YMMV / Lolita

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Due to Unreliable Narrator, Humbert paints Charlotte as emotionally abusive to her daughter and ignoring her needs. Yet when Charlotte finds out that Humbert has a diary that shows he wants to prey on "Dolly", she does what a normal parent would do: tell him to Get Out! and write a letter to her daughter about her stepfather being a creep to warn her about why he will no longer be in their lives. Dolly also cries when she demands money to call her mother and learns Charlotte died. Perhaps she cared more than Humbert wanted to admit.
  • Did Humbert murder Charlotte to prevent her from calling the police on him? The timing of her "accident" is certainly so very convenient that Humbert cannot help but acknowledge that fact, and he is clearly trying to avoid any lengthy discussion of the circumstances surrounding it, most notably when he flat out says that he is just going to skip the last conversation he had with Charlotte, claiming that it wouldn't be of much interest to the reader anyway. Also of note: whenever Humbert makes a claim that he thinks the reader will doubt, he'll frequently cite a periodical where the reader can verify it for themselves. No such citation is made for Charlotte's death, when it certainly seems like something that should make the paper.
  • Did H.H. murder Quilty as a simple act of revenge for stealing away his victim, or an attempt at atonement by inflicting a Karmic Death on another pedophile and abuser of Dolores? Perhaps both? And did he also knowingly get himself sent to prison out of guilt and shame for his actions? Given his recount of the events casts himself in the best light possible (and implies his victims either deserved it or were outright asking for it), did he start out trying to redeem himself but was too much of a narcissist to stop from trying to put the best possible spin on his actions?
• Audience-Alienating Premise: The book is a prime example of this, to the extent that it's mostly known by the general public as "that novel about pedophilia". Fortunately, its status as a modern classic prevents it from becoming too neglected, but most people unaware of why it's considered so great are likely to pass it up due to the premise. There are also the ones to go to read it for the prurient content, all thanks to the films of the book that age up Dolores and play up her Fille Fatale tendencies while playing down Humbert's predatory ones.
• Award Snub: The Stanley Kubrick adaptation received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adaptated Screenplay, but it wasn't nominated for Best Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress.
• Broken Base: Both film adaptations of the book are considerable points of contention.
  • The jury is still out regarding the overall quality of Kubrick's film adaptation. Some like to rank the film alongside Barry Lyndon as Kubrick's unsung masterpiece. Others, on the other hand, dislike it for deviating too much from the book and for its Lighter and Softer atmosphere.
  • The second film adaptation from 1997 is another point of debate, particularly when comparing it to Kubrick's version. Some prefer the 1997 version for being Truer to the Text, particularly with the lack of censorship regarding Humbert's sexual exploitation of Lolita and the lack of comic relief, while others feel that it lacks the artistry of Kubrick's adaptation and find the performances to be overall inferior. The fact that Nabokov wrote the screenplay for Kubrick's version but was uninvolved with the 1997 film (on account of having been dead for twenty years) also factors into this.
• Catharsis Factor: Dolores telling off Humbert for his depraved behavior, followed by him shooting Quilty and getting sent to prison for it ensures there was some justice for the actions of the two worst characters in the book.
• Common Knowledge:
  • To get the most common one out of the way first: No, the story is not one of "love". It is really more of a psychological examination of a self-pitying criminal and the consequences and human costs of his heinous crimes, as well as a massive criticism of the Victim-Blaming that tends to happen to sexual assault victims, and the way the fairly obvious signs of their suffering tends to go unnoticed by society.
  • Despite the common accusation, there is also no pornographic content in the book. Despite everything Dolores is subjected to at the hands of Humbert, she never gets violated by him "on-screen" (so to speak). Instead, what he does to her is kept in the realm of vague description and is explicitly played for discomfort and even horror.
  • For all their iconic status, Dolores never actually wears the heart-shaped sunglasses from the poster of Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation at any point in the actual film. That image actually originates from a series of publicity photos for the film taken by famed photographer Bert Stern.
  • Even the name "Lolita" has become a synonym for a Fille Fatale, despite it not being her real name, and Dolores is never portrayed as anything other than a Deconstruction (possibly an Unbuilt Trope) of a Fille Fatale. Her "flirtatious" behavior is projected onto her by a pedophile, and when she gets forced into an incestuous relationship with her own stepfather, she's confused and depressed. When she grows up, she rightfully blames him for destroying her childhood.
    • By extension of this, Dolores Haze as a character is mostly known in broader culture under the name "Lolita", despite the fact that no one in the novel, besides Humbert himself, ever actually calls her that, and it is basically Humbert's attempt at giving his extremely unhealthy and malevolent sexual obsession with her a somewhat cutesy-sounding nickname, as well as his main way of dehumanizing and objectifying her. In fact, Dolores' friends and family for the most part call her "Dolly", "Lo", or "Lola". The fact that the Kubrick adaptation more or less completely Adapted Out this nuance by having pretty much every character refer to her with "Lolita", is probably the main reason for this.
  • The reason for which "Lolita stereotype" exists at all is the way the story has been filmed, not written. Due to fear of censorship and public scandals, the scripts of both 1962 and 1997 films tended to show a Forbidden Love between an older teen, approaching the legal age of consent^note 14 to 16 in most Western World countries, 16 in the majority of US States and some hopeless romantic ready to break the law to the extremes for her. Humbert's backstory (his obsessions, attempts to get a child prostitute, plans to seduce a neighbor's child and kill himself afterwards, the pressures he put on Dolores over time) and the fact the book Dolores Haze is 12 years old, full into pedophilia territory, were too squicky to put on screen. Another sticking point is that filming anything close to the book raises serious ethical concerns.
• Complete Monster: Clare Quilty is an eccentric and wealthy man who serves as the dark shadow of the already depraved Humbert Humbert. While Humbert is a pedophile who seduces Dolores "Lolita" Haze, Quilty centers on Dolores and stalks her from place to place, seducing her into a twisted affair for his own purposes. Wealthy and bored, Quilty forces children to participate in child pornography films and has Dolores thrown out when she refuses to participate. In Stanley Kubrick's 1962 film, Quilty even offers to let Humbert witness a live execution to save his own life, one of his favorite pastimes.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception:
  • Call this book a defense of pedophilia, or, worse, a love story, and/or call Dolores a Fille Fatale at your own risk. Many readers are extremely frustrated by the reputation the book has in pop culture, and will jump on the chance to point out that Humbert is an Unreliable Narrator, and the novel is very clearly anti-pedophilia, with Dolores being a victimized child who bravely endures all sorts of horrible things until she can escape.
  • Also, her name is Dolores, not Lolita. Many readers make it a point to only refer to her by her actual name, since "Lolita" is a nickname her abuser came up with.
• Funny Moments:
  • The film's opening scene where Peter Sellers improvises up a storm, starting with a reference to Kubrick's previous film Spartacus, while Humbert looks on with an expression of "What in the actual hell?"
  • At the drive-in, Lolita and Charlotte both grab one of Humbert's hands at a scary scene. He promptly pulls away from Charlotte's hand and scratches his nose.
  • Humbert lies to Lolita that her mother is still alive and takes her to a hotel... where a policemen's convention is being held.
  • To keep up appearances, Humbert orders a cot for the hotel room, suddenly turning the movie into something out of a Buster Keaton routine for a few minutes.
• Heartwarming Moments: Even with all the tragedy of the situation, it's revealed that Dolores despite being poor and pregnant married a Nice Guy named Richard Schilling. She's still broken and traumatized but says that "Dick" makes her happy while telling Humbert who actually took her away when she ran. Humbert then in either a moment of Pet the Dog, Heel–Face Door-Slam or Ignored Epiphany, gives her all his money so she will have a safe delivery of the baby.
• Love to Hate: Clare Quilty in the Kubrick film is a disgusting pedophile, even more so than Humbert, and that's saying something. But he's played by Peter Sellers, so he's a complete blast to watch.
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • While Nabokov specifically stated that his story has no moral, he still hoped his readers were smart enough to see through all of Humbert's attempts at gaining sympathy, and realize what a horribly sick and twisted man he is. Not all of them were. Some people actually sympathize with Humbert or think the book is a beautiful if tragic love story. One writer went as far as to say that the novel is "not the corruption of an innocent child by a cunning adult, but the exploitation of a weak adult by a corrupt child".
  • Even more egregious is that the respective directors of the two film adaptions, Stanley Kubrick and Adrian Lyne, also seem to fall into this, by varying degrees. Like the book, the adaptations is seen from Humbert Humbert's perspective, but both also gives him a Sympathetic P.O.V. (again, to varying degrees), despite H.H. of the novel being a particularly despicable example of an Unreliable Narrator, and the whole tale arguably being a deconstruction of the Sympathetic P.O.V. Kubrick's film essentially overall portrays H.H. as a somewhat bumbling comedic hero, where his inept attempts at covertly getting away up his crimes, i.e. molesting a child, is overtly meant to amuse the audience. Lyne's film, is the worse offender in this department, however, as it seems to miss all the subtext of the novel and operate on a misguided belief H.H.'s account is entirely truthful and therefore plays it completely straight, especially when it comes to his attempts of describing his abuse of Dolores as "love" and her as a flirty seductress and willing participant in the acts he carries out upon her. In case there is any doubts, Lyne's own DVD Commentary on the film repeatedly makes it painfully clear how much he has managed to miss the point the novel was trying to make. Overall, both adaptations have arguably contributed much to the general Misaimed Fandom for the work, simply through Adaptation Displacement.
• Mis-blamed: Some people denounce the book because they think it's an attempt to portray pedophilia in a positive light; in reality, Nabokov was doing his best to depict its lead character as a complete social vampire to emphasize why it was a crime against nature. This, too, is lost on many readers.
• Moment of Awesome: Even though it's Nightmare Fuel that Dolores has to contact her former abuser for healthcare money, she also stands her ground as he demands to know where she went and who she married. Dolly is no longer Humbert's Lolita; she’s her own person and she tells him off, she bluntly says that Humbert ruined her life and took away her childhood, and that if she didn't need money then she would have never have reached out to him. Humbert is cowed by this and gives her all the money he has on hand.
• Narm Charm: Quilty's other personas are insanely over the top pushy and annoying, and it's meant to come off as a genuinely surprising twist that they were all him in disguise. It could have easily come off as ridiculous, but with the famously chameleon-like Peter Sellers in the role, it all works perfectly to hilarious effect.
• Nightmare Fuel: The very idea that a little girl can have their life destroyed the way Dolores has.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: In spite of Nabokov intending and writing Humbert to be a Villain Protagonist and Unreliable Narrator, whose attempts at eliciting sympathy from the reader are supposed to highlight that he's actually a sick man desperate to come up with excuses for his actions, the numerous accusations over the years since the novel's publication that it glorifies paedophilia (which it does not) have become more famous than the story itself. It doesn't help that many reprints feature art on their covers that look like actual erotica, or the infamous poster for the Kubrick film with the heart-shaped sunglasses and red lollipop, which is missing the point.
• Paranoia Fuel: Are you a parent of a tween or teen? If you are, you will have nightmares about them being abused. Even worse, if you married someone who seems nice enough but you read their diary. You’ll learn they want to prey on your children and think you're too stupid to notice.
• Realism-Induced Horror: Easily the most terrifying thing about Humbert is the fact that men of his ilk exist in Real Life. Then there's the fact that he's prosecuted for murder and not his various abuses of a child, which mirrors how impossibly difficult it is to actually put a rapist behind bars.
• Squick: Some of Humbert's descriptions of conducting sexual acts with his stepdaughter consist of this. In one case, he has a parent-teacher conference where the teachers are worried about Dolly. Humbert, in a means to punish Dolly for attracting attention, sits behind her in class and makes her do a discreet handjob in public. It's a wonder he doesn't get caught. Not helping is her palms are trembling while covered with ink.
• Values Resonance: The fact that Dolores isn't victim-blamed for her abuse. Dolores herself tells Humbert that he ruined her life, and that's why she didn't contact him for years. It is repeatedly made clear that H.H. is not "only" an utterly loathsome human being for the crime of abducting and sexually abusing a child, but also from the fact that he frequently and rather feebly tries to make excuses for his behavior and convince the reader that it is somehow her own fault. Until the late 20th century, girls like her might not get the help they need if they weren't considered "chaste" enough. The logic was that they somehow "asked for it", disregarding the fact that they're children manipulated and abused by adults.
• Vindicated by History: The Kubrick film polarized critics when it came out, but in the decades since has gone on to be regarded as one of his greatest works.

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