Lolita (Penguin Modern Classics)

by Vladimir Nabokov

book data

52,686 ratings, 3.99 average rating, 3,687 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		40%
4		30%
3		19%
2		6%
1		3%

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published

February 3rd 2000 (first published 1955) by Penguin Putnam~trade

binding

Paperback, 336 pages

characters

Humbert Humbert, Lolita, Charlotte Haze, Clare Quilty

setting

The United States

isbn

0141182539 (isbn13: 9780141182537)

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 both ch...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:

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.

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

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12/01/07

Natalie rated it:

(review of isbn 0679723161)

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 fo...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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04/01/08

Chris rated it:

(review of isbn 0679723161)

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 h...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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07/12/07

Namrirru rated it:

(review of isbn 0679727299)

bookshelves: e, russian

Nabokov often writes his novels in the perspective of detestable villains. You never like them, you're never supposed to like them, and Nabokov doesn't like them either. He slaps them around and humiliates them. And in the end, they pay the price for their sins. Readers never seem to realize this. They become immersed in the psychology of the book and feel defiled by it all. Instead, they should sit back and watch the bastards suffer. The stories are written in their own view so that makes the p...more Nabokov often writes his novels in the perspective of detestable villains. You never like them, you're never supposed to like them, and Nabokov doesn't like them either. He slaps them around and humiliates them. And in the end, they pay the price for their sins. Readers never seem to realize this. They become immersed in the psychology of the book and feel defiled by it all. Instead, they should sit back and watch the bastards suffer. The stories are written in their own view so that makes the punishment all the more sweet. The reader knows exactly what the scheisemeister is feeling - pain, pain, pain. That's one of the reasons I like Nabokov so much. The bad guys really get it. It's not just getting killed or caught at the end, you really feel their anguish. Mmm... schadenfreude."

I sort of believe the reason why most of the characters are 2 dimensional is precisely because of who is potraying them, a depraved person. A depraved person who commits terrible, unforgivable crimes against people. How could he commit those crimes if he saw them as the human beings that they are? It's easier for a crook to swindle if he dehumanizes his victims. At the end of Lolita, Lolita transfigures. She's a sensitive, care-worn woman, but only because HH realizes her as such. That's why he can murder the man who betrayed her at the end. He was a filthy mongrel that deserved to die for what he did to her. "She groped for words. I supplied them mentally ("He broke my heart. You merely broke my life")." I don't remember, but this could be the first time he "supplied [words] mentally" in a way that's true and unselfish. He finally understood her as a person and sacrificed himself to revenge her. Perhaps, HH's only redeeming quality.

In Nabokov's books where the villain is the protagonist, the only other charachter with real depth or psychology is a character who the protagonists loves. The little daughter in Laughter in the Dark, Lolita at the end the novel, Despair? The protagonist in that one is a sociopath and doesn't give his novel-mates anything, but their personalities pop out. You can feel them from the distance. Other novels I've read by him don't exactly fit this mold. In Pnin, everyone is a little characterized but still quite real, Pale Fire is written by an almost-villain and you love everyone but him, especially the wife of the poet, Invitation to a Beheading, not even the main protagonist was very real. He had the same consciousness and feelings that a "K" would have in one of Kafka's novels. But he had no believable history, it's all just a dreamscape that doesn't have half the terror as Kafka's novels have. I never finished Ada or Ador. It's Lolita x 10 in smuttiness. "Is this really necessary??" And it wasn't believable either. Just a fantasy.

Of course, not all his novels are going to follow the same formula, but they are written by the same writer, the same mind. So I'm still working on him. I really think he's one of the best writers of the 20th century. He doesn't just tell a story, he explores the psyche and human perceptions, how a certain person feels, sees, or reacts to things. If they were normal people, it wouldn't be interesting, but he picks villains or eccentrics. (less)

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03/06/07

Rolls rated it:

(review of isbn 0679723161)

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...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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11/11/07

David rated it:

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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06/30/07

Eli rated it:

bookshelves: novels

Read in January, 2006

This book scared the living daylights out of me.

As everyone says - its gorgeously written. The language is so rich that it somehow spills over the sentences - there's more to them than you can easily ingest. The writing makes the whole thing a pleasure to read, and in a lot of ways puts Nabakov in control from the start - there isn't a lot of room to imagine motives since Nabakov explains so much. I should point out that were a lesser writer spend any time at all writing in a langua...more This book scared the living daylights out of me.

As everyone says - its gorgeously written. The language is so rich that it somehow spills over the sentences - there's more to them than you can easily ingest. The writing makes the whole thing a pleasure to read, and in a lot of ways puts Nabakov in control from the start - there isn't a lot of room to imagine motives since Nabakov explains so much. I should point out that were a lesser writer spend any time at all writing in a language I can't read, I may have been tempted to put the whole thing down, but that here, despite entire passages in French, it never crossed my mind to do anything but read on.

There is a recurring temptation to read this as a love story. Humbert Humbert is lovingly obsessed with Lolita. Since he's the narrator of the story, his passion is the lens through which everything is viewed. But Nabakov allows just enough of the unfiltered (fictional) reality through to make it pretty clear that this is a story about a frightened, terribly abused little hostage and her tormentor. The constant flips between seeing Humbert as unfortunately in love with the wrong person, and him as a monster sucking every bit of life out of his prisoner is what is so frightening. It begs the question - how much of reality could we all reconfigure to fit our obsession, or even our love?

The characters, at least Lolita and Humbert are brilliant and true. Lolita is deeply sympathetic, and at points, so is Humbert. The place of the book is everywhere in motion, and little pinpoints across the country are written about with confidence and clarity. The settings precisely frame the story.

There is enough disturbing erotisism that I felt a little strange reading it in broad public view, but it its certainly not explicit in any traditional sense.

Brilliant, complex and extraordinarily readable, this is a book of such force and depth, that it seemed to me nearly impossible to get the whole picture on a single reading. It is definitely one I will pick up again. (less)

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08/10/07

David rated it:

(review of isbn 0140264078)

bookshelves: 5q

Read in January, 1991

LUST AND LEPIDOPTERY
(Legend of a Licentious Logophile)

1. Libidinous linguist lusts after landlady's lass.
2. Lecherous lodger weds lovelorn landlady.
3. Landlady loses life.
4. Lascivious lewd looks after little Lolita.
5. Lubricious Lolita loves licking lollipops lambitively.
6. Licentious lecturer loves Lolita louchely.
7. Lechery lands lusty lamister in legal limbo.
8. Lachrymose libertine languishes in lockup.

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03/08/08

April rated it:

(review of isbn 0679723161)

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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11/20/08

Manny rated it:

bookshelves: too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts

Read in January, 1996

I remember seeing an interview with Nabokov, where he was asked what long-term effect he thought Lolita had had. I suppose the interviewer was looking for some comment on the liberalization of censorship laws, or something like that. Nabokov didn't want to play - as you can see in Look at the Harlequins, he was pretty tired of these questions. So he said well, as far as he could make out, there had only been one effect. Mothers of young girls named Dolores no longer affectionately called them Lo...more I remember seeing an interview with Nabokov, where he was asked what long-term effect he thought Lolita had had. I suppose the interviewer was looking for some comment on the liberalization of censorship laws, or something like that. Nabokov didn't want to play - as you can see in Look at the Harlequins, he was pretty tired of these questions. So he said well, as far as he could make out, there had only been one effect. Mothers of young girls named Dolores no longer affectionately called them Lolita.

I loved this reply for its magnificent unhelpfulness. In a very narrow sense, Nabokov was surely right. I challenge anyone to prove, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Lolita has had any effect over and above the one he named. And in principle I also approve of Nabokov's attitude towards critics, and the way he loved teasing them. Pale Fire is another long joke at the critics' expense (how many other books are there where most of the action takes place in the footnotes?), and, like John Shade, he burned his rough drafts to make sure that posterity had as little material as possible to work with.

But, if one wants to go against Nabokov's stated wishes and indulge in a small amount of speculation, it does seem to me that Lolita has had a substantial effect in terms of popularizing the narrative technique where a character is initially presented in sympathetic terms, and then gradually revealed as a monster. Two examples that immediately spring to mind are Martin Amis and Ruth Rendell. In Lolita, Nabokov cunningly introduces Humbert as a rather engaging personality, and fabricates all sorts of extenuating circumstances. To start off with, there's the tragic story of his childhood romance with poor Annabel Leigh. Then Lo is far from innocent, and, as Humbert points out, she seduces him. But the fact remains that, whatever excuses you may come up with, it's just wrong for an adult male to have sex with a twelve year old girl. After a while Humbert, and the reader, is forced to admit that he has turned her into a whore who fellates him for small change, and then cries herself to sleep every night. You feel disgusted with yourself for ever being dumb enough to fall for this slick con artist.

Hopefully, the controversial opinions I've just expressed won't result in some overzealous Iranian cleric putting a fatwa on me - one of the first things the Ayatollah Khomeini did on gaining power was to lower the age of consent to 9, on the grounds that the Prophet's youngest wife was that age when she married him. You see how dangerous this speculative analysis can be?

****************************************

While making dinner (turkey fajitas), I thought about the question Paul raised, whether we can believe what Humbert is telling us. I was wondering what evidence I could present to support my point of view, which is that he only distorts the truth and omits things, rather than simply lying outright.

I would say that my basic argument is that Humbert isn't really writing for us, he's writing for himself, so any lies he tells are going to be the kind of lies one tells to oneself, rather than those one tells to other people. It's true that people do sometimes plain flat-out lie to themselves. But Humbert is a smart, educated guy who thinks a lot, and he doesn't seem delusional; I find it plausible that he is more telling the story his way, and working hard to find an interpretation that makes his actions pardonable. But this involves greater and greater distortion of the facts, and in the end there are things he can no longer explain away. It hits so hard because he's previously done a good job of making the reader identify with him; the reader almost feels that he has been lying to himself.

I came up with a couple more books to which I'd had similar reactions. One is Agatha Christie's "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", where it turns out that the murderer is the person narrating the story. I remember a friend saying that nothing had ever creeped him out quite as badly: he felt for a second that he, himself, was the murderer! Less obviously, there's Sartre's "L'Age de Raison". Mathieu doesn't seem like such a bad guy, even though he's a bit of a dope, and nothing he does really comes across as particularly evil. Yet, somewhere near the end, you're forced to admit that he is in fact a person who will steal a substantial amount of money from a friend in order to pay for his mistress's abortion. You wonder why you previously felt sympathetic.

A final thought I had while preparing dinner. One of the very scariest things about Lolita is that Humbert, in a real sense, loves Lo. However, this results in him raping her and turning her into a child prostitute. A couple of years ago, I watched the movie "Mysterious Skin", which takes the same theme even further: it's one of the most disquieting films I've ever seen. Has anyone else come across it? Would be interested to get reactions.(less)

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09/08/07

Harajyuku rated it:

(review of other edition)

bookshelves: all-timefavorites

The other day I finished reading Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita." Thank God. It was wonderful. I compare the experience to cutting through black briars with roses growing and only a dull wooden machete in hand. "Lolita" was solid and boring, a monstrously obese... thing that danced like light through meadows of bumblebess and sharp grass and seven types of silky-soft wheat. I could not even believe that its toes could leave the ground. I still cannot. It was like a cherubim, only...more The other day I finished reading Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita." Thank God. It was wonderful. I compare the experience to cutting through black briars with roses growing and only a dull wooden machete in hand. "Lolita" was solid and boring, a monstrously obese... thing that danced like light through meadows of bumblebess and sharp grass and seven types of silky-soft wheat. I could not even believe that its toes could leave the ground. I still cannot. It was like a cherubim, only uglier; it was a pain to taste and a joy to swallow and I am both sorry and proud that it is over and that I have been the one to kill it. Reading Nabokov is healthy for me – he opens my vocabulary, reminds me of words I had forgotten and left rotting, endows me with an articulate voice so starkly unlike my own cloudy, muddled one. He writes in a voice unnatural to most minds but easily tangible, and thus easily mutated and adopted by others. But I think that, in the end, it was Humbert Humbert that I loved best. I must be his only sympathizer in all the world – most do not trouble themselves with the affairs of monsters, but I felt myself strangely affected by him. Usually I have no tolerance for men throwing themselves so eagerly away and calmly walking the path to destruction, but I liked him – in all his evil and wretchedness. Even my heart bled for him, poor doomed beast that he was. The worst was that I could not even bring myself to hate Lolita herself – the vapid, disgusting victim, that shallow nymphet with only the aery beauty to her and nothing more, everything else sucked into the abyss and leaving nothing. Such a refreshing book, as well - blissfully absent of obnixous symbolism and metaphors. Sometimes one just wants a love story to be a goddamned love story, never mind Humbert being Old Europe and Dolores Haze suburban America. Screw analysis - I enjoyed it, even though it was a bitch to hack away at. I enjoyed it, because the blood I bled on those thorns was real and my own, all my own, and it's been such a time since last I could care so much for a character. Makes you wonder what I've been reading lately, no?(less)

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07/31/07

Mary rated it:

Read in October, 2003

recommends it for: EVERYONE

I recently got into an argument with a friend about Lolita. I contend that it's one of the most beautiful books ever written, and that it's twice as amazing because Nabakov wrote it in English (which is his second or third language).

She contended that it was about a child molestor and was inexcusable.

I argued that it was more about chronicling a slightly off-kilter man's descent into wretched madness and total loathsomeness. A portrait of a child molestor, not necessaril...more

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09/22/07

A.C. rated it:

(review of isbn 0679723161)

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...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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06/26/08

Sherri rated it:

bookshelves: 2003-read-list, fiction

This isn't the book many of us (US citizens in particular) think it is. The very term lolita didn't mean in the book what it has come to mean in the titles on dozens cheap porn flicks or one handed reading books.

This is a book that does require some work. If you take it up as a pleasant read, or (worse) because you have a paper due for lit class in a week, you'll have every reason to hate it. It isn't enough for me to read Lolita. I have to read about the book, too. There's just t...more

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07/16/07

John Ryan rated it:

(review of isbn 0140264078)

bookshelves: classicliterature

Read in January, 2006

In brief, this is the greatest book I have read of the 20th century (it's too hard for me to compare it to pre-20th century literature). I say this because it combines a full array of successful techniques and features that I haven't seen combined in other work; but moreover, in doing so it transcends itself and its subject matter to become true art.

[Possible plot-spoiling follows...]

The most obvious misconception about the book is that it is lewd. Indeed, Nabokov's after...more In brief, this is the greatest book I have read of the 20th century (it's too hard for me to compare it to pre-20th century literature). I say this because it combines a full array of successful techniques and features that I haven't seen combined in other work; but moreover, in doing so it transcends itself and its subject matter to become true art.

[Possible plot-spoiling follows...]

The most obvious misconception about the book is that it is lewd. Indeed, Nabokov's afterword dismisses this entirely (and actually reading the book has the same effect) - he is well aware of the formulaic requirements/demands of pornography. There is no crudeness or prurience in the book.

Another issue is the nature of Humbert. Without doubt he is wretched, selfish and cruel - it doesn't take much quotation-digging to establish that. But at the same time it seems clear to me that he does love Lolita, with the ironically childish purity of true love (refer to the passage on his last meeting with her, and his plaintive final beseeching for nothing more than companionship for the rest of his life. This is Humbert laid bare, away from the crowing tone of his with-Lolita days, where the stripping away of his one love [she surpasses Annabel - note the lack of Annabel reminiscences in the second half of the text] has shown him that away from the venereal desires burning in him, there was another passion for Lolita, one which renders life elsewhere meaningless.). He displays his grotesque failings, and indeed evils, as the result of his sexual desire, a not uncommon event for people in general.

I haven't come across this reading of Humbert from other sources, but it seems that way to me. It's a result, I'd say, of the remarkably sympathetic way that Humbert can come across, despite the brutality of (essentially) the slave-girl ownership and psychological domination of his charge. Making a monster human was a great accomplishment for the author.

There are two tremendously moving parts of the book. The final scene of Humbert and Dolly is agonising reading as he dejectedly comes to terms with his love's final rejection of him. More concise, and more horrific, is the end of Book 1 (I paraphrase from memory):

"Why can't I talk to my mother if I want to?"
"Because your mother is dead."

...and the dry, emotionless paragraph afterwards, finishing with the lines that embody the book: "She had nowhere else to go."(less)

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09/16/08

Melissa rated it:

(review of isbn 0739322060)

Read in October, 2008

I feel like a mental midget in trying to explain my feelings about this book. I struggle to understand why it is considered such a classic piece of literature. Am I jaded by my own time? Have I heard too often the world "lolita" used in modern contexts to refer to young girls who are attractive to adult men who should know better? I had to delve into some literary criticism in order to help me understand, and I think what Lolita tries to do is tell a disguting story about a disgusting ...more

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07/26/07

Jessica Baxter rated it:

Read in November, 2007

so my boyfriend gets this great film magazine called "little white lies" and each movie they review gets three ratings- one for how much they anticipated it, one for how much they enjoyed watching it, and one for how much staying power it had. i wish we did that with these books, because five stars just doesn't cut it.
anyway, i'd heard so many crazily good things about this book, and then i started reading it and was immediately pissed off. i didn't like the style, i was bored,...more so my boyfriend gets this great film magazine called "little white lies" and each movie they review gets three ratings- one for how much they anticipated it, one for how much they enjoyed watching it, and one for how much staying power it had. i wish we did that with these books, because five stars just doesn't cut it.
anyway, i'd heard so many crazily good things about this book, and then i started reading it and was immediately pissed off. i didn't like the style, i was bored, and quite frankly i was left looking around the subway thinking "am i the ONLY one who thinks humbert is just a pedophiliac rapist?" the quotation on the cover of my edition is: "the only convincing love story of our time" (vanity fair). i was so appalled by that-- this is love? abuse, coercion, arrogance, lies, self-pity? i mean, yeah, i hear you out there saying, "uh, duh..." but i just disagree. if this is truly the most convincing love story of our time, then i'm the only person who loves for sweetness, for trust, for laughing and shared moments and respect. and i just couldn't believe that.
but i kept reading. and slowly, around page 250, i started to understand that humbert (and of course nabokov) were one step ahead of me. this is what made me stop in my tracks, what literally took my breath away:
"i loved you. i was a pentapod monster, but i loved you. i was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t'aimais, je t'aimais! and there were times when i knew how you felt, and it was hell to know it, my little one. lolita girl, brave dolly schiller."
and the next paragraph goes on to describe him naked in bed with her, after just raping her (i will always refuse to call it anything but rape, even after that quotation), and he starts to feel complete shame and despair and he wants to erase what he's done, and before he can say anything to her he gets aroused again and "'oh, no,' lolita would say with a sigh to heaven, and the next moment the tenderness and the azure--all would be shattered."
he gets that he's sick. he gets that its a sickness. and i'm so, so relieved, because for 250 pages i didn't think he did.
so:
anticipation: 4
enjoyment: 2 1/2
staying power: 5(less)

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07/09/07

Jason Pettus rated it:

I never got around to reading the classic Lolita until my mid-thirties, and I'm glad it took so long, because it let me appreciate the novel more for what it actually is -- not just a salacious tale of underage love (although it's that too), but also a darkly funny look at the then-new world of the American highway, and of all the soulless look-alike businesses found along all of its exit ramps. In the original story, our hopeless anti-hero Humbert Humbert is more of a caricature than a real per...more

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09/06/07

Richard rated it:

bookshelves: mytopfive

Read in June, 1998

recommends it for: Adults without children

I made the mistake of reading Lolita while I was writing my first novel. I promptly decided I was wasting my time. The next morning, I punished myself by typing “I am not Vladimir Nabokov” 100 times with my forehead. I got the message around line 57, and went out to buy a new keyboard.

(Impact rating: 10 out of 10)

(Ranked #1 in my all-time Top-10.)

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09/29/07

Joe rated it:

(review of isbn 0140264078)

Read in January, 2006

recommends it for: oprah

Nabokov, light of the page, fire of my brain. My sin, my soul. Na-bo-kov: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Na. Bo. Kov.

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09/29/08

Jeff rated it:

Read in December, 2008

I loved this book. A friend of mine told me to read it. She said it was her favorite book of all time- but I didn't give a crap. Then another friend of mine told me to read it. She said it was her favorite book of all time. I thought that was a coincidence, but still didn't really care that much. Maybe I gave a small crap. Finally a third friend of mine said it was her favorite book of all time. I finally decided to give as much crap as I could muster- cause if three people love this boo...more I loved this book. A friend of mine told me to read it. She said it was her favorite book of all time- but I didn't give a crap. Then another friend of mine told me to read it. She said it was her favorite book of all time. I thought that was a coincidence, but still didn't really care that much. Maybe I gave a small crap. Finally a third friend of mine said it was her favorite book of all time. I finally decided to give as much crap as I could muster- cause if three people love this book- and all three people happen to be attractive women- then this book must MUST hold the clue to an attractive woman's heart. Literature be damned. I don't care, I don't care, I DON'T CARE, that it's thought of as one of the great novels of our time, or a commanding work of our day. I want something that's going to help me get laid. LLLLLAAAAAAIIIIIIIIDDDDD.

Okay, most of that is mostly untrue. Sort of. But really, random people, who happen to be my friends, tell me that this is a good book, so I think to myself, "Self, let's see what all this fuss is about."

Seriously, this is a damn good book. Nabokov knows how to write- and what's more impressive, English is his second language. I don't have a second language. I know how to say five things in Spanish, MAYBE... and I'm sure I butcher those five things. "Excuse you, I am having to bathroom for use, please go?" That would be a direct translation of me asking where the bathroom is.

Nabokov is able to write this using his second language:

So, Humbert the Cubus schemed and dreamed- and the red sun of desire and decision (the two things that create a live world) rose higher and higher, while upon a succession of balconies a succession of libertines, sparkling glass in hand, toasted the bliss of past and future nights. Then, figuratively speaking, I shattered the glass, and boldly imagined (for I was drunk on those visions by then and underrated the gentleness of my nature) how I might blackmail- no, that is too strong a word- mauvemail big Haze into letting me consort with little Haze by gently threatening the poor doting Big Dove with desertion if she tried to bar me from playing with my legal stepdaughter.

That's hot. Seriously- that's awesome writing. Yes, I read this book, and like three other strangers- who happen to be my friends, and attractive women, I am telling you this is one of my favorite books. It is a great, great, great love story. Yes, yes, it a bit difficult to explain how a story about statutory rape can be construed as a love story- but it's there. Humbert's love for Lo is all encompassing, and I believed every little crazy bit of it.

Okay, this is a good book, and I'm glad that I get to share my feelings about this in print, cause it's always a bit awkward, me being a 32-year-old man recommending this book to anyone. It's really hard not to sound incredibly creepy. So- in the end- my plan on reading this book, and all of a sudden being able to understand women completely and totally- to a point where I can look into a woman's eyes and have the ability to convey that feeling that I will take care of her- and allow her to be her own woman- she will feel supported and empowered all at once, and I will be the man to make her feel this way, make her feel desired- that plan backfired, cause now the girls just a wee bit faster than they did before. Then again I probably shouldn't say, "I read a book about an old dude boning a young pre-teen girl, and it was awesome! What are you doing tonight?" Nabokov would not approve. No, I wasn't able to turn reading this book into a date of any kind. But I did get to read a wonderful book, so I guess that's just as good as understanding women. It's not... but let's just say it is for the sake of this review. (less)

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polls

Run off poll:
What frequently challenged or banned CLASSIC book should we read in July?

(We will select two books but you can read either, both or none of course.)

1984 by George Orwell

16 votes, 24.2%

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

19 votes, 28.8%

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

31 votes, 47.0%

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quotes from this book

"I hope you will love your baby. I hope it will be a boy. That husband of yours, I hope, will always treat you well, because otherwise my specter shall come out of him, like black smoke, like a demented giant, and pull him apart nerve by nerve. ...I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita." More quotes...