{"id":1533,"date":"2026-04-02T13:27:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T20:27:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/?p=1533"},"modified":"2026-04-04T08:36:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T15:36:57","slug":"on-lolita-the-monk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/?p=1533","title":{"rendered":"On Lolita & The Monk"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently reread Nabokov\u2019s Lolita<\/i> (1955) and Lewis\u2019s The Monk<\/i> (1796). Post-modern vs. Gothic or however you want to label them, they speak of the same thing, and they\u2019re both masterpieces.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The protagonists, Humbert Humbert and Ambrosio are flawed\u2014as we all are. Okay, perhaps they\u2019re more flawed. A lot more, but\u2026 bare with me a moment.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re incapable of restraint. Dante would call this \u201cincontinence\u201d: the failure to control one\u2019s impulses. In other words, they don\u2019t just make bad choices; they can\u2019t seem to stop themselves from making them day in, day out.<\/p>\n

Ambrosio\u2019s story is collapse into darkness. In slow motion. Humbert was born bad. He knows it and doesn\u2019t care. With that pompous \u2018European\u2019 self-righteous arrogance that justifies every single act of depravity he recounts his guilty pleasure, while Ambrosio starts as the picture of moral authority and slowly gives in to lust and deception. The books have different styles, entirely different\u2014one has devils and magic and one uses comedy and Nabokov\u2019s exquisite wordplay\u2014but ultimately they\u2019re about the same thing:<\/p>\n

Incontinence. (As Dante intended\u2014the other one is a medical condition)<\/p>\n

What really makes both works stick, though, is how they draw you in. Yes, you. Lolita<\/i> is the more obvious case: Humbert is performing, constantly, trying to charm and persuade. And the uncomfortable truth is that the prose works. You\u2019re drawn in, even as you \u2018know better.\u2019 The Monk<\/i> pretends to be more moralistic\u2014look at the wages of sin, and so on\u2014but it doesn\u2019t convince. Ambrosio\u2019s downfall is supposed to warn you off, yet you\u2019re fascinated by it. His weakness doesn\u2019t repel. It attracts.<\/p>\n

So yes, Humbert and Ambrosio are \u201cincontinent.\u201d They lack control. But reducing them to that misses the point. What makes them fascinating\u2014and makes these novels masterpieces\u2014is how recognizable Humbert and Ambrosio are. They are flesh. They are weak. They sin. They are human.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Photo. Fuji XH2. Fujifilm 35mm f1.4\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently reread Nabokov\u2019s Lolita (1955) and Lewis\u2019s The Monk (1796). Post-modern vs. Gothic or however you want to label them, they speak of the same thing, and they\u2019re both masterpieces.\u00a0 The protagonists, Humbert Humbert and Ambrosio are flawed\u2014as we all are. Okay, perhaps they\u2019re …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1534,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1533"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1537,"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533\/revisions\/1537"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}