggering subject of the book (pedophilia and statutory rape, for those unaware.) Humbert Humbert, the book’s unreliable narrator, tells us a rather daunting story with a poetic style, flourishing his wrongdoings with metaphors and rhyme schemes that distract the reader from the serious circumstances described. By the end of the book, it’s almost impossible for the reader not to notice Humbert’s insanity, making them wonder if anything they’ve just read is concrete or factual in Nabokov’s literary universe.
The main controversies
This simple narrative device romanticized and sexualized Dolores, a 12-year-old child that becomes Humbert’s victim throughout the book. With that, the archetype of the Lolita – a young, innocent, and overly sexual figure – became extremely prevalent in pop culture. The issue here is not only that we shouldn’t sexualize minors, but also that Nabokov’s intention wasn’t to encourage the type of behavior displayed by Humbert in the first place. However, the memoir format of the book and the unreliable narrator makes it hard to distinguish the opposing personal views of the author and character. After all, why would Nabokov write so poetically about behaviors he despises?
I believe that generating awareness is the answer. It’s hard to imagine that 20th-century authors would have the critical thinking necessary to handle taboo topics before they become mainstream worries, but a simple read through the synopsis of Orwell’s “1984” shows us that preventing daunting realities has always been a literary mission. In the same way that Orwell’s alienated Winston can be a warning, Nabokov’s Humbert can be a call to action against the normalization of criminal and unhealthy fetishes.
In Brazilian Literature
Unfortunately, this argument doesn’t make the use of unreliable narrators any less problematic. One of the clearest examples of an unreliable narrator here in Brazil is Bentinho, the protagonist of Machado de Assis’ “Dom Casmurro“. Bentinho’s obsessions lead him and some readers to believe that Capitu, his love interest at the beginning of the story and wife by the middle, cheated on him with his best friend, Escobar. There’s never actually proof that Capitu betrayed her marriage (or that Bentinho wasn’t abusive to her, for that matter), but the image the narrator constructs of her is one of perversion and shallowness. So in a way, it’s safe to say that unreliable narrators are sometimes used to degrade women and to romanticize abuse against them.
In conclusion: There should be more discussions about the differences between the intent and the impact male authors have when degrading women through literary devices, in a general way.
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The article above was edited by Larissa Mariano.
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