Screen Shot #1

Earlier this year, I posted a link to a bookworm friendly website called What Should I Read Next?, which provides a list of books related to the one you just put down. As a bit of research, I decided what the list would include if I plugged Lolita into it. While all the books seem interesting, it was the third book that caught my attention. Apparently, Ramona Quimby Age 8 is the Nabokov classic's bosom buddy.

The Man, The Monster & His Lovers

"To you alone I've told the tale, do with it what you will," concludes the narrator of the A.M. Homes novel, The End of Alice. Granted, he is a rather unreliable source - you begin to question his knowledge, his ability to tell two sides of a story - the ongoing tale of a young college girl who starts a sexual adventure with a 12-year-old boy - and his own lustful, murderous tale of how he landed himself in prison for the last 23 years.

Much like Humbert Humbert, the narrator - and child lover of the still controversial novel, Lolita (anyone who thinks that is the bottom of the pit clearly hasn't read The End of Alice, or anything by the Marquis de Sade) - the narrator of this tale, whose name is unknown, though he is called Chappy by an old acquaintance upon his only visitation, is very informed, well educated and sticks to a strict set of rules. Unlike his counterpart, however, he doesn't make any attempt to hide his monstrosity by making up excuses for his depraved sexual desires of young prepubescent girls - they're on the brink of adolescence; I don't know if we can call this prepubescent.

The story begins through correspondence between the unknown narrator and the unknown college student, who is home for the summer, staying with her parents. She openly admits her desire for a certain 12-year-old boy who lives in the city, and whom she has been stalking for two years. (The only important names we learn in the story are both victims - Matthew and Alice.)  As the story progresses, the narrator is both in love and annoyed by his "student," at times comparing her to Alice - even thinking she is Alice at times. 

A.M. Homes's powerful narrative shines the light upon the most commonly misunderstood individual, all the while never showing mercy - from the beginning to the end, despite his weaknesses, we do not see the man a tormented, a victim of his lusts, but as a monster tormented. 

"I'm not afraid of you anymore, I'm more afraid of myself," the girl ends her correspondence with the child lover, turned child murderer. Much like our narrator, we see that the girl is heading in a similar direction of torture, an attempt to free herself from herself.

Top 10 Unreliable Narrators According to Henry Sutton

Whether or not you agree or disagree with it, Guardian.co.uk has published the top 10 unreliable literary narrators according to Henry Sutton. Drum roll, please? 

10. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
09. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
08. The End Of Alice by AM Homes
07. The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
06. The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson
05. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
04. Money by Martin Amis
03. The Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
02. The Turn Of The Screw by Henry James
01. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Now go see why.

Playboy features excerpt of a great novelist's final work

The Original of Laura by Vladimir Nabokov:

For 32 years the heirs of Vladimir Nabokov safeguarded the literary giant’s last novel in a vault in Switzerland while they wrestled with his request to destroy the unfinished manuscript. The decision was ultimately left to son Dmitri and deferred till now: This month Alfred A. Knopf will publish The Original of Laura (or Dying Is Fun), an event for readers the world over. Playboy is proud to publish an exclusive excerpt and introduce another of Nabokov’s mystifying and mythic heroines, Flora, the subject of a novel within the novel.

[Flora’s] husband…was a writer… —at least, after a fashion. Fat men beat their wives, it is said, and he certainly looked fierce, when he caught her riffling through his papers. He pretended to slam down a marble paperweight and crush this weak little hand (displaying the little hand in febrile motion). (via)

It took an English professor to tell me I read Lolita wrong the first time. Without so much of explaining to me what I should be looking for when reading it, he turned me away and told me to come back when I read it right. So I did. I sat down a few years after first reading it, grabbed a cup of tea and cracked open the cover again. After that, there was no turning back. In fact, the novel became my go to, my beacon when hitting a block while writing. It's the what-would-Nabokov-do effect.

I have four copies of the book lying around in the house upon different shelves. I'm aware of how creepy that may sound to a few of you who only judged the novel by its content, rather than read it. But it was the book that introduced me to Nabokov's style of writing, and what set the foundation of what I want to write about the world. But don't get me wrong. I'm not attempting in anyway to style my prose in the mannerisms of a great novelist. No, I'm simply using him as a mentor, posthumously.

So when it was announced that Dimitri Nabokov was actually pushing forth with his father's final work, I got the shivers. First came the excitement, then came the fear: I've read incomplete works before (Hemingway, comes to mind) and they're either hit or miss (though I did love Hemingway's, even though it was frowned on by academia - shhh I won't tell if you don't).

Only time will tell if we love or hate the final work by Nabokov. Luckily, you can preview the book in the pages of Playboy (on newsstands now). You can ever get a little peek at porn-turned-mainstream star, Sasha Grey tapping into her inner Lolita.