TW: sexual abuse, grooming
Ok – I’ve seen Lolita mentioned in comments a few times here, so I finally picked it up. Zero research, just dove right in and I need to talk. Or write. Or get internet Reddit “therapised”
A few things before I go more stream of consciousness:
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How does this books even exist with such high remarks. (I’m not a fan of book banning but COME ON, we’re gonna ban childrens books about a kiddo having two mommies or daddy’s but this is ok?)
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I started reading it really late at night and everyone was asleep so I turned to chat GPT to help me process.
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I just read some reviews on Goodreads and I’m sick to my stomach. Literally my stomach feels inside out.
My conversation with chatGPT went along the lines of something like this:
Me: hey there… so uhh I just started reading Lolita and I have questions… what did I just get myself into. I’m feeling quite disturbed by the direction it seems to be taking.
chatGPT: that’s an excellent question and one that….. prompt deletes and a red notification “your prompt seems to have violated one of our user policies. Please let us know if this is a mistake”
Me: (to myself… what the eff is this book?) I reload my prompt and this time it rephrases its response.
ChatGPT (cliffsnotes): you should be disturbed, it’s supposed to make you uncomfortable, correct this is basically a very upsetting story of a child being sa’d
I proceeded with chatGPT for probably an hour but it’s obviously not a real conversation… my husband who has read almost everything said he didn’t get far into it and has very little to say.
This book seems like it’s from the perspective of a very sick individual who engages very abusive behaviors and “relationships” it’s like he excuses these delusions on this on a very normal blip in his life but he’s perverted a very normal part of being a early teen. It’s like he takes this very fleeting summer fling (I think at the time was actually “age appropriate”)that he considered a past “trauma” to excuse his whole adult existence.
I’m not even that far in and this book feels like brain fog at points. It’s like entering the mind of someone so deep in a dissociative state or mania that there is not going back for them. Like the part where he’s walking with his wife and she’s telling him she is leaving him for another man. He mentions a taxi driving near by. Then suddenly they’re in the taxi and then suddenly the taxi driver is the other man. Then they’re in their home with the taxi driver and she packing her things. Is this all happening or is this all a story he tells himself to feel in control? Or to keep himself some kind of victim when he’s actually the monster? Did he really let her leave in peace? Or again is this a delusion and lie he is telling us as to paint himself then”good guy”?
I think put it down right as he got to America and all I can wonder is if Lolita is about to become his new obsession. I hope to god she’s fictional because I’m terrified for who ever this girl is in the story. I’m disturbed that there are people reviewing this book as if it’s the “hottest” thing around and they need a cigarette after reading it. I saw a comment on it calling it comedy, satire… it’s like comedic in that it’s so deeply disturbing that the laughter is actually mournful tears, right? Tears that look like laughter because they are arriving so fast and so hard that you look like your laughing but you’re not, you’re just trying to breath but you can’t because the air is leaving the room as the walls close in.
Part 1, chapter 8 is where I stopped and this is what I’m already feeling, thinking… I feel like I need to finish to understand. I need to find the silver light at the end but it just seem like the only silver light is for those who see themselves in HH.
Please tell me I’m overreacting. I’ve always struggled with reading comprehension or at least I was told I do. So I’m sitting here confused and worried that I’ve completely mistaken the direction of this book.
by Wafflehussy