V. Nabokov’s Lolita

1. V. Nabokov’s Lolita • In Lolita (1955), he builds on the modernist convention of the unreliable narrator, presenting Humbert Humbert’s retrospective account as at once prurient, sentimental, and satiric. The resulting mix is difficult to interpret, especially given the pervasive wordplay, in that the reader is not given unequivocal cues about how to take this story, but there does seem to be a story, albeit an unsettled and unsettling one.

2. Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn • I know very well why (the words of my prayer) wouldn’t come. It was because my heart warn’t right; it was because I warn’t square; it was because I was playing double. I was letting on to give up sin, but away inside me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying make my mouth say I would do the right thing and clean thing and go and write to that nigger’s owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie—and He knowed it. You can’t pray a lie—I found that out.

3. Lionel Trilling • Humbert is perfectly willing to say that he is a monster; no doubt he is, but we find ourselves less and less eager to say so.