CB-III Book #2: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

This is a selection from my deck of cards. Is it something of a testament to the pervasiveness of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov that despite having never read it, or talked to others who have read it, or seen adaptations on it, I already know what it's about? Who doesn't know, more or less, what the book is about? As Nabokov himself suggested, is it any wonder the name Dolores or Lolita stopped being so popular after the publication of this book?

So, I'm not going to delve into the plot. The one sentence plot summary is that this book is about middle-aged Humbert Humbert's obsession with young girls and his eventual relationship with 12-year-old Lolita.

The heart of the book is a study on desire and obsession, a portrait of sexual abuse, and a view of one man's madness. The window dressing, though much more than that because it is the reason why this book is such a masterpiece, is Nabokov's prose. I wouldn't trade the difficult subject matter, or the visceral reaction this book got out of me because of the depth of sexual abuse, for a kinder or less uncomfortable plot if it meant giving up the intricate literary style. Full of puns, allegories, satire, parody, it was, at times, a struggle to read through. I can't remember the last time a book had me running for the dictionary quite as often. There is more allusion, double entendre, sarcasm, mordant wit, and meaning in one sentence of Humbert's ramblings than in any of the best and most long-winded Internet trolls and/or savants out there. Truth be told, it gets to be a bit too much. It was the same thing that happened to me halfway through book 3 or 4 of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Sometimes I just want plain English. That's a slight on me. The book's prose is just perfect.

The subject matter, like I said...much more uncomfortable than I expected. It is not a pornographic book, as many early publishers claimed (and for which they refused to publish). There is nothing explicit but it is still unsettling to tread the mind of a man so obsessed with young children. Because 12-year-old Lo is a child. After reading the book, I am mostly upset at how Lolita has become synonymous with a willfully seductive and sexual young girl, almost laying the blame on the girl for the ensuing sexual adulation by grown men. Lolita in the book is never willfully seductive, she does not seduce Humbert. There is a passage where Humbert says he was, in fact, seduced by Lolita, but I'm not inclined to believe him because throughout the book Humbert proves to be a pretty unreliable narrator, and because on more than one occasion he alters the telling to excuse his behavior to himself. And even if I could be convinced that Lolita actively seduced Humbert, it still does not excuse the years of sexual abuse, dominance, emotional abuse, and near imprisonment that followed. And the fake patriarchy and implied incest just pushes the subject into a whole different level of repulsive. But I'm also being very harsh because the focus could have just as well been any other form of desire, and in that sense it's not so much a story about peadeophilia, but a story of obsession.

It is an interesting picture of an unhealthy obsession, as I more or less expected from what little I knew about the book. I confess I did not expect it to be a description of abuse. I also assumed before starting that Lolita was complicit, but we actually learn so little about her and she is hardly ever given her own voice. All this is just what I gathered from the book. After reading different reviews on it, I see another reason why it's become such a classic novel. There are several different ways of interpreting it and you are very likely to walk away with a different view altogether.

After all that, though, I'm not sure I recommend it. But I wouldn't discourage it, either. I'd say, find out what the fuss is all about for yourself, if you're prepared to go there.

31 down, 21 to go.

CB-III Book #1: The Shattering by Christie Golden

Maybe I shouldn’t have started my Cannonball read with this particular book. It immediately sets up an image that could leave me ostracized. I’ll become that girl. The WoW geek, the fantasy nerd, irredeemably fat and lonely. Though I suppose I shouldn’t cry too much because you would have come to the same conclusion if you took even a passing glance at the rest of my posts. So, the hell with it, here is my review of World of Warcraft: The Shattering.

I will say that this is my first WoW novel. I love the game but the lore behind it is, to put it mildly, confusing. If the Warcraft lore and the LOTR lore were part of the same universe, the entire LOTR trilogy would be the Cliff’s notes version of the Warcraft encyclopedia. It’s pretty massive, so I never bothered to read any canon outside of what the game itself offered.

Then the Cataclysm happened. Suffice it to say that the game I’ve gotten to know over the course of four years changed so drastically that I was back to square one. In terms of game design, it was a huge undertaking by Blizzard when they decided to not just add new pieces or components to the existing game (new levels, if you will), but to rework the entire existing structure nearly from the ground up. In terms of lore, it advanced the story to the next level. MMOs are, almost by definition, static worlds that rarely see any changes. Your character may level up to the cap and defeat the hardest boss to exist in the game...but that same boss will be back there next week, as if nothing happened. With this expansion though, the entire story changed and moved forward and it will never be the same as it was just a month ago.

It was a pretty big deal, is what I’m saying. I decided to pick up this particular book because it sets the stage for what happened between expansions, before and after the world shattering. Despite having some amount of cheese that plagues nearly all fantasy, I was very glad I picked this up, and ended up tearing through it rather quickly.

The book is less about fantasy and magic and more about political machinations, cultural divides, and social interactions. The story focuses on major political shifts happening both for the Horde (the “bad” faction if you will, that includes orcs, trolls, undead, goblins, blood elves, and tauren*) and for the Alliance (the “good” guys, made up of humans, night elves, dwarfs, gnomes, worgen (werewolves!) and draenei (space goat aliens)). Coups, murder plots, honor battles to the death, it’s all here and it takes center stage. There is some amount of good vs. evil simplification, but for the most part, the battles (both internal and external) are never black or white, and no character is without her flaws. This is the first book in a planned trilogy, so not every storyline gets squared away at the end.

As much as I play the game and have some familiarity with the lore characters presented in the book, I still tend to get lost whenever I read WoW blogs. But Golden manages to provide just enough background on the characters to set them up without bogging down the book in excessive detail, while continuing to move the main plot forward. I feel very confident saying that anyone not familiar with this universe could still pick this book up and become immersed in an interesting story with decent characters.

I will admit that some of the dialogue is too happy-go-lucky to ring particularly true, especially when severity would have made the scene better (I’m thinking of one scene in particular when the human king decides to help out the dwarven kingdom). These moments are thankfully rare.

All in all, it’s not a bad way to while away a lazy train commute or a few minutes before bed. It certainly doesn’t break molds in fantasy; rather, it’s soft enough on the fantasy aspect to not scare away those that feel squeamish about it. And it’s definitely a good read for anyone playing the game, who is wondering just what the hell happened to the Warcraft world.

*aside: the tauren are a race of humanoid cows, which is probably the main reason I started playing this in the first place