10 Antiheroes in Literature That We Love to Hate
“You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.”
Humbert Humbert; Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
How can such a hideous human as Humbert Humbert be redeemable? Through his prose? I mean, yes! I think so. Humbert is a pedophile and a killer. And yet, there are moments (far too many moments) in Lolita when you find yourself associating so closely with Humbert that you want him to get what he wants, whether it’s Charlotte’s death, or even Lolita, herself. This is due, of course, to Nabokov’s impeccable prose, because otherwise, you’d like to think, you’d never love such a reprehensible character. But it doesn’t matter what you’d do otherwise, because Nabokov has you tangled up in his sentences and in the thorny mind of a sick, sick man. And for a time, at least, there’s nowhere you’d rather be.
