Hooked on the First Line: The Sensual Syntax of Nabokov's 'Lolita,' 'Ada,' and 'Laughter in the Dark'

0:00Look, as a manager of people, as an employer, as an entrepreneur, and as an investor in startups, I can tell you the most important thing for your business is the quality of the quality of people. you hire. The best part is that great candidates are already on LinkedIn. Employees hired through LinkedIn are 30 % more likely to stick around for at least a year compared to those hired through the leading competitor. And I will tell you that the great thing about LinkedIn is that you're not just looking at random people. You're able to see the people who your friends and trusted peers and colleagues who they trust and who they've hired in the past and who they recommend.

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1:19This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show.

1:36Welcome back to Hooked on the First Line, where we analyze some of the best first lines in all literature. And the reason we do this is because to understand and to analyze the first line of something helps us as creators, artists, writers, whatever. The first line is the most important line, maybe in the book, next to the last line, because if the first line is great, get to read the second line, the third line, the fourth line. And we all want to create things that people continue to either view or read or whatever. So Cal, welcome back. Thank you very much. Do you ever want to write a novel?

2:15You know, I think when I was young, I had it in my mind, but I always felt that I needed more experience with life. And then as my life pushed forward, a lot of things got piled on. And so if I do, it will be something that happens toward the end. Yeah, that could be. I had the ego and hubris to think that I could write a novel at a young age. So I wrote novel after novel after novel when I was from the ages of like 21 to 26. And none of them were good. None of them were published, but maybe it helped me hone my skills a little bit. One thing I realized when I was first starting to write is that you have to constantly read so that you're always feeling juiced up and inspired.

3:11Like reading gave me energy to write, particularly when I read great books. That's why I love analyzing these first lines, because I would think about them so much at that time. Well, the line I picked is actually very easy to identify. Let's do your line. Okay. It's a very simple, it's a short line, but imagine you pick up the book. It's chapter one, Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. you know once you read that line whoever's voice that is is in trouble yeah right because also the name lolita is so it's not like almost it's not like a serious name somehow it's like a very playful name so you know and you know the fact that his love is more about the fire in his loins that it's not going to be a, how should I say, long, deeply maturing relationship.

4:20No, and I know this is all about the first lines, but I'll just read on because it addresses everything you just said. So, Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins, My sin, my soul. Lolita. The tip of the tongue, taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap at three on the teeth. Lolita. That's really beautiful, too. Read that last line again, the three-step tap. The tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap at three on the teeth. Lolita. So this is Vladimir Nabokov. He wrote Lolita in English. It's one of the books he wrote in English. Many of his first novels were written in Russian, and then he moved to the U.S., and his later novels, including Lolita, were written in English.

5:33So it's interesting, the consonants, you know, the use of the T over and over again, that is interesting there. Because it almost sounds like someone tapping down steps, the ta-ta-ta. And you know what? He keeps it up in the next paragraph. She was low, plain low in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. Man, what does that tell you? I know. Was she short or obviously we're getting to the point that she was young. There you go. And also he's so verbal, it kind of implies a little bit of age to him. And manipulation, the ability to manipulate because he's very adept at language. And now you've got a woman, young girl, we don't know, four feet 10 in one sock.

6:33I mean, obviously, this is not a 42-year-old woman. Right. And also, there's the kind of contradictions. Like first he says the light of my life, but then he says the fire, you know, Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. And so, and then the second one, my sin, my soul. So, so there's, everything's a contradiction. Let's say I'm acknowledging my wife in a book. I may have an acknowledges page. I'm not going to say fire of my loins. I'm going to say light of my life, my soul, you know, and then the person's name. So it's a contradiction in every sentence, or at least it's a positive negative in each sentence.

7:21And look how he continues. So we already saw she was low, plain low in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line, but in my arms, she was always Lolita. Yeah. This guy is in deep trouble. Right, because she was Dolly at school. She's four foot set. So now we definitely know she's young. Again, we could kind of assume he's older just by the literary aspect of the poetic aspect of the writing. Again, I really like the fact that the third sentence, the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps, you know, I like how that sounds, just saying it out loud, sounds like what he's writing about.

8:18It sounds like someone stepping down steps, the ta-ta-ta. And then the fact that she was Dolly at school, so that's like with her friends. She's low in the morning, but in his arms, Lolita, which is the most kind of seductive of the versions of her name. Again, I like these first lines where you could kind of get a sense of what the entire novel is going to be like from the very first few lines. And every line makes you want to read more. So like fire of my loins, obviously we want to read more of that. My sin, my soul. So he's going to be tortured at some point, tortured emotionally or mentally.

9:01And then again, just the playfulness of how he's saying the next things, the three steps on the tip of his tongue and so on. Well, you definitely get the feeling when you get to the end of that second paragraph that this guy is about to take a tumble down those steps. I just pulled it up. He says, you can always count on a murderer for a fancy pro style. Which, by the way, I don't know if you can always count on a murderer for that. We already know he's unreliable. It's interesting that maybe we can't count on a murderer for a fancy. I don't necessarily associate murderers with fancy pro styles.

9:42Well, I mean, that sentence alone, I mean, you could have used that as a first sentence, but it would not have had the same impact because once you've set it up with this girl, this woman, this object of desire, and you see her in all these different ways, and now the word murder is thrown into it. you gotta keep going.

10:29Look, as a manager of people, as an employer, as an entrepreneur, and as even an investor in startups, I can tell you the most important thing for your business is the quality of the people you hire. The best part is that great candidates are already on LinkedIn. Employees hired through LinkedIn are 30 % more likely to stick around for at least a year compared to those hired through the leading competitor. And I will tell you that the great thing about LinkedIn is that you're not just looking at random people. You're able to see the people who your friends and trusted peers and colleagues, who they trust and who they've hired in the past and who they recommend.

11:12And hiring doesn't have to be complicated. Realistically, when you have a business to run, you don't want to spend hours on hiring. You want to hire the right person as quickly as possible. That's why LinkedIn Jobs AI Assistant suggests immediately 25 great fit candidates daily so you can invite them to apply and keep things moving. Hire right the first time. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash Altature, then promote it to use LinkedIn Jobs' new AI assistant, making it easier and faster to find the top candidates. That's linkedin.com slash Altachirk. Post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply.

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12:32Strategies rooted in strength and backed by experience. Ask a financial professional how Pacific Life can help you today. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York. Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona. What would have been the difference if he had started with that line? You could always count on a murderer for a fancy pro style. I guess since we haven't seen an example of the fancy pro style yet. So, and we don't have a reason yet to continue. And it's, the sentence is perfectly placed where it is because he's got you. This is sort of like, like watching a boxer throwing eight shots to set up the ninth one that's on the jaw, which is, you can always count on a murderer for a fancy pro style because he's got you leaning in.

13:29And then when he hits you with that line, you're saying, oh shit, how far down the steps does he tumble? Yeah. And so, so we have, we basically have sex and sin in the first paragraph. In the second paragraph, we firmly believe and are told she's basically younger than him. And then in the third paragraph, somehow there's a murder that has happened. We don't know who was murdered. We know he did the murder, but we don't know who was murdered. Is it Lolita? How was he caught? Because he's caught. Actually, it's revealed in the next paragraph that he's testifying to a jury. And we know we're in for a ride now.

14:09And I don't want to spoil anything, but the last sentence of the intro is, look at this tangle of thorns. so he's basically just invited you in and you you gotta go you gotta go he's a master of that there's another book i i don't know are we allowed to on on this podcast yes reference we're allowed to do anything we want okay i want to reference the same author because he's a master at opening books, Nabokov. And this book that I got in front of me is called Laughter in the Dark. Oh, yeah. And he starts it with a sentence that is not what I would classify as an amazing sentence. It's a very routine sentence.

15:10And it just starts, once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. Okay, so where does that take you? It's just, it's almost like you're being invited into a fairy tale and you're saying, all right, there's a once upon a time, so what's the next sentence going to be? And then the writing continues. He was rich, respectable, happy. One day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress. He loved, was not loved, and his life ended in disaster. Yeah. So that one, the first, it's almost like he sets you up to be like, oh, okay. One time there was this rich guy, but then he kind of takes you, he sort of sets you up to feel good about what's happening.

16:05Like you say, like a fairy tale almost. And then he immediately plunges it into darkness. And basically delivers the whole story for you there. So you have every reason to say, okay, I know what's going to happen. He was not lobbed and his life ended in disaster. But look at what he does in the second paragraph. This is the whole of the story, and we might have left it at that, had there not been profit and pleasure in the telling. And although there is plenty of space on a gravestone to contain, bound in moss, the abridged version of a man's life, detail is always welcome. He's like, he's hooked you.

16:49He's just, he's told you everything you need to know. And yet you're smiling. And I smiled when I hit the words, this is a whole of the story. And we might've left it at that had there not been profit and pleasure in the telling. You know, and there's something else interesting there, which is that he starts this off in this very, just a very basic third person voice. Okay, there's a man, Albinus, he was rich, his wife he loved, was not loved. But then he gets kind of meta and it becomes a sort of plural first person. This is the whole of the story and we might have left it at that. So now kind of this interesting mix of what person is this story being told in is also compelling.

17:47Like who is we? Why isn't it I might have left it at that? And then there's also this meta aspect where the writer doesn't usually, most books we read, the writer doesn't usually refer to the fact that this is a book you're reading that he wrote. So like when you read a John Grisham novel, and by the way, no knock against John Grisham. I've read every John Grisham novel. I love legal thrillers. But you don't say, John Grisham would never say, you know, oh, I could have left this novel at, you know, young lawyer gets rich and famous and then has disaster. So I decided to keep going. He never refers to the author in the writing of a book and most authors don't, but this is a very interesting experiment Nabokov is doing.

18:31Yeah. And it's basically showing a strength and control of the language and where he's going. He's narrating. It's his tale. You hear it right off the top. He may be doing this just to make money. Yeah. That's okay. You're intrigued and are coming along. Yeah. And by the way, this is another, like this Lolita, and I don't know if you ever read his book Ada, but they're all examples of someone loving essentially either a little girl or someone much younger. Yeah, well, it's pretty obvious that there's something deep going on. I think this is why Nabokov never won the Nobel Prize, actually, is because there's a little bit, you know, too much speculation that there was something kind of wrong with him.

19:30It might have spooked a bunch of people. You're right. You know, one of my favorite novels, you know, there's quite a few novels where chess is involved. We all saw the TV show The Queen's Gambit, which was based on a novel written in the early 80s called The Queen's Gambit. And one of my favorite novels by Nabokov is one called The Defense, about someone who's at the level of a world chess champion who gradually goes insane. And Nabokov himself was a chess master when he was younger. That I didn't. I never read that. It's one of my favorite novels ever. You know what? Thank you, because you've just proved the merit of this podcast, because you've got me very curious to read that book.

20:20And then if you want the extreme Lolita style, there's Ada, which was not only someone loving a little girl, but that someone is, if I remember correctly, that someone is the little girl's brother. So it's almost like a trilogy of novels. uh uh laughter in the dark i think was first then then lolita then ada well it's interesting because when you pair them or when you put them together it it's really does give you a look into the writer who wrote it and i i'm going to read that book so that i can step back and see what's at the depth.

21:25The wait is over. Dive into Audible's most anticipated collection, The Best of 2025, featuring top audiobooks, podcasts, and originals across all genres. Our editors have carefully curated this year's must-listens from brilliant hidden gems to the buzziest new releases. Every title in this collection has earned its spot. This is your go-to for the absolute best in 2025 audio entertainment. Whether you love thrillers, romance, or nonfiction, your next favorite listen awaits. Discover why there's more to imagine when you listen at audible.com slash best of the year. I just saw a quote that said something simple along the lines of, once you see what's underneath the surface, the surface never looks the same again.

22:21It's true. And the fact that there is a surface, I think makes a work of art interesting. The fact that there is layers deeper. Have you ever watched the TV show Lost? No. So I love this show. Again, a lot of people don't like it for various reasons. And there's hundreds of videos on YouTube explaining different aspects of Lost because there's that much depth to it. It's really interesting. But I've watched the whole series. It's six seasons of 20 episodes each. I've watched the whole series at least four or five times. What is it that's so compelling? You know, I won't go into the whole plot or anything, but there's layer after layer after layer after layer.

23:08There's little clues from the first few scenes even that don't become more clear until the sixth season. And obviously you don't remember, oh, that's why this woman was holding her wrist in the middle of the very first show or the first season. So you have to watch it again in order to start connecting the dots. That's great writing. Often when I go back and watch a movie a second time, I see the setups that are just either overlooked or we're focusing on something else, but they're there, they're planted. And subliminally we're going with them. And that's why quite often seeing a movie the second time is a really enjoyable experience.

23:58Yeah. Every series that I thought was a great series, I've probably watched them all three or four times. Like Mad Men, I've watched easily three or four times. Rome, which was a two season series on HBO, I've watched that probably like five times. Breaking Bad, Battlestar Galactica, these are all like my favorite series. I've watched them all many times. And same with books. I will read a great book over and over and over again. There's one book, Collection of Short Stories, actually, that I lent you, Jesus Son by Dennis Johnson. I've easily read that 200 times. Well, I can see why, because as soon as I started to read it, I was just kind of overwhelmed by the great lines.

24:42Also, I got to admit that it's something that if I had read decades ago, I think it would have had much more impact on me than reading it from a vantage point of having read a lot of books and kind of getting it where he was going. If I had read him at a very early age, I would have not had an idea where he was going. And he would have just be transporting me to these places. But through an older point of view, I have a sense of where he's taken me, even though I'm not quite sure. And then when the line explodes on the page, I just smile and said, oh, yeah, that's great. We talked in the last episode about the importance of last lines, even though this is a podcast about first lines.

25:40He is the master of the last line. Like, I just love all his last lines. And also, very important thing that he does, which also you see in a lot of great literature, ranging from James Joyce's portrait of an artist as a young man to Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea to Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. But what I'm talking about is that the style itself is almost a character in the story. So again, when you read like a legal thriller, the style is very like there really is no style. And that's done with a purpose, because you want to focus on the fact that it's a thriller, not that it's this stylistically told story.

26:18But with Jesus' Son, and another one is A Million Little Pieces by James Frey is like this, the style itself changes throughout the book as the character changes. But again, the style it's written in changes as the character evolves. Well, I think it's a good way to circle back to Nabokov because that is at the center of his opening. There was just a sense of style that you know you are reading Nabokov. You're not going to read anything like this from any other author. It's totally unique to him, which is, in my mind, a great calling card. And that same thing with the Gabriel Garcia Marquez first line of 100 Years of Solitude.

27:15You know nobody else has written like that. And it's the very essence of style converging with all the other magic that makes you lean forward. Well, I've got a great one for episode three. I'm looking forward to telling you it. All right. Now, I can't wait. Let's see where this goes.

27:50Thank you.