Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita

Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita was a controversial novel when it was first published because of its story--the criminal abduction and rape of a twelve year-old girl by her stepfather--and, even more, because of its presentation in the form of a love story. Critics have struggled to develop interpretations and explanations of the author's intentions that account for the strange combination of an extremely brutal subject and Nabokov's elegant writing. Unfortunately, at least with the two scholars studied here, the critical thought expended on the novel seems to have missed the point almost completely. Brian D. Walter and Trevor McNeely--two writers chosen at random from the scholarly literature--approach the novel with an earnestness that is not equaled by their ability to understand the book. Neither of these writers ever manages to be consistent in viewing the narrative, and the introduction, as the words of characters in a book. And neither of them seems to have the slightest idea that the book is extremely, though very blackly funny. Both these problems impede their criticism.

In a 1964 interview Nabokov said, "I shall never regret Lolita . . . she was like the composition of a beautiful puzzle--its composition and its solution at the same time, since one is a mirror view of the other" (quoted in McNeely 182). McNeely infers from this, and other remarks, that if a riddle was "central to the book's conception," this must have implications for "interpreters" as well (182

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