this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2024
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For what it's worth, I think it's an excellent horror novel told from the perspective of an unreliable narrator.
I would not describe it as a great romance novel.
Funny enough, a friend of mine got into literature recently and he recently read it. He said it was fucking heavy but probably the best thing he's read so far in his life. I've been meaning to get around to reading it myself, but I am also WELL aware that it is not a, uh, 'great and tragic love story'.
Yeah, this. It's an amazingly well-written novel... seriously, one of the greats. But I would absolutely never describe it as a love story. That definitely requires some amount of reciprocation and not just grooming and rape.
Whaaaaat!? Grooming? But Humbert isn't trans? This is just normal behavior, it only becomes wrong when you are already a persecuted minority.
/s obvs
I'm a huge fan of Nabokov's and have read Lolita several times... But I've never heard it described as horror before and you are so right! I guess before I'd have classified it as tragedy but horror fits so much better.
It's basically a horror story told from the point of view of the monster.
The only "tragic love story" is maybe Dolores' mother trying to warn the world about Humbert being a pedophile only to be hit by a car and killed, unable to save her daughter. Or maybe Dolores' tragic battle to love herself and escape from all the men who want to take advantage of her.
Rowling with another steaming hot garbage pile of an opinion on sexual abuse, no surprise there. What an awful person.