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Lolita

Vladimir Nabokov

Start date: March 1, 2023

Finish date: March 31, 2023

Discussion: Lesser Know/Wilderness Classics

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Lesser Know/Wilderness Classics

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By Lesle , Appalachain Bibliophile · 72 posts · 196 views

last updated Sep 06, 2025 07:14AM

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By Lesle , Appalachain Bibliophile · 78 posts · 113 views

last updated Sep 26, 2025 05:58PM

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What Members Thought

Apr 04, 2017 Sara rated it did not like it

Shelves: modern-classics, kindle-purchase

I know I am in the minority in not seeing the brilliance of this novel. It was far too repulsive a subject matter and far too intimately related to allow me to admire it. I could not divorce myself from the horror this twelve year old was being subjected to, I could not separate the act from the actor. HH’s protestations of love fell on deaf ears with me. I focused completely on “and her sobs in the night--every night, every night--the moment I feigned sleep.” My god, at one point he reflects on I know I am in the minority in not seeing the brilliance of this novel. It was far too repulsive a subject matter and far too intimately related to allow me to admire it. I could not divorce myself from the horror this twelve year old was being subjected to, I could not separate the act from the actor. HH’s protestations of love fell on deaf ears with me. I focused completely on “and her sobs in the night--every night, every night--the moment I feigned sleep.” My god, at one point he reflects on the possibility of marrying Lolita when she is outgrown his sordid attraction and making her produce Lolita II, who will be a nymphet with his own blood and truly belong to him. He is depraved beyond depravity.

I will admit to feeling less sickened once “Dolly” was outside his grasp. Reading of his despair and supposed anguish did not bother me. I found the end anti-climatic. His condemnation of men who were his mirror reflection, his obvious mental fragility, his inability to acknowledge the pain he inflicted or care about anyone other than himself produced no effect on me.

I saw so many 5-star ratings and read some remarkable reviews, which made me want to read this novel while I was carrying it on the TBR, but in the end, it simply exercised no appeal for me. I would no doubt have marked it “abandoned” had I not felt there must be some layer of meaning I was just about to encounter. Some wonderful quality that would reveal itself to me in time...but never did.

Every book is not for every person. This one made me want to scrub my skin and gargle with Listerine. I have never wished to explore the mind of a pedophile, and now that I have done so, I am glad to say I still do not understand such a perversion. How dead at heart would you need to be to say, “I had just retracted some silly promise she had forced me to make in a moment of blind impatient passion, and there she was sprawling and sobbing, and pinching my caressing hand, and I was laughing happily…”

Could Nabokov write? Absolutely! Would I read him again? Never! Despite knowing, as most people do, that Lolita was a story about an under-aged temptress and her adult admirer, I was unprepared for its true content. I hope it doesn’t color my ability to look at a young girl in the company of an older man without recalling Lolita to mind.
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Jan 13, 2014 Radwa rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: e-books

Oh, Humbert, how can I evaluate you?

Are you a perverted sick pedophile seriously suffering from some tumors? yes. Are you disgusting? yes. Did your twisted thoughts annoy me? yes. Do I find trouble talking about you? YES.

Nabokov manages in this novel to introduce Humbert Humbert, a man who is obsessed with little girls, or as he likes to call them, nymphets, and his little special nymphet, Dolores or "Lolita".

The novel starts well, the premise is exciting and the language is enchanting, and Hum ...more

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Apr 25, 2017 Sarah rated it liked it

Icky. This was struggle to finish.

The main character is an awful human, who does awful things. He is also (apparently) an unreliable narrator, so his awfulness may be much worse than it seems - which is hard to imagine. Or perhaps less so?

I've been hearing about this book for years, and when I announced I was finally reading it - several friends were shocked. "How could I read a book about a pedphile?" Trust me, he doesn't come off in any way good. Also, there is virtually no graphic sex, than ...more

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Aug 03, 2011 Soledad rated it liked it · review of another edition

"Lo, sencillamente Lo, por la mañana, un metro cuarenta y ocho de estatura con pies descalzos. Era Lola con pantalones. Era Dolly en la escuela. Era Dolores cuando firmaba. Pero en mis brazos era siempre Lolita." ...more

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