Harper

Love story for the ages

Revisado: 03-10-25

Firstly, the performance of this reading was superb, every name well pronounced, emotion clear in his tone. Nicely done. And as for the story, ah, heart-wrenchingly brilliant. Achilles and Petroclus’s story is well told, well woven, it connects myth and humanity with such grace. Though I wouldn’t call it redemption, Thetis’s character development feels monumental as far as gods and goddesses are concerned. Lived this book!

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Lovely prose and superb characters

Revisado: 08-21-24

Aside from the great performance from these readers, the writing must be remarked upon. The whole novel is summer incarnate and it’s sticky sweet and sensitive while being funny and sharp. Highly recommend if you enjoyed Conversation with Friends by Sally Rooney. The writing is just as delicate and realistic.

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Not for me, by a long-shot.

Revisado: 06-12-18

Like the nerd that I am, I asked my English professor for book recommendations at the end of the quarter. He recommended a number of books, Lolita among them. I didn't know much about the story going into it, but on his recommendation I thought I'd give it a shot. To begin, Nabokov is incredible. As a writer he astounds me in his craft and use of language. I was hooked from the first sentence of the novel and while I wish I could say I remained so, even with the loss of my appetite for it I don't think the writer the lesser. The same goes for Irons. I thought the voice for H. Humbert was superb and creepy and everything he should be. It allowed me to imagine the character as even more sinister than the book allows.

Many of my problems have to do with perception I guess.

H. Humbert is a pedophile. He is a child rapist and a murderer. Lolita is a victim. She may not want to be victimized, but frankly she is a victim. She is the victim of a man preying on her whether either of them choose to see it that way. A serial abuser and his victim may spout day and night that they are not what they are, but that doesn't eliminate the fact that one person is abusing another. The fact that this story can be told from the perspective of such a creature as H. Humbert is a little disturbing, but I appreciate the preface of the author in the hardcopy for this reason.

To those of you out there who romanticize this story to be a love story...I caution you. Consider what love is. How does love act?

I know this is just a story. It's a novel. But the truth is, the way these stories get ingested and how they are written down in history matters. It matters what people take away from stories, what they find the morals to be.

The moral of this story is not that love will make you do crazy things. It's that criminally insane people can do terrible things and affect those around them, affect those they prey on. It's a story told through the eyes of the villain. That doesn't mean he has to become your hero, nor does Lolita, a 12 year old girl, have to be painted as anything other than what she is: a child.

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