Literary complexity, abuse, and the youth saga in Nabokov, Salinger, and Lewis Carroll

Abstract

This study seeks to examine the complexity of the prose of Nabokov’s novel, Lolita, in which there is a mixture of indulgence, provocation to the reader, parody and irony. The effects of such prose would be intensified by the parody and references to Through the Looking-glass and what Alice found there, with Humpty Dumpty drawing a parallel to Humbert Humbert. In the tradition of North American literature, there is also a possible and perhaps inevitable contrast with The catcher in the rye by J. D. Salinger and Portnoy’s complaint by Philip Roth, without mentioning Huckleberry Finn, configuring a set of juvenile/ young adults sagas suggesting transgression, nonconformity and perhaps emancipation.