Why Should I Keep Reading.......?

Over the past couple of weeks I have been making my way through the novel Lolita. The first time around I just read it like I would read any other novel, and the second time I looked at it from a more scholarly approach. I guess you could say that the first time I got through the book, I was disgusted. Of course, I just read a book which entailed a ton of child malestation.....which is sick. That's all I got out of it. But that was the first time......and the second time I read it, I saw beauty. I fell in love with the words on the page. This book is beautifully written, and every time I turn the page there is something that takes me back a little.

Now....I want you all to know that I am by no means 'smart' when it comes to connecting novels and art and songs together. For those of you that don't know, I write for the Exponent in the sports section, talk on a Sports radio show, and dance on the MSU dance team. Think about it, this book should by no means entertain me because it has nothing to do with my interests in life. But it does do one thing, and why I continued to read this book was because of the way that I made connections, in my own world. Vladimir Nabokov has so many different attributes to his story that even this cheerleader can find enthrawling things to talk about....to learn....and to definitely think about.

One of the passages that inspired me the most to keep reading was the passage beginning on page 57. Actually, the whole section (13) is moving to me. I think it is so moving because at first Humbert Humbert was a sick and perverted man. NOW I see that he is anything but (well okay, still a little weird), but he is in love. He had lost his first true love in Annabel and has never been able to recover from that. Humbert says things like, "She was musical and apple sweet. Her legs twitched a little as they lay across my live lap; there she lolled in the right hand corner, almost asprawl, Lola the bobby-soxer, devouring her immemorial fruit, singing through its juice, losing her slipper, rubbing the heel of her slipperless foot in its sloppy anklet, against the pile of old magazines heaped on my left on the sofa". What a child Lolita is......just a child who has captivated a man. I think the reason for this captivation is because of the connection Lolita and Annabel have. To Humbert, Lolita is the Dopplegangar to Annabel.....the love he lost and has suddenly found in a new life.

I found this clip of the exact scene I just noted up above and it is a pretty good visual as to what was going on in the book. I hope you like it....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyuhaJMIAaI

This is a love story, and an amazing read.......and I will still continue to read....