Lolita (Penguin Modern Classics)

published	February 3rd 2000 by Penguin Putnam~trade
first published	1955
binding	Paperback
isbn	0141182539 (isbn13: 9780141182537)
pages	336
description	Despite its lascivious reputation, the pleasures of Lolita are as much intellectual as erogenous. It is a love story with the power to raise ...more [close] Despite its lascivious reputation, the pleasures of Lolita are as much intellectual as erogenous. It is a love story with the power to raise both chuckles and eyebrows. Humbert Humbert is a European intellectual adrift in America, haunted by memories of a lost adolescent love. When he meets his ideal nymphet in the shape of 12-year-old Dolores Haze, he constructs an elaborate plot to seduce her, but first he must get rid of her mother. In spite of his diabolical wit, reality proves to be more slippery than Humbert's feverish fantasies, and Lolita refuses to conform to his image of the perfect lover. Playfully perverse in form as well as content, riddled with puns and literary allusions, Nabokov's 1955 novel is a hymn to the Russian-born author's delight in his adopted language. Indeed, readers who want to probe all of its allusive nooks and crannies will need to consult the annotated edition. Lolita is undoubtedly, brazenly erotic, but the eroticism springs less from the "frail honey-hued shoulders ... the silky supple bare back" of little Lo than it does from the wantonly gorgeous prose that Humbert uses to recount his forbidden passion: <blockquote> She was musical and apple-sweet ... Lola the bobby-soxer, devouring her immemorial fruit, singing through its juice ... and every movement she made, every shuffle and ripple, helped me to conceal and to improve the secret system of tactile correspondence between beast and beauty--between my gagged, bursting beast and the beauty of her dimpled body in its innocent cotton frock. </blockquote> Much has been made of Lolita as metaphor, perhaps because the love affair at its heart is so troubling. Humbert represents the formal, educated Old World of Europe, while Lolita is America: ripening, beautiful, but not too bright and a little vulgar. Nabokov delights in exploring the intercourse between these cultures, and the passages where Humbert describes the suburbs and strip malls and motels of postwar America are filled with both attraction and repulsion, "those restaurants where the holy spirit of Huncan Dines had descended upon the cute paper napkins and cottage-cheese-crested salads." Yet however tempting the novel's symbolism may be, its chief delight--and power--lies in the character of Humbert Humbert. He, at least as he tells it, is no seedy skulker, no twisted destroyer of innocence. Instead, Nabokov's celebrated mouthpiece is erudite and witty, even at his most depraved. Humbert can't help it--linguistic jouissance is as important to him as the satisfaction of his arrested libido. --Simon Leake [close]
date added	12-08-06 edit book

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April rated it:

(review of isbn 0679723161)

03/14/08

Read in March, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

A very intense read, this book required nearly all of my attention. I don't know what I was expecting; I had already seen the film, and I wanted to make a comparison between it and the book and to see just how much of the film was sanitized for the '60s audience. The author got to write the screenplay, so it's no surprise that the movie stays true to the book ... that is, mostly true to the book. Aside from a few minor scenes and characters the one glaring difference between the two is the absol...more

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Chris rated it:

(review of isbn 0679723161)

05/04/08

Read in April, 2008

recommends it for: any literate fans of Casey Parker

*Ranked as one of the Top 100 Fiction of the 20th Century*
I’m not quite sure how to put this in words. Hell, I’m not sure what I intend to say, so this is going to be ugly. If you want to sit in on this exercise be my guest, you’ve probably got more important things to do, such as organizing your cassette tapes and LPs before shoving them in a box destined for the attic, believe me, your time will be better spent, especially when you take that stroll down memory lane and consider how k...more *Ranked as one of the Top 100 Fiction of the 20th Century*
I’m not quite sure how to put this in words. Hell, I’m not sure what I intend to say, so this is going to be ugly. If you want to sit in on this exercise be my guest, you’ve probably got more important things to do, such as organizing your cassette tapes and LPs before shoving them in a box destined for the attic, believe me, your time will be better spent, especially when you take that stroll down memory lane and consider how killer it would be to rock out to Depeche Mode and A-Ha all afternoon (it’s possible you’re one of those badasses with some Dead Kennedys on cassette, more power to you, feel free to tear off your shirt and bathe with a 40oz of Big Bear). You might want to clean your bong while you’re at it; you never know how immersed you’ll get in the hazy recollections of your exploits during the New Wave or burgeoning Hardcore era and might prefer a soundtrack to complement your deranged thoughts.

As for Lolita, maybe this tangential bullshit will help get my point across… I’ve recently taken a keen interest in watching “Deadliest Catch”, but as soon as the show concludes I wonder “What have I walked away with, after investing 50 minutes and 4 rum & cokes to the accompaniment of these awe-inspiring images of man battling the elements to strike bepincered gold?” Not much, appears to be the answer; it’s just a bunch of crabs, crabs, crabs, and master-baiting, the simple ingredients of all my friendships and relationships. Sure, it’s awesome to watch sea-faring maniacs risk life and limb to haul in the nasty creatures that pay their bills, but there’s nothing else to it, just dudes getting stoked over a huge haul of crabs, or lamenting some element of the life they’ve chosen. Then you get to thinking how these dudes’ wives manage without them at sea for 20+ days at a time; obviously they are in the crab-catching business as well. And the real kick in the ass is that I don’t even eat crab, hell, I’ve never even tried a dish that incorporates any crab. When I consider the ridiculousness of it all, it seems pretty disheartening. This sort of pointless introspection is probably how Des Esseintes got his start, so I’ll leave it at that before it becomes habit-forming.

I can’t say that my opinion of Lolita is much different. It’s just Humbert Humbert endlessly rhapsodizing about nymphettes, most substantially, his nymphette, Lolita. And that’s it; I’ve probably never read anything so one-dimensional in my life. I’m sure the upper echelons of literary critics found myriad reasons beyond my primitive sensibilities for including this in the Top 100 works of 20th century fiction, I just don’t happen to see it. One of these qualifiers might be this absurd statement on the back cover, ‘Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America’. Now, when we consider the social climate at the time of publication, with book-banning and obscenity trials recently being all the rage, and you know that in order to somehow foist upon the public a tale concerning a grown man’s obsession and fornication with a 12 year old girl the defenders of this thinly-veiled smut have to somehow show that there is something above and beyond mere prurient interest hidden between the covers of the book, so statements like the one above are thrown out there to mind-f#ck all. I don’t even know what the hell that statement on the cover is supposed to mean, but ‘postwar America’ were powerful buzzwords at the time, and truly, what else could you possibly use as a thematic defense for this book, seeing as the book has nothing to offer except the ridiculous tale of a weathered old pervert ogling young girls on the hopscotch courts, finding one that epitomizes his unacceptable desires, and eventually having his way with her before attempting to completely control her young body and mind during a trek that can only be considered kidnapping on the grandest scale. Let’s not forget that when his precious nymphette is purloined by an unknown fiend, he goes off to ambush the guy and shoot his ass; this is not the behavior of the ‘hypercivilized’; my own rather sloppy upbringing declares that anyone with a shred of civility offers his adversary a duel rather than attack him unawares, Humbert is a lowly coward of the worst disposition. The ‘hypercivilized’ don’t go around bagging 85 pound kids sporting skinned knees from spills at the roller-rink, real men fish for those awesome and voluptuous Amazonians, the women who proudly stand 5’10” or more and have generous curves that modern fabrics fruitlessly struggle to contain from spilling forth in all their fully-developed glory. Our man Humbert has no such redeeming qualities; he’s a scoundrel of the lowest and basest rank. Let’s not forget that he weeps, and when I conjure a mental image of the elusive ‘hypercivilized European’, weeping like a bitch and throwing a tantrum doesn’t enter the picture.

While the frauds who compiled the Top 100 Fiction list and I might diverge in our estimations of Lolita, I will agree with our man John Updike when he states “Nabokov writes prose the only way it should be written, that is, ecstatically.” There is no denying that the book is phenomenally written, but the repetition of nymphette-this and nymphette-that simply overwhelmed me; I was left with an indelible image of Nabokov sitting there alternately referencing his thesaurus and a collection of kiddie porn for inspiration while hammering this out. I’d have enjoyed this book a thousand times more had it been about turtles, or walnuts, or my mother's first communion, hell, anything else. Nymphettes suck: there is a reason I don’t go trolling for trim at the nearest bus station, who the hell wants to put up with the behavior of a pubescent trollop?

There isn’t a whole hell of a lot that I know, but I do know this; if my choices were either read Lolita again or spend a day crabbing in the arctic, I’d better be prepared to get some frostbite on my beanbag.
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Natalie rated it:

(review of isbn 0679723161)

12/01/07

bookshelves: fiction

This book was disappointing and over-hyped.

When people talk about this book, they say things like it will "change the way you think" or that it's disquieting because it makes the reader sympathize with a pedophile. I thought wow, that much be worth reading.

Now I wonder if I read the same book as everyone else, or if *that* many people have misinterpreted it. It started out great: Humbert Humbert, the narrator, discusses different societies in the past that found it acceptabl...more This book was disappointing and over-hyped.

When people talk about this book, they say things like it will "change the way you think" or that it's disquieting because it makes the reader sympathize with a pedophile. I thought wow, that much be worth reading.

Now I wonder if I read the same book as everyone else, or if *that* many people have misinterpreted it. It started out great: Humbert Humbert, the narrator, discusses different societies in the past that found it acceptable for very young women to have sex with much older men. He also thinks his pedophilia might be the result of his desire to regain something of a romance he had when he was a teenager, wherein the girl he was in love with died. I sympathized with him here and we were moving into morally grey territory, so I thought the book was on track to be everything everyone says it is. If he and a young girl fell in love with each other, I would certainly question a lot of things I thought before.

Nope. Nothing between him and Lolita can be described as love. Lets see, he detested Lolita's personality. He wanted to impregnate Lolita so he could molest her children and their grandchildren when she was too old for him to find attractive. He would rape her despite the fact that she cried every time. He would rape her when she was seriously ill. He mind-fucked her thoroughly. He physically abused her. He manipulated her into sex acts by paying her money and other things she wanted, effectively turning her into a prostitute.

Needless to say, I felt no moral ambiguity when the novel ended. He was just a crazy pervert. That doesn't make me rethink what love is at all, since love entered nowhere in the equation -- it was the lust of a psychologically unstable man. I wasn't disquieted by any sort of sympathy for him; past the first couple chapters it becomes clear that he's just a horrible person who tries to justify his pedophilia with things that don't sound so bad.

In fact, the novel just reaffirmed what I thought before, that pedophiles are bad people who ruin children's lives, and on the whole it seemed completely pointless.

What's worse is that it's a fairly slow read, with fifty pages passing at a time with nothing happening. Nabokov's prose is impressive and clever, but about two-thirds of the writing served no purpose so much of that same prose actually diluted and detracted from the book. I would say to myself, "That's an amazing description of something completely pointless." He seemed to just like to hear himself talking at points, and his afterward seems to confirm this. I feel like the book would have been better off if those passages had been omitted.

However, I can appreciate the realism of Humbert Humbert's character. In fact, the one thing the story had going for it was realism. It just felt pointless by the time I finished, when I was expecting something much more groundbreaking. It might be fair to blame all the people who over-hyped the book, rather than blame Nabokov. Removed from the hype its merits are easier to see.

The more I think about it, perhaps many others *have* misinterpreted the book. It seemed to me that Nabokov's purpose was to punish the narrator. I can see the appeal of that, though I still feel it was pointless. And it's certainly less lofty than some of the things the other interpretations say, but at least it's more accurate.

To be honest, I'm a little irritated that I went into reading the book based on what appears to be a completely off-base interpretation, because I can't quite undo that in my mind. On the one hand it seems unfair to criticize an author on the basis that they didn't change how I think, but I'm not sure how I could have avoided it, since the cover of my edition has a quote that calls it, "the only convincing love story of our time."

It's not a horrible book, but it's probably the most overrated book I've ever read.
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Diana rated it:

06/16/08

Read in September, 2007

“It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.”
- Humbert Humbert -

Vladimir Nabokov’s book Lolita is a narration by its main character -a 40 something year old man named Humbert Humbert, who recounts his story from a prison cell. Humbert is a man that suffers from infatuations for nymphets, as he calls girls between the ages of 12-16. The novel begins with Humbert talking about his dear Annabel Leigh, who happened to be the young girl who was the love of his li...more “It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.”
- Humbert Humbert -

Vladimir Nabokov’s book Lolita is a narration by its main character -a 40 something year old man named Humbert Humbert, who recounts his story from a prison cell. Humbert is a man that suffers from infatuations for nymphets, as he calls girls between the ages of 12-16. The novel begins with Humbert talking about his dear Annabel Leigh, who happened to be the young girl who was the love of his life. After almost having her completely, she is taken away and dies. Having just suffered this great tragedy, Humbert goes to live in Ramsdale, a town in New England where he is to stay in the house of Charlotte Haze.
When he arrives and is being shown the house he is astounded by what he sees: the reincarnation of Annabel in 12 year old Dolores Haze. Lolita, as she is called, then becomes the object of his affection. He not only dreams of being with her but he does what he feels necessary to do so- without wrecking his reputation as a known scholar and gentleman, of course. Humbert gets to the point of marrying Charlotte to ensure that he will be able to care for Lolita, no questions asked. And while Lolita is away at camp, Humbert begins to devise a plan for how his wife will die, this plan however, becomes unnecessary when she discovers Humbert’s “black book” that contains not only his plans with/for Lolita including his obsession for her, but his ideas of getting rid of Charlotte as well. Having discovered this she runs off, only to be killed by a car as she runs out her driveway. The accident leaves Humbert-without actual legal paperwork figured out- as Lolita’s sole parent.
There on they embark on a “road trip” where Humbert claims to the jury- his readers- that it was in deed Lolita who seduced him and who initiated the night they eventually spent together in a hotel called The Enchanted Hunter. They continue driving giving the appearance of a father-daughter travel, when in reality he uses violence and strategy to conceive his sexual desires from Lolita. This continues for years before Humbert realizes that he is being followed and that is when his suspicions arise that Lolita is being unfaithful with a man who he doesn’t know and she denies.
This leads to a series of events that eventually becomes Humbert’s worst nightmare, for Lolita soon runs off. Years later he receives a letter from her, in which she lets him know that she is married and pregnant and that the reason she writes is because she and her husband need help financially. Within time, Humbert locates her and decides to kill her husband, being the man that took her away from him. Soon thereafter he visits her, only to find her not only married and pregnant like she said but, married to a man, Dick Schiller, who had nothing to do with her running away. He also finds out that the man who did was Clair Quilty, Lolita’s first and true love, only to have kicked her out after she denied participating in child pornography films that he produced. After learning this, Humbert asks Lolita if there are any possibilities of her ever wanting to be with him but to this she replies no. He then goes to do the act which actually imprisons him. For which to find out you should read the book.
Lolita is a book worth reading because it is a morbid love-story about a man who is truly and completely in love and who does all in his might to get the person he loves. It is morbid in the sense that his love is a 12 year old girl, for he is “prying” on her childhood. In the beginning of the book, the reader believes that this man is culpable of the worst imaginable crime: raping a child, but once the book progresses it is shown how much Humbert loved Lolita, and how no matter the circumstances he really did want what was best for her, because of his infatuation for her; And how despite her age, Lolita was also forwarding and somewhat inviting on Humbert. Nabokov’s novel provides great examples of how the main character is hated for what he does, yet loved for why he does it, because it exemplifies how humans are usually easily fooled by an appearance; and that you never know how gruesome a person can truly ever be. Lolita is very effective in using figurative language because throughout the book, future events are shadowed. There are many similes and metaphors that Nabokov uses to provide the vivid details of his journey and relationship with Lolita. He also uses several allusions to other famous works both published and just commonly known. I would definitely recommend this book to my peers because it’s a really good book that is written with excellent vocabulary and that really gives a lesson on love, or the obsession with it. How just because a person doesn’t love you the way you want them to, doesn’t mean they don’t love you with everything they have. Lolita has become one of my favorite books and I know that others would perhaps find it controversial, but that is partly what makes it so great.

“And I looked and looked at her, and knew as clearly as I know I am going to die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else”
- Humbert Humbert -
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Helen rated it:

01/30/08

bookshelves: 20th-century-classics

"Lolita. Surely the most freighted name in the history of literature. The story - and the image - are so well-known that I found it salutary to re-read the novel and remind myself exactly what this novel is about. In the last third of the book, Humbert Humbert declares, 'This book is about Lolita'. But of course, as Humbert finally admits, it isn't.[return][return]The book, then, is about a man, Humbert Humbert, a cynical, misanthropic man who - let's be frank about it - fancies children. T...more "Lolita. Surely the most freighted name in the history of literature. The story - and the image - are so well-known that I found it salutary to re-read the novel and remind myself exactly what this novel is about. In the last third of the book, Humbert Humbert declares, 'This book is about Lolita'. But of course, as Humbert finally admits, it isn't.[return][return]The book, then, is about a man, Humbert Humbert, a cynical, misanthropic man who - let's be frank about it - fancies children. To be precise, certain girl children between the ages of nine and fourteen. His self-justifications run smoothly throughout the book, to the point where he almost seduces the reader into reluctantly agreeing with him. And then pulls the reader up short. No amount of lyricising over Lolita can disguise the fact that Humbert is a dirty old man who, over the course of two years, repeatedly rapes a child. The prose, yes, is some of the most beautiful ever written, but should not blind the reader - as to some extent it is designed to - to the tragedy of the story.[return][return]Pre-pubescent Lolita, all golden shoulders and pouting lips, a tiny temptress reducing a grown man to abject adoration. But we only see Lolita through Humbert's eyes. The Lolita he creates has very little to do with the real girl, which he himself acknowledges - ""What I had madly possessed was not she, but my own creation, another, fanciful Lolita - perhaps, more real than Lolita; overlapping, encasing her; floating between me and her, and having no will, no consciousness - indeed, no life of her own"". And yet, of course, it is a very real 12-year-old child that Humbert abuses and whose life - he eventually acknowledges - he tears apart.[return][return]He claims to love Lolita, but it is very much a conditional love. Conditional, that is, on her remaining a child. ""The word 'forever' referred only to my own passion, to the eternal Lolita as reflected in my blood"". The 'fancy prose style' cannot hide the fact that this man is no romantic, starcrossed lover, but an utterly ruthless, pitiless - and pitiful - man. There is a certain poignancy when, after losing her for three years, Humbert comes face-to-face with 17-year-old Dolly - bespectacled, married, and heavily pregnant. The love he professes to feel for her at this point might well be genuine, but of course it's far too late to redeem him.[return][return]Re-reading the book after a gap of many years, I'm even more impressed with what Nabokov has achieved in this book. Humbert isn't a monster - he is articulate, educated, witty. And yet, when he makes his strings of excuses (his references to other times and other cultures, to Poe who married his 13-year-old cousin), we see the monstrous in him - the monstrous that lurks in other respectable, seemingly ordinary men like him. [August 2006]"...less

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Elly rated it:

03/04/08

Read in December, 2007

recommended to Elly by: Adrienne Lynne, sort of
recommends it for: anyone with a strong-ish stomach (contains descriptions of pedophilia)

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

From my blog (may contain spoilers):

I finished Lolita over the weekend. I alternated between reading the book and watching the accompanying scenes from Adrian Lyne’s filmic version (which is 100% true to the book, but only as far as the events go—the characterization is completely wrong, but that’s another story). The book bowled me over so hard, I think I’m still recovering.

The best way I think I can describe is that Nabokov took me on a three-tiered, or three threaded, journey ...more From my blog (may contain spoilers):

I finished Lolita over the weekend. I alternated between reading the book and watching the accompanying scenes from Adrian Lyne’s filmic version (which is 100% true to the book, but only as far as the events go—the characterization is completely wrong, but that’s another story). The book bowled me over so hard, I think I’m still recovering.

The best way I think I can describe is that Nabokov took me on a three-tiered, or three threaded, journey through the book. The first thread was the actual story as it unfolded linearly—how the characters experience the story. The second thread was the writing style/narrative—how the author experiences the story. The third thread was the way I felt about the narrator, Humbert Humbert, and the book at large—how I experience the story. All three of these met in a synergistic yarn which caused the three elements/entities (characters, authors, reader) to be interconnected in such as way as to make the existence of each impossible without the existence of the others.

Throughout “Part One,” I was absolutely entranced and delighted by the writing and, much to my chagrin and confusion, felt just as charmed by the pedophile Humbert Humbert himself. The book takes a sharp turn at Part Two. This was an interesting and ingenious division for the book: the change from Part One to Part Two is that Lolita finds out that her mother is dead. Charlotte actually has been dead for quite some book-time. Both the reader and Humbert know the mother is and has been dead. Only Lolita didn’t know, and when she finds out, everything changes.

“Part Two” begins the slow decline of the regard in which Humbert is held by Lolita, by Nabokov, and by the reader. His charm and wit have worn thin with his self-awareness and, later, his inability to deprive himself of self gratification. Confidence has become smarm, which soon gives way to patheticalness. The writing seems to become long-winded and cloying. I don’t fault Nabokov for this, as some reviewers have. Rather, the culprit is Humbert’s increasingly desperate attempts at justification for his actions that plays out via the narrative. I began to hate him, began to hate what he had to say, began to hate his every action, and in turn began to hate the book and the writing itself—but I was so mired in the story that I could not put it down. Likewise, Lolita was mired in her own situation that she could not escape. Even when she thought she did escape, she just got into another situation that was equally unhealthy for her. She never really escaped at all until her death (which we learn about at the beginning of the book, but actually occurs after the book is over: she dies in childbirth). The reader gets to escape the misery of the story at the same time both the characters do; but only death is a strong enough reprieve from the torment they’ve been subjected to by the hand of McFate and by their own designs.

As I stated earlier, I felt immensely uncomfortable and confused at how much I was enjoying reading this book about a “nympholectic” pedophile. It made me feel dirty, decadent, and debased. But the way I felt throughout the end of the book completely reconciled my emotive response to where it “should” have been through the incredible feat of making me strongly desire to read a book I was, at points, loathing.

There’s so much to say about this incredible book, but I haven’t fully been able to wrap my brain around it all. I just wanted to write a few words about my response as a writer. What I’m taking from this is how your narrative design can affect the interconnectedness of character/author/reader—and the tremendous effect that interconnectedness can have. I’ve also learned about creating unreliable narrators, and the power of both sides of that coin: when the unreliability is only hinted at, or unknown completely, and when the unreliability is undeniable and almost excruciating to the reader. Nabokov used that tool to effectively manipulate his readers emotive responses as if he were creating the responses himself.

I love when you finish a book and you feel like you have “traveled” – through time, through space, and through that intangible journey that is experience.

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W rated it:

(review of isbn 0679723161)

03/18/08

This is a strange book, subtle, sinister (“from the left”) in its ability to turn liberals into prudes and prudes into libertines without ever knowing it.

I read "Bend Sinister" as an undergraduate, and was irritated that Nabokov could write so incredibly well in his non-native tongue. Envious of that talent and intelligence, I was also curious as to why he would use that talent to teach me about America, when he could be talking about Russia, a lá "The Master and Margar...more This is a strange book, subtle, sinister (“from the left”) in its ability to turn liberals into prudes and prudes into libertines without ever knowing it.

I read "Bend Sinister" as an undergraduate, and was irritated that Nabokov could write so incredibly well in his non-native tongue. Envious of that talent and intelligence, I was also curious as to why he would use that talent to teach me about America, when he could be talking about Russia, a lá "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov.

I still feel that way after reading Lolita. I have picked it up several times over the years and put it down just as many, for different reasons: put off by the subject, put off by the unsatisfied prurience so deceitfully incited, shamed by the perfect portrayal of his libidinous licentiousness, and frustrated by the fictional caricatures of dull, amoral adults and their America. However, after topping so many best books of the millennium lists, one would have to be a Yahoo to ignore it.

What I least like about the book is the author’s manipulation of his “reader.” First, he speaks directly to the reader, encouraging sympathy through his feigned honesty; but once engaged, he creates an artifice that allows the book-holding reader to eavesdrop on the several other manufactured audiences so as to misdirect the direct reader’s sympathy, patience, judgment—and so excuse his prurient indulgence. As soon as one is ready to hang Humbert for his amorality, he introduces a narrow-minded courtroom, a myopic judge, a vengeful detective, etc., and so slips the reader’s noose from his neck. Sinister.

It is arrogance that leads Nabokov to the conviction that the lascivious soul in us will offset our moral rectitude. He dangles his Lolita like a piece of catnip. He wrote that this was simply a story he had to get off his chest, but elsewhere he says his characters do not drive his pen, rather they are his slaves. They do that which he wants. So, if one can escape the hypnotic anticipation of what perverse behavior might come next (it doesn’t), then one can get a meta-view of his character. I thought Nabokov used her as his opinion of America: we are all adolescence and lust and mediocrity and banal. His Dickensian descriptions of dim-witted tenement life in New England and the boring restlessness of road life in the West are dispiriting. His Lolita is the archetype of triviality. And, to blame it all on Poe (i.e., Annabelle Leigh) is immature.

Though the book world says we must celebrate this achievement--Vanity Fair squibs that this is, “The only convincing love story of our century”—someone must discern between love and pedophilia. This isn’t "Dangerous Liaisons," this isn’t Molly Bloom and her soliloquy, this isn’t Baudelaire--the topic is pedophilia. Where is the morality that supersedes our guttural instincts? A love story? I rather think it is Nabokov’s dismissal of America as shallow, distracted, indulgent, libidinous, and trivial. We are, at best, not East Egg, not West Egg, but ham and eggs.

Now, if he were writing about Lady Chatterley and not her pubescent daughter, then we’d be free to talk about art. And it is art. Nabokov is as mesmerized with the English language as Humbert is with Lo, more so. The allusions to authors and major works cascade; he parodies Joyce’s style on one page, Faulkner’s on another; he lampoons Freud, and appeals to Byron; his paragraphs are tapestries, his vocabulary would challenge the OED. It is interesting to note that researchers have identified pre-existing stories or events that provide Nabokov with the structure his tale. So with tale set, the art becomes paramount. This would, perhaps, explain why so many (especially female) reviewers excuse Nabokov from the subject and defer to the art. At least, I think they do, they say they do. Whatever, as erotica, it flops; as master of the English language and literature,he astounds.

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William rated it:

(review of isbn 0679723161)

04/03/08

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Lolita was a great book, despite the implications of its morally questionable content and its even more morally questionable protagonist (who goes by the pseudonym of Humbert Humbert). What's fascinating is the fact that the book is told from the point of view of a person would be seen as a pedophile, and that we are able to know exactly what he is thinking and how his mind works.

Nabokov uses vivid and descriptive in-depth language about practically everything Humbert thinks, and sometimes ...more Lolita was a great book, despite the implications of its morally questionable content and its even more morally questionable protagonist (who goes by the pseudonym of Humbert Humbert). What's fascinating is the fact that the book is told from the point of view of a person would be seen as a pedophile, and that we are able to know exactly what he is thinking and how his mind works.

Nabokov uses vivid and descriptive in-depth language about practically everything Humbert thinks, and sometimes the things he writes can be comedic to me even though I have no idea what he's talking about. There's also a sense that perhaps the protagonist isn't telling us the complete truth, that he is hiding some things from the reader, which makes us want to know more about what happens.

The first part of the book centers around Humbert's life and his failed love affairs. He explains his fascination with young girls (who he calls "nymphets") and how this fascination is perhaps rooted in his childhood experiences and love of this one young girl he knew as a child. The book then takes a more narrative style, where he writes in a journal about his experiences living at a mansion with a woman and her daughter, and his elaborate plans to be alone with the daughter. Eventually, a dramatic turn of events allows him to finally obtain his original goal, a girl named Lolita, the "nymphet" for whom the book is titled, and goes around the country with her while she has no idea where her mother is.

The first half of the book describes his experiences with the girl and their travels around the country. Eventually, a mysterious character begins to follow them, and Humbert becomes paranoid that someone is trying to take Lolita away from him. Eventually Lolita vanishes, and the readers are left without a clue of where she has gone. The book then goes into a sort of "well, after she disappeared, I did some things, and I will tell you what these things are" mode, where Humbert explains his life after her disappearance.

My personal opinion is that the first half of the book is the better half. Perhaps only because it lacks the presence of Lolita, a character whom we have come to known for so many pages (and for whom the book is titled). Her absence makes it seem like something has changed dramatically, which is perhaps what Humbert felt. Anyhow, the book does change after this midpoint, and we no longer get to see Lolita as a little girl.

Eventually, he does find her years later, married and pregnant, and it just feels a bit unusual, but intriguing to see how her life turned out. I didn't exactly understand most of the last half of the book for some reason. There are parts where I had no idea what Humbert was doing or describing, but this may be due to the fact that I sort of lost interest halfway through. He does a bunch of other things and I don't exactly know why, but they seem to me to be just as entertaining (if not more, because of my lack of knowledge of what is actually going on) than the first half of the book.

Throughout the book, we develop a sympathy for Humbert and in a way wish for him to succeed, because perhaps we realize that he isn't really that bad of a person (or perhaps he is; it depends on the individual's point of view), despite his intricate plans to do things which we may deem as immoral. When Lolita leaves, we feel sympathetic for his loss of the thing he has tried for so long to obtain, and when we finally see Lolita again, we feel sympathetic to his desire to have her back again. It's a bit sad at points, and if I had been told at the beginning that I would become sympathetic with a pedophile by the end of the book, I would have been doubtful. But Nabokov is successful in bringing about a connection with the characters; we get to know their personalities, speech habits, their thoughts, etc enough for us to sympathize with them.

In the end, I thought Lolita was a very good read, despite a few personal flaws I found in the book....less

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12/24/07

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ที่คุณกินได้ทุกวันแต่ก็ยังไ...more

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David rated it:

11/15/07

Read in October, 2005

Lolita is a road novel, but its kind of the anti-On The Road (it was published in 1955, two years before Kerouac’s breakout book). Humbert Humbert and Sal Paradise travel some of the same roads, around the same time, but rather than some holy quest through sanctified towns in search of enlightenment and kicks, Humbert’s is a furtive, illicit journey through a bland, tacky, ephemeral, clumsily commercialized landscape. On the other hand, both Sal and Humbert are bohemians of sorts, and both c...more Lolita is a road novel, but its kind of the anti-On The Road (it was published in 1955, two years before Kerouac’s breakout book). Humbert Humbert and Sal Paradise travel some of the same roads, around the same time, but rather than some holy quest through sanctified towns in search of enlightenment and kicks, Humbert’s is a furtive, illicit journey through a bland, tacky, ephemeral, clumsily commercialized landscape. On the other hand, both Sal and Humbert are bohemians of sorts, and both cast a jaundiced eye at 50’s conformity and conventionality. In Humbert’s eyes, Dolly suffers as much from being an ordinary American adolescent in a tabloid culture as from being the victim of a pedophile. In his twisted view he’s improving her mind while corrupting her morals. But unlike Sal/Kerouac’s celebration of America’s cities and backroads, Humbert’s is a snobbish, jaundiced, extremely unromantic view of the American landscape and 50’s culture.

Lolita is also a book about the expressive possibilities of the English language. In a trite sense this is true of every novel ever written in English. They are all on some level about what you can do, and can fail to do, with the English language. But English was Nabokov’s second language (at least!), and English itself is more of a theme in this novel than it would be were the novel written by a native speaker. Humbert is something of a pedant, and the reader is dazzled by his exuberant and playful use of the language. I guess it goes to the whole outsider theme: Humbert as a cultured, old world European looking askance at 50’s culture; Humbert the nonnative speaker become hyperliterate in his second language; Humbert the pedophile with a more meta understanding of the taboo against sex with children than people who’ve simply internalized it. It’s in the nature of taboos that one refrains from reflecting on them.

And that’s the genuinely disturbing thing about this novel: you willingly spend 300 pages inside the head of a charming psychopath for whom the taboo against sex with children is just an arbitrary social proscription (Humbert briefly recounts historical examples in which the proscription did not exist, and remarks upon the arbitrariness of the various statutory definitions of where the line is drawn). Humbert is repulsive, but you can’t feel superior to him because he’s smarter and more self-aware than you are. Without at all condoning his acts, you begin to see things his way, even though you never really lose sight of Humbert’s massive blind spot: the inability to see that sex with a child violates a sacred trust—that adults will treat children as ends rather than means—and forces the child to experience a reality they are not yet emotionally equipped for. In some ways I suppose Humbert is a precursor to Hannibal Lecter, although while Lecter arguably does more despicable things—kills people and eats them—Humbert is a far more disturbing character.
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A.C. rated it:

(review of isbn 0679723161)

09/22/07

Read in September, 2007

I bought this book over a year ago along with Middlesex and Invisible Man. I enjoyed both of those books immensely, but found myself struggling with Lolita. The fact that I could not particularly explain why I had trouble with this book pained me for a year. I read other books, but I always found myself, in a manner similar to Humbert, coming back to Lolita.

Now, that I have come back to it, I have to say that I'm not completely sure why I was so anxious. Much like Dolores's feelings towards...more I bought this book over a year ago along with Middlesex and Invisible Man. I enjoyed both of those books immensely, but found myself struggling with Lolita. The fact that I could not particularly explain why I had trouble with this book pained me for a year. I read other books, but I always found myself, in a manner similar to Humbert, coming back to Lolita.

Now, that I have come back to it, I have to say that I'm not completely sure why I was so anxious. Much like Dolores's feelings towards her older paramour, I felt antipathy and disinterest towards the story.

To clear the air first, this is one of the best technical pieces of writing that I've ever read. Ever. The language is immensely complex and elegant. Nabokov is a masterful writer. The descriptions of situations are lush and illustrative. The problem with this is the fact that Nabokov spends too much time showing off with vocabulary instead of telling a compelling story.

Now, the story is not completely without merits. I thought that Humbert was a compelling character, one who was sincere in his emotions although his preferences were wrong. The problem was the fact that his obsession was melodramatic, for lack of a better word. This flair for the excessive became clear in the long paragraphs of beautifully worded descriptions of the EXACT SAME THING. Over and over, Humbert would describe something seven, eight, nine different ways. After a while, I started asking myself is Nabokov telling a story or does he like hearing himself talk? In my opinion, it was the latter, and this made the story drag on.

In addition, I found both Lolita and Humbert to be fairly one-dimensional characters. They both lacked a depth that people of their intellect should have. She acted like a teenage girl. He acted like a perverted pedophile. I'm not sure where the revolution is in that.

Seeing as I've pretty much panned a large section of the book, there has to be a reason that I gave it a three star rating instead of a 1 or 2. This is so for a few reasons. When Nabokov wasn't reveling in his intelligence, the writing was sharp, witty, and clever. I didn't say he was a bad writer; I said he overwrote. Secondly, the book was a good piece of interpretive fiction. You can lay all sorts of contexts over the book, and they most likely will work. I personally started thinking about reading lolita in tehran. While I haven't seen the movie, the book, as it went along, the choice of the book for that context made a lot more sense. It was a very mentally stimulating book, which is something that critics reading the book probably love about it. The last part is Humbert Humbert. I really enjoyed his obsession.

In the end, I think that if Nabokov chilled out with some of the description, this book would have been a five star for me. Even with that flaw, I can see the pure talent on display in this book and want to read another one of his books to see if he can bring his descriptive skills up to his narrative skills....less

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Rolls rated it:

(review of isbn 0679723161)

03/13/07

Read in January, 2007

recommends it for: pervs

An old friend used to say that "Ulysses" was a good book to read but not a good book to "read". After reading "Lolita" I understand what he meant.

Nabokov was a man obsessed with word games and this book is crammed cover to cover with many brilliant examples. Language delighted the man and that certainly comes across. What makes this acheivement even more amazing was that English was his third or fourth language. It is mind blowing that he or anyone could write s...more An old friend used to say that "Ulysses" was a good book to read but not a good book to "read". After reading "Lolita" I understand what he meant.

Nabokov was a man obsessed with word games and this book is crammed cover to cover with many brilliant examples. Language delighted the man and that certainly comes across. What makes this acheivement even more amazing was that English was his third or fourth language. It is mind blowing that he or anyone could write so fluidly in a "foreign" tongue. If this was enough to make a novel great then this would be one of my top ten.

But what if, as a reader, you demand that an author make his characters compelling and the narrative involving? I would say then that this book is not for you. Humbert and Dolores Haze (Lolita) only ever (to my mind) become three dimensional at odd moments here and there. He comes off as a mincing, foppish but ultimately unbelievable sort. I never bought into him until very near the end when for a few sentences Nabokov makes his remorse credible. But it is too late for that. I was already annoyed as hell by his rococo narration. The character of Lolita as well is shrill and one note through out. Only intermittently does she come across as worthy of compassion.

As for the story, once the seduction takes place it loses a lot of its forward momentum. It begins to feel repetitive and only comes alive again when Humbert reaches the very end of his self control and attempts to lash out at one he believes wronged him. All in all I think this is a book that could stand to lose about fifty pages.

There is much to love about it though. It could have been truly replusive. Nabokov knew that his concept was already off putting and that the execution need not be so. Rather than serving up spewing fluids and hungry orifices he treats us to healthy doses of wit and charm. Bravo!

"Lolita" is obviously literature with a capital "L." It is a work by a man of letters who happened to be a genius - for that reason alone it deserves reading. Just don't be surprised that once you're done you don't feel like recommending it to anyone....less

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