In the office of his seven-story building in Manhattan, sex offender Jeffrey Epstein had a first edition of the novel from 1955, writes the New York Times, which reviewed photos from his home.
In the now-published Epstein files, there are several photographs where sentences from the novel's opening have been captioned on women's bodies, or possibly on the same unidentified woman. For example, on a naked woman's foot it says: "She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock."
"Her name was Lo, Lo for short, in the mornings, one and fifty standing in one sock."
I don't think Jeffrey Epstein was a fan of literature; he was probably hooked on this superficial stuff, says Inga-Lina Lindqvist, literary critic and author.
Pedophile and stepfather
Nabokov's novel is about a middle-aged pedophile, Humbert Humbert, and his obsession with his 12-year-old stepdaughter Lolita, whom he takes away and sexually exploits after her mother dies in an accident.
The story is told in the first person from Humbert's perspective, but is not a psychologically realistic depiction of his psyche, emphasizes Inga-Lina Lindqvist.
People think it's some kind of true crime, that we're stepping inside the skin of a criminal. I think that's what kills the understanding of this novel in general.
It is also "Lolita" who is the novel's actual protagonist, Inga-Lina Lindqvist emphasizes.
She is a force of nature; if you read with a focus on her you see this force of nature fighting against the lack of ethics, morality and beauty, and how she breaks out. Then there is a tragic ending, but it is still Lolita who is at the center.
Enormous anger
Nabokov wrote his novel in an enormous rage linked to his brother's death in a Nazi concentration camp just before the end of the war, she points out. One of the novel's great merits is precisely the anger directed against the soulless and unethical, Inga-Lina Lindqvist believes.
It is an anger towards all these self-righteous people who wander through the novel and subject Lolita to as much abuse as Humbert. It is the stupidity and degradation of our time, she says, drawing a parallel to Donald Trump's new ballroom with gold at the White House.
It was the kind of thing that Nabokov detested most of all.
Erika Josefsson/TT
Facts: “Lolita”
TT
A novel by the Russian-American author Vladimir Nabokov. It is written in English but was published in 1955 by a French publisher. The story ends with Lolita dying in childbirth on Christmas Day after giving birth to a stillborn baby girl.
In her novel "Darling River," Sara Stridsberg continues Nabokov's "Lolita".
