First of all this book definitely challenged my vocabulary! I can honestly say that there was not one page I didnt have to use a dictionary to look up a word.

Aside from that the text is really confusing mainly because of the fact that narrator jumps from one memory of a certain character to another in the first few pages. He did how ever introduce his father. His mother which he describes as photogenic, but died in a freak accident when he was only 3, he did also introduce other characters. But what confused me was when he mentioned the jury! I read it over and over again, and for some reason my understanding of when he says, “ladies and gentleman of the jury,…..”(1) is that he’s not literally talking with a jury, but to his reader? Please correct me if im wrong.

Annabel I believe is one of the most important characters, its because of her that i believe he is the way he is. He fell deeply and madly in love with her during his teenage years and unfortunately she passed away before he could make love to her. Its because of her tragedy that he sees what he sees in Lolita although the way he describes both of them is very interesting:

“There are two kinds of visual memory: one when you skillfully recreate an image in the laboratory of your mind, with your eyes open[…] and the other when you instantly evoke, with shut eyes, on the dark inner side of your eyelids, the objective, absolutely optical replica of a beloved face, a little ghost in natural colors (and this is how i see lolita)(3).

I found this interesting because he vividly paints lolita, but its because of annabel he feels this way he says “until at last, twenty four years later,  broke her spell by incarnating her in another”(4). So for him to describe annabel in “general terms” seemed kind of weird to me, because to me annabel and lolita seem as though they’re the same just two different people at different times of his life (the narrator/Humbert)

The whole time I read this one thing came to mind and this was, is age really just a number? It really caught my attention because of what the narrator said, ” I found myself maturing amid a civilization which allows a man  of twenty-five to court a girl of sixteen but not a girl of twelve” I don’t know about anyone else but in nyc you often see that; it doesnt necessarily mean its always the male who is the older one in the relationship. There are times when you see a older woman with a young man.

Interesting read, but confusing. One things for sure i will definitely expand my vocabulary!!