Lolita is a stunning and intriguing read. Those who have only seen the movie typically argue over the relationship between Lolita and Humbert saying it’s about love, but it’s not about love at all. It’s about obsession and manipulation and child abuse. This is evident in the novel but when it comes to the 1962 film, it just seems like no one ever told Stanley Kubrick this. The story of Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel is told as if it were a memoir of Humbert Humbert, a pedophile who becomes obsessed with twelve-year-old Dolores Haze, the girl he nicknames Lolita. He describes himself as a “murderer” with “a fancy prose style” and it’s true – he spins dizzyingly elaborate webs with words, we find ourselves sympathising with him yet sickened; we know we can’t trust his intoxicating words.…show more content… The character Lolita of Kubrick’s film is the idea of Lolita that exists in popular rape culture – that her characterisation downright stinks of victim-blaming, in a way that Nabokov’s doesn’t because, even though Humbert narrates the story, the reader knows to take his words with a pinch of salt. Kubrick’s film takes the same view of events as Humbert does but fails to mention that maybe Humbert perhaps isn’t the most reliable of sources. When I read Lolita I detested Humbert; when I watched it I found the same character almost likeable – he’s courteous and charming, just like the novel Humbert, with most of the sinfulness carefully removed. In fact, the movie makes it seem like he’s the least insane adult character in the
