7. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Humbert Humbert is a filthy pervert with a fixation on adolescent girls. When he meets Lolita, an unhinged obsession occurs in the novel which drives Humbert to madness. It is love at first site for Humbert when he claps his eyes on Dolores, the 12 year old daughter of Humbert's land lady Charlotte Haze. He marries Charlotte just to be near Lolita (as he has named Dolores). Whenever Charlotte reads Humbert's diary she freaks out at the paedophiliac yearnings for Lolita he has detailed. She runs out onto the street and is mown down by a car and killed. Humbert picks up Lolita from camp and goes on the run with her. He gives her sleeping tablets in order to molest her, but they are too mild. But never mind, Lolita gives Humbert the green light and they have sex. After that, they drive around America for a year. Lolita does not love Humbert so he bribes her for sex and tells her if she goes to the police, he will be locked away in a home. Eventually they settle down and Lolita goes to school. She wants a part in the school play - which was written by a man called Clare Quilty who is impressed by her acting abilities. However, Humbert is becoming increasingly paranoid and they hit the road again. He thinks that Lolita is plotting to leave him and eventually she does - she falls ill and has a stay in hospital. Humbert is told she has checked out with her uncle. He searches and searches for Lolita to no avail until one day Lolita sends him a letter telling him she is married and it was Clare Quilty who whisked her away from the hospital. He tried to get her to star in porno films. This revelation provokes murderous rage in Humbert - will our psycho paedophile pervert wreak revenge? Many critics try to pin Lolita down as an erotic novel, but I do not buy into that idea. Humbert is just too deranged and wrapped up in his obsession with a very young girl. Throughout the novel, Humbert desperately tries to justify his paedophilia. I think he has a classic case of Erotomania - an all consuming love/obsession with a person whom they believe loves them back, I do not think that Lolita loved Humbert, he kept her close to him by coercion and manipulation but that is all. His desperate attempts to get at Lolita and keep her with him border on lunacy. It may be one of the greatest modern novels ever written, and it certainly has the power to seduce you into Humbert's worldview. But objectively speaking, by any standards, Humbert is a paedophile and a rapist, thus the narrative is written by a very unstable man.