Aesthetic in Lolita

This is the exact image of my Lo-lee-ta, borrowd from here

Finally I finished reading my copy of Lolita, purchased 3 years ago from Tattered Cover Bookstore upon finishing Azar Nafisi's celebrated memoir - Reading Lolita in Tehran.

In between the purchase and the actual act of reading it front to back, I'd met Dr Nafisi during a book signing session - in Tattered Cover, no less - and read her second memoir (Things I've Been Silent About). Not to mention that I'd attempted to read Lolita a couple of times, to no avail.

The reason for such tardiness is actually an echo, of so many before me. Why on earth did Nabokov write Lolita? Why would people want to read a psychotic account of a pedophilia, justifying his taboo-ed, incestuous relationship with his 12-year old stepdaughter? And why, oh why, does Lolita receive critical acclaims, and has been read widely for decades (my personal copy is a 50th Anniversary Edition)?

Lolita was beautifully written, no doubt about that. The words were carefully chosen and constructed while the punctuations were accurately placed. The proses flowed gracefully. I have this quirks of muttering aloud of what I read, and the sentences felt like they melted at the tip of my tongue.

Even though structurally the novel appeared effortlessly written, Nabokov shared that he spent days, even weeks and months on a scene. No wonder they are wonderful, to the extent that I had to remind myself sometimes, that English is not Nabokov's first language. Lolita was after all, claimed Nabokov himself, "was the record of my love affair with the English language."

The intentional twists and turns also kept me glued to it, once I was assured by Rahimidin Zahari's words that Lolita is not porn. Believe it or not, four initial publishers rejected Lolita because the p-part never took off. Bravo, Nabokov!

But is there anything else that I learned from Lolita?

Now that I think about it, while consciously I sort of scorn upon it, but unconsciously, who knows? Maybe whatever lesson I learned will surface out, maybe never!