Lolita: Journal Entry No 3

     Lolita is a book that I find highly disturbing. I read this book initially in my Freshman year of college. I was horrified by the subject matter, that of pedophile, and lacked the eagerness to understand it.
      The fact that life has impelled Lolita to the forefront at this time in my life is highly symbolic for me. Even as a freshman in college, I could see the beauty of prose that Vladimir used in this book.
      Experiences make up the person and I am no different, yet this book brings up the question of pedophile and how beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty and pedophile in one sentence would horrify many people but isn't that what Vladimir desired?  Normalcy is what we make it? "We" would be society, and Humbert Humbert shatters the box of that very "we". Vladimir would have found that amusing and probably did, the ripples in the pond that his book became.
   Since the mention of the book "Satanic Verses", I have been thinking of that book constantly. I even went so far as to go to the library to grab a copy. It is harder to fight with a quill, as one might know, yet the impact of words is inarguable. Knowledge does come at a price and innocence is never redeemable yet I have already paid that price.
    In my freshman year of college I was exposed to many subjects that to this day are considered taboo. Vladimir does question  how society can consider the vulnerability of young children. Did he have awareness in mind? The awareness of people, like Humbert Humbert, and what steps should be taken to avoid Lolita s' plight?
    I actually did research in reference to the background and found it funny how his wife Vera carried a gun to protect him. Vladimir never learned how to drive; his wife was his driver and bodyguard. The author was a masterpiece of contradictions. The prose and subject matter in the book Lolita is in itself a contradiction.