Lolita

this is the great american novel. no prose will ever be able to touch what nabokov does here; the final sequence was particularly riveting, but then, so was the whole thing - the tennis! the road tripping! and yes, even the horrifying parts, the parts that i seriously struggled to read. i suspect the trick to understanding this book is that H.H. doesn't really love lolita - he loves himself, and he loves what she adds to his self-image. when that fractures, the whole world fractures; he can't parse life when he is no longer the person he thought he was, and suddenly all the rules of the game are void. he knows that he's a monster and what else can a monster do? when it goes off the rails, it's thrilling. villain of all time.

Well.

It's a strange experience to enjoy a book that society tells you to hate. Yes, the subject matter is horrific, but, I mean...no one flipped out on Robert Louis Stevenson when he wrote Jekyll and Hyde. (Or maybe they did. I wasn't there.) Anyway, Nabokov's prose is exquisitely sensual, and not just when the narrator is talking about nymphets. It really is a master class in setting a mood through descriptions of the mundane. (And Jeremy Irons's dulcet tones didn't hurt, either.)

Prose aside, I do have a few complaints, namely uneven pacing and the most anticlimactic ending I've read in a long time. It really fizzled to a close and focused on characters that just didn't matter, which was a total disappointment.

Am I glad I read it? Yes. show more Would I read it again? No. It was kind of a slog. A beautiful one, but still.

For everyone who says the book is terrible and Nabokov is terrible and blah blah blah -- I don't know anything about the author's personal life or proclivities, but the book makes it enormously clear that Humbert's actions are reprehensibly harmful. He knows it the entire time. He says it himself! There's no romanticizing of pedophilia. The narrator is the first to say that he's a mentally ill beast. I think that's what makes the book so interesting. He's an unlikable narrator who knows exactly how terrible he is and doesn't give a shit. But no one is going to read this and be like, hey, Humbert, great idea. show less

I almost don't want to try and sort out exactly how I feel about this book, because I don't want to give it that degree of attention now that I've finished. If the book is hard for me to process, the reviews of it are maybe even worse. Yes, of course, the prose is elegant. Yes, the perspective is unique and sickeningly... well, interesting, for lack of a better word. No, I do not understand why people call it a love story. I am truly baffled by how many times I've seen the word "tender" used to describe it. I think I'd give it one star for my opinion of it, so I'll give it an extra star for the skill in writing.

Have I ever read a character as self-indulgent and self-pitying as Humbert Humbert? Poor Humbert, poor meek, abject, massive, show more pathetic, desperate clawed Humbert, simultaneously a monster and a hero in his own mind, turned on by the ankles and skin and "stippled armpit" of a twelve-year-old girl who picks her nose while he makes her sit on his naked erection. He fantasizes about having sex with his own future daughter and granddaughter, congratulating himself on how "tender" he is, how great a "father," how miserable and courageous. He craves Lolita, but that is not the same as love. He hurts her, physically and emotionally, routinely and deliberately. That is not tenderness. It's abuse.

He may even actually love her—how would I know?—but that does not make this story a story about love. It is the story of an intensely troubled adult man who rapes his twelve-year-old stepdaughter, taking her hostage around the entire country, lying in bed listening to her cry as soon as he feigns sleep every night for two years. It's the story of obsession and total self-absorption. Frankly, looking at the real-world reception of the book, I think it's the story of everything and everyone that is casually sacrificed to the "art" of the "White Widowed Male." Because as it says in the pseudonymous foreword of the book, actually just part of the book, written by Nabokov as John Ray, Jr.:

"The learned may . . . [assert] that 'H.H.'s impassioned confession is a tempest in a test tube; that at least 12 percent of American males—a 'conservative' estimate according to Dr. Blanche Schwarzman (verbal communication)—enjoy yearly, in one way or another, the special experience 'H.H.' describes with such despair; that had our demented diarist gone, in the fatal summer of 1947, to a competent psychopathologist, there would have been no disaster; but then, neither would there have been this book."

Equal tragedies, apparently. Because what's the life of a girl compared to Art? show less

A novel of infinite elegance and ambiguity. In a famous interview with _Playboy_, Nabokov himself said about _Lolita_ that ''There is a queer, tender charm about that mythical nymphet'' (1964), and I have to concur. The same can be said about Humbert, for if the title and purpose of the book appear to be Lolita herself, I thought of it as primarily revolving around the ego of its narrator and main antagonist, Humbert. As the fictitious author of the Foreword writes it: “No doubt, he is horrible, he is abject, he is a shining example of moral leprosy, a mixture of ferocity and jocularity that betrays supreme misery perhaps, but is not conducive to attractiveness. … But how magically is singing violin can conjure up a tendresse, a show more compassion for Lolita that makes us entranced with the book while abhorring his author.”

I read _Lolita_ for the first time when I was around Lolita's fatal age (thirteen, if I remember well), and it left me a strong impression that I could not clearly define at the time. I came back to it years later, at nineteen, for a thesis I needed to write on a work of 'foreign' literature. This is, I think, the mark of a book one's truly loved, this impulse to go back, to delight in well-known passages and discover new ones.

_Lolita_ is a novel that never 'left' me; 'haunting' has a sinister tone that doesn't apply to my relationship to that book - _Lolita_ evokes in my mind light and lightness, wit, style, grandeur and decadence in the midst of suburban America, trickery, deceit, playful perversion, poisonous appeal. I might outgrow it one day - so far though, I have remained under the spell. show less

A lot of readers have avoided Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov because it is written from a pedophile's perspective, and I have to admit that I would have certainly have passed up reading it if I wasn't expecting something much different. It turns out that I love Lolita.

One of the best things about reading is that you don't have to agree with a characters morals, or lack there of, in order to learn, grow, and enjoy a book. In this case, Humbert is more than immoral, he is dark, twisted, and quite obviously mentally ill. Which is why I allowed myself to love this book as much as I do. Nabokov quite obviously wasn't trying to pass Humbert off as someone who simply had a lifestyle preference, but instead puts the reader in the head of a show more seriously deranged predator.

As a long time child advocate, and someone who has worked in a field where I saw first hand the effects of sexual abuse, I have to say that I am amazed at Nabokov's ability to get it so right. He gets it so right in fact, that I was almost convinced that he might have been a pedophile himself, but that would be grossly unfair for me to make such an assumption, because honestly, he nailed writing the character of Lolita, the victim, and her behavior. Which is all very impressive for a book that was penned in a time when the cycle of sexual abuse was less discussed, and thus less known than it is even today.

You know what else I loved? The way that the author doesn't treat his reader like a ninny. He has this wonderful way of making suggestions and allowing the reader to understand via crafty writing.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov is a remarkable book that has the capability of making the reader see past preconceived notions and the fear of liking something that feels like maybe one shouldn't. show less

I...I don't know how to explain how this book made me feel. In summary, it is one of the most beautifully crafted and well written novels about the most vile and heinous person. It is a beautiful book about absolute ugliness.

I'm not sure anything will ever be written like this, or has been written like this. And I know that some people won't be able to read it. It isn't graphic or pornographic, but it is still hard to read at points. And what makes it tricky is that fact that we, the reader, are reading his account and it is almost certainly full of lies and subtle deceits to portray the situation the way he perceived it.

Ugh. This one will hang with me for a while.

I found it really hard to rate this book. When I look at the relatively few books to which I have given five stars, this one doesn’t quite fit. I don’t love the characters and I don’t love the plot. As I listened to the audiobook - quite wonderfully narrated by Jeremy Irons - I often felt visceral disgust and horror. However, the work has wormed its way into my consciousness and I have a feeling it will be there for some time to come. The fact that it’s not a book to read and then forget but rather a book which will remain with me means that five stars is appropriate, notwithstanding how angry it made me feel.

What can I write about Lolita which hasn’t been written a million times before? There is probably nothing, but I can show more at least try to convey how and why the work made me react so strongly. First, from a literary point of view, it is a tour de force. The language is sublime: poetic and rhythmic, full of alliteration, puns and other wordplay – both in English and in French - all conveyed with biting irony and wit. The descriptive language is beautiful: Nabokov uses metaphor and simile to convey meaning in a way which is extraordinary, all the more so because English was not his first language. The literary allusions with which the narrative is peppered also add appeal to the work, if for no other reason than it’s fun to play "spot the allusion".

Secondly, Nabokov’s creation of Humbert is masterly. I loathe him: he made me angry and he made me feel physically sick. However, at the same time his wit made me laugh. Humbert is the ultimate unreliable narrator. I completely reject most of what he says, particularly about himself and even more so about Dolores*. That Humbert lies is clear from the narrative. That he lies to the reader is hard to deny. Humbert uses every trick in the book to create sympathy for himself and part of Nabokov’s genius is that some readers will fall for his tricks. Even readers like me who desperately want to see Humbert get his comeuppance will be moved by the poignancy of his final encounter with Dolores. Thirdly, even though she is only seen from Humbert’s distorted perspective, Dolores Haze is a memorable character. Nabokov’s writing allowed me to see beyond Humbert’s vision of her to the abused, knowing, resilient and brave child that she is. My heart ached for Dolores - the victim of a vain, egotistical and ultimately doomed monster.

This was not a pleasant or easy experience and I’m not sure that I could bring myself to go through it again. However, after avoiding the book for years because of its subject matter, I’m glad to have finally tackled it. I can't say that I "love" this book, but it’s an amazing literary achievement and on that basis alone I have to give it five stars.

* I will not call Dolores Haze “Lolita”. Referring to Dolores as “Lolita” is part of Humbert’s process of objectifying and diminishing her. For most of the time Humbert associates with her, Dolores is not a person - a person whose name signficantly means “sorrows” – but a collection of characteristics which spark his sexual desire. I am (just) prepared to accept that when Humbert encounters her again he finally sees her as a real person and realises the enormity of his crime against her. However, that part of me which distrusts Humbert still suspects that this is a ploy to obtain sympathy from the reader. show less