Should Lolita be studied in an AP class?

Hi everyone,

I just finished reading Lolita, and even though it's been sad to say goodbye, I honestly think I was ready to be done with it. The initial shock factor that had been brought about with Humbert's obsession with Lolita had kind of worn off, and it was beginning to get tedious to read, with Humbert spending two years thinking about her and trying to find her. I think in a way, this reflected Humbert's life, since his initial passion and emotion had been lost, and he was just going through the motions without Lolita in his life. 

In this blog post, I have to talk about why or why not this book should be studied in an AP class. Although it's a wonderful story, I think that Lolita is a bit of a controversial book, considering its topic of pedophilia, and I don't see many schools feeling comfortable with students reading about this sort of stuff. I also think that some people may be so disturbed with the context of the story and they might not be able to look past that to recognize the underlying value of the book. With that being said, while I don't realistically see Lolita being read in many AP classes, I definitely think it could be interesting to do so.

Lolita's literary merit stems from multiple different sources, from the absolutely captivating narrative voice to the syntax and selection of detail. The reader is drawn into the beautiful language and is forced to think critically about the person they are hearing these things from. There is no doubt that this book is extremely well-written and a significant amount of thought has been put into it. The lush vocabulary and detailed descriptions add emotion to each scene. The surprising humor that Nabokov tucks in is welcomed in scenes where the reader should feel uncomfortable. While I was reading it, I had to remind myself not to underline every single passage, because there was so much to analyze. 

I remember reading a definition of what literary merit is once, and it emphasized the fact that the book should not only be good the first time you read it, but new details and allusions should be discovered every time you read it. I have no doubt that I would make many more discoveries if I read the book again and looked into all of the French phrases and names of places they traveled to, just to name a few examples. I also think it's worth mentioning that the author himself was not a pedophile, yet in his writing, he perfectly captures the emotions and desires of one. That takes some serious talent.

I could definitely see Lolita being extremely useful on an AP test, especially the Question 3 prompt (I think?) when a general question is asked and students can use any book to address it. I think that Nabokov's writing style, which adds to the charm and deceitfulness of Humbert, could be the perfect source to cite on a question asking about the influence of a character or a certain style of writing. With this book, students can see just how persuasive people can be if they say the right things, even if they are truly bad people. If there are any questions about analyzing character or style on the test, Lolita would be very helpful for test-takers. 

Overall, I don't think this book needs to be read in an AP class. Do I think it has literary merit? Definitely. Do I think it's a helpful book for the AP test? For sure. But I think the shock value of the topic of the book could be a hard thing to get past in a class full of high schoolers, and even if it does, the book could get pretty boring pretty quickly for some. However, I do think it should be highly recommended when it comes to free choice assignments like this blog. Personally, I learned a lot from this book and in general, I did enjoy it. 

I hope you enjoyed reading this week's post! I'll see you all next week when I give my thoughts on the book as a whole.