In This Modern Age, Would Lolita Be Published Today?
“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.”
Those first lines, captivating, clever, concise and the perfect introduction to what transpired to become Vladimir Nabokov’s most celebrated and successful work.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was born in St Petersburg, Russia in 1899, to an old aristocratic family and was published at an early age with two collections of poems - this was before moving to Cambridge with his family in 1919. Nabokov’s other publications such as Despair and Invitation to a Beheading showed the literary flair with which his later work would flourish. However, it wasn’t until Lolita was published and became a best seller would he see a monetary gain from his literary exploits.
Lolita was published in 1955 and it rocked the world then as it still continues to do to this very day. Nabokov himself admits in his short piece On a Book Entitled Lolita that Lolita was incredibly hard to publish due to its perceived content and message and many readers would be able to confirm why. So I find myself, in the year of 2020 where fourth wave feminism takes centre stage, and the me-too movement still gains momentum questioning, whether Lolita would make it to print if written in current times.
Lolita, as a name, carries more connotations than any other name I know. Whether this be through fashion, literature or a reference to the victimisation or the precociousness of a young women; it is a name that carries weight and it doesn’t carry it particularly positively. Lolita is slut-shaming at its finest and Nabokov knew that Lolita could potentially ruin his reputation as an author; the book was rejected by five American publishers, who feared they'd be prosecuted on obscenity charges. People felt this book could be dangerous and they hadn’t even read it yet! Nabokov was left in doubt that his work would be published however he did not have to wait long.
A small French printing press by the name of Olympia Press (a press that mainly published erotica which was unbeknownst to Nabokov at the time he agreed to publication) that first published Lolita with around five thousand copies. This publication surprisingly sold out fairly quickly and was the only book to rival ‘Gone with the Wind’.
The infamous subject matter of Lolita largely contains themes of innocence and youth, both of which are at the very forefront of today’s society. We live in a society today where the protection of a child’s innocence is of the utmost importance, especially where the autonomy of a child’s personal space is involved. Society wants to protect the young from such horrors as sexual or emotional abuse and murder yet here we have a tale where all boundaries are transgressed in the lives of Humbert Humbert and Dolores Haze. We as readers are asked to decide ‘Is he in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert? A tortured soul or a monster?’. It carries a moral dilemma within itself, for it asks the reader if they can place themselves in a position to be able to understand the views of a paedophile or ‘nymphet’; either point of view raises a considerable amount of moral conflict and uncomfortable thoughts.
The more I look at the problems of publishing Lolita, the more it appears that Lolita was a stepping stone for the acceptance of such risqué and ambiguous literature. A shining example of such literature published after Lolita is D.H Lawrences’ Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Lady Chatterley’s Lover was first published in 1928 in Italy, however this was a private publication, it was a book banned in many countries and it wasn’t until 1960 that it was publically published by Penguin. This publication in comparison to Lolita caused far more outrage and resulted in a legal case in which Penguin won. As a result of this challenge, Penguin ended up selling three million books of this publication.
Even with such books as Lady Chatterley’s Lover being published, the content matter although sexual in nature is starkly different from Lolita and I’m still wondering if Lolita would be publishable today if viewed from a moral standpoint. This was until I discovered Bonnie Nazdam’s, Lamb which was published in April of 2011, reviewed by Nisha Lilia Diu for The Telegraph as ‘a lean, pacy tale as morbidly compelling as a car crash’. It is a tale of a fifty-four year old man and an eleven year old girl whose lives are inexplicably entwined. Nisha Diu however is keen to express in her review that while Lamb will be compared to Lolita, they are not of a similar story. This is a view that I strongly disagree with as both are tales of morality and seduction involving a child and in both stories the male characters know they are in the wrong.
Unlike Lolita however, Lamb had no problems being published. The book was published by Windmill which belongs to a branch of Penguin through Random House (who also published the more recent editions of Lolita). Their website states that ‘Windmill’s mission is to publish exceptional literary fiction and non-fiction paperbacks’ and they were established in 2009, which would suggest that Lamb was one of their early projects. Both stories tackle problems and situations in society that are considered taboo and brings them to the forefront of the readers mind through carefully selected language and both books can be found in the literary fiction category.
The situations with Lolita, Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Lamb are very different, but I believe it the language used and the approach by the authors that has allowed this work to be published and to continue to rise in popularity through this category. Literary fiction is the name given to fiction that is considered to have an impact and value in society and often explores the human condition through taboo situations or subject matter. The world we live in today is filled with questions of morality and the constant drive to do better and learn from others experiences and minds. I believe through books like Lolita and Lamb, we allow ourselves to question our own morals without directly experiencing any of the horrors contained within. So, while I may not have a direct answer to my question of whether Lolita would be published if it was written today, it gives me hope that creativity and art will not be stifled if it assists in correcting our moral compass and asks us to question what is wrong in our society.
Works Cited
Albert, Melissa and Andrew Field. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vladimir-Nabokov#ref339991. 3 October 2018. 22 November 2018.
Biblo.co.uk. https://biblio.co.uk/lolita-by-nabokov-vladimir/work/1605. n.d. 27 November 2018.
Cornell University Libray. http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/lolita/. 2005. 27 Novemebr 2018.
Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. London: Penguin Books, 1995.
National Public Radio. Inc. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4846479. 15 September 2005. 27 November 2018.
Readers Digest. https://www.rd.com/culture/most-controversial-books-of-all-time/. 11 April 2018. 29 November 2018.
Roberston, Geoffrey. "The Trial of Lady Chatterley's Lover." 22 October 2010. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/oct/22/dh-lawrence-lady-chatterley-trial. article . 12 January 2019.
Written by Melanie Smith
Melanie Smith is a writer from Ebbw Vale, South Wales. She is currently writing a novel inspired by Welsh folklore and studies at the University of South Wales.