Awe and exhiliration--along with heartbreak and mordant wit--abound in Lolita, Nabokov's most famous and controversial novel, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America. Most of all, it is a meditation on love--love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.
Lolita (Vintage International)
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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
From Library Journal
This unabridged edition of Nabokov's classic story about a middle-aged, expatriate European man's obsessive love for a 12-year-old girl?which is being released to coincide with director Adrian Lyne's new film version?is a beautifully produced recording that pushes the boundaries of the audio medium. While Lolita continues to raise the hackles of would-be censors even today, most listeners will marvel at the restraint and playful humor with which Nabokov limns his tale. Narrator Jeremy Irons, who plays Humbert Humbert in Lyne's film, is an uncompromising audiobook reader whose performances on cassette are as laudatory as his Academy AwardR-winning work on the silver screen. This landmark release is highly recommended for all library collections.?Mark Annichiarico, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. Read the first page
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By H. F. Corbin
Format:Hardcover
"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta." With those famous opening lines, Nabokov begins a sordid tale told by Humbert Humbert, one of the most fascinating characters in all of American literature. Even many people who have never read this novel know the basic story here since the word "Lolita" has become a part of American culture in that that someone with a "Lolita complex" is attracted to very young girls.
Published in 1955, this novel caused a storm of controversy; it is still provocative today even though there is not a four letter word in it. That is not to say that the book is not extremely erotic in many places. What Nabokov does with words is brilliant. As always he plays constant word games with the reader. Someone goes on a "honeymonsoon" to India. In seaching for Dolores aka Lolita and her run-away suitor, Humbert finds the name "Will Brown, Dolores, Colo." in a hotel register. Humbert and Dolores have breakfast in the "township of Soda, pop. 1001." There are allusions to Poe ("in a kingdom by the sea") and other writers throughout the book. You skim paragraphs at your peril.
The book is wondrously satiric. Nabokov captures the vapidness of the motels in small and middle America in the 40's and 50's with great brilliance. Humbert, with all his perversions, is often a terribly funny character as well. The scene where he wrestles with Quilty comes to mind. "We rolled all over the floor, in each other's arms, like two huge helpless children. He was naked and goatish under his robe, and I felt suffocated as he rolled over me. I rolled over him. We rolled over me. They rolled over him. We rolled over us."
We cannot forget, however, that Humbert is ultimately guilty of an ugly sin. In his own words he has deprived a "girl-child" of her childhood. In their cross-country journey, she cries every night. The picture is not pretty.
In an essay written in 1956 Nabokov writes about writing LOLITA. HE says that he is "neither a reader nor a writer of didactic fiction, and. . .. LOLITA has no moral in tow." He further denies the charge made by some readers that the novel is anti-American. Finally he says there are three subjects "utterly taboo as far as most American publishers are concerned." Obviously the theme of this novel is one. The other two, in Nabokov's words, are: "a Negro-White marriage which is a complete and glorious success resulting in lots of children and grandchildren; and the total atheist who lives a happy and useful life, and dies in his sleep at the age of 106." A most interesting observation. I wonder just how much has changed in 47 years.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Compels our immediate response and serious reflection-a revealing and indispensable comedy of horrors. Intensely lyrical and wildly funny. The only convincing love story of our century.
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This isn't an easy book to read, especially the first half: how does a reader identify with what in esse3nce is a child molester? If there can be redemption, however, for such a person, the narrator achieves it, partly due to his savaging himself. At the same time, the book turns from the road trip of a sexual predator into a mystery and the pages turn more quickly. But at all times, Nabakov's use of language is spectacular, pacing the novel on a literary shelf with others that so well display the virtuosity of the English language. For me, the novel is profoundly sad, a soul expander. The recent case of the Canadian professor and former party guru who became persona non grata for suggesting that prison might not be the best way to deal with people who are caught with child pornography on their computer, but not having purchased it or been involved with it in any way, shows that the novel is, unfortunately, very relevant seventy plus years after its publication.
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4.4 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting topic and style but too hyped
I've made it my mission to read a majority of the classic novels that are must-reads and Lolita being #4, I was pleased when I had to read it for a course. Read more
Published on Mar 26 2011 by Manley H
5.0 out of 5 stars
Classic Fiction
More than a little disturbing as Nabokov takes us into the mind of a paedophile. Not overly graphic and somewhat romanticized. Definitely part of a good grounding in literature. Read more
Published on Mar 20 2011 by Diana B.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Enigmatic
Lolita. Lolita. Lolita.
Lo-Lee-Ta.
What to say about the story? (I will get to the audio soon). Well...this is one of the best books I've read. Read more
Lo-Lee-Ta.
What to say about the story? (I will get to the audio soon). Well...this is one of the best books I've read. Read more
Published on Feb 8 2010 by Shannan Mann
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great work by Nabokov
Lolita is beautifully written. No doubt this is the most controversial novel of the 20th century. Great work by Nabokov.
Published on Aug 23 2009 by Ilia
1.0 out of 5 stars
Borrrrrring....
I am 99 pages into this book and I don't think I can go on. Sentences that never end and big words that no one cares about. Read more
Published on Aug 4 2009 by A. Mabley
1.0 out of 5 stars
Love story?
This is one of those books that generated so much hype around them with no justification what-so-ever. Read more
Published on July 26 2009 by Israel Tzadok
5.0 out of 5 stars
Selfishness and stupidity cause more pain than evil can
In the field of erotic literature, this novel has probably touched the awareness of the public more than any other, to such an extent that the once innocuous name of Lolita has... Read more
Published on Oct 18 2008 by Graham Worthington
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unreal
I can't say too much more than what every other five star review has already said. Beautiful prose. One of the best books I've ever read.
Published on Jan 15 2008 by T. Bigney
5.0 out of 5 stars
Classic
It's easy to see how this has been labeled a classic. Formula: Take one great book by one great writer; ban it; criticize it to death; finally allow it to be read; acknowledge... Read more
Published on Sep 21 2006 by Henry Batista
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of a Kind
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Read more
Published on Jun 25 2005 by Sean Ahearn
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