Lolita | Vladimir Nabokov | A road movie of the mind

Lolita | Vladimir Nabokov | The Most Beautiful Novel Ever Written

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Lolita

	Lolita Vladimir Nabokov Vintage, 1989 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 450 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

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.

A road movie of the mind

Praise be to Graham Greene, who was not only an interesting novelist (e.g. The Quiet American), but he also has the merit of saving Nabokov's Lolita from obscurity. When the book found no publisher in the US, it was first brought out by a shady Parisian company that specialized in erotic books in the English language. That was a tourist attraction in Paris. For reasons unknown to me (why would Greene even know the series? he had other oddities about his character), Greene took notice of the book and named it as one of the best books of the year in a magazine article in the UK. That was the beginning of the road to fame and riches for Nabokov, including an Oscar winning, but lousy movie.
I admit I have not read Lolita recently, but I did at least twice some time ago, and I read his movie script in the LoA volume. Why do I review it now? Simply because J. talked me into it. Women can be persistent.
J did not like Lolita because she saw it as pedophile porno. I am aware that one can read the book that way. Actually most of the first buyers must have been looking for that, but most of them were badly disappointed.
Sure, the book is about a pedophile, but Nabokov never told us a straightforward story. One must be prepared to encounter mystifications and traps and double meanings.
Lolita's main text body is the alleged memoir of a man who has died in jail, where he was held for murder. We learn only late into the story who the victim was. Oddly, he was not in jail for rape and kidnapping, which he freely admits to in his text.
The hero is a decadent middle aged European of a cultured background. He has come to New England as a professor for literature. He is a pedophile, who can only 'love' pre-puberty girls. Nabokov's original title for the book was Kingdom by the Sea after E.A.Poe's poem. Humbert Humbert (the name should tell us that we can't expect clear sailing on meanings) settles down and meets a woman with the kind of daughter that he fancies. He marries her to get at the child. The woman dies (don't necessarily believe the version of her death that HH tells us), he kidnaps the girl Dolores, rapes her, and goes on the road with her, moving from place to place all over the US, settling here and there briefly, always running away before attachments can be formed. And still there comes a time when Lolita runs away from captivity.
What is the book about? It is also a little bit about pedophilia, sure, but it is mainly about an immigrant's experience of the US. Nabokov wrote about his own observations with his New England university environment, and to a large extent he wrote about his long car trips across the US on his butterfly hunts. The places where HH stays with Lolita are Nab's own stations, where he stayed with his wife, who drove the car.
HH is not a man who can be believed. He twists his tale to his liking, and even his admissions of wrongdoings with the girl have a strong smell of self-saving euphemism. The man is a self-centered egomaniac.
Lolita is not my favorite Nab-book, actually, but it is well worth reading more than once.

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The Most Beautiful Novel Ever Written

An account of pathological love so tender that it has no rival in literature. A dreamlike plot and dream-exquisite prose: perfection.

Love Lolita

I am halfway through this wonderful book and have to say that the way the author writes is facinating.

Controversial, still..

This book is, well, more than just a little controversial after all these years due to the subject matter. I tried, honestly, honestly tried, to get over what the book is basically about, but I just couldn't. I'm sorry. I truly am. I know for some people this book is a favorite, but it just can't be for me. The reason I gave it three stars is because Nabokov's writing style is beyond wonderful. It was one of the only reasons I was able to get through the book. The man was obviously talented, and I truly respect him for that.

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Bring a Dictionary

I began reading Lolita after repeated recommendation, and at the end of the book felt only relief that it was finally over. As a younger reader, I found "Lolita" difficult to comprehend, searching the dictionary every few words, and missing the subtle puns and ironies that come from a learned reader, despite the beauty of the plot and the development of characters.

The tribute to Nabokov's writing found in "Lolita" seems overstated by literary critics. I emphasize my youth at this point because I acknowledge my naivety in the literary world. Novels with merit only entered my life recently, thus a perfectly good explanation for my otherwise unread repertoire. But I feel as though I am not alone in stupidity. The chance that a normal person understands the advanced allusions to other highly esteemed novels and the multitude of French phrases is slim. I speak from the perspective of the masses when I say that the language and allusion of Nabokov's "Lolita" transcended my typical knowledge, thus depriving me of the depth necessary to find the novel interesting.

It also takes away from the intrigue and interest of a novel when the vocabulary exceeds the reader's intellectual capacity. Long passages with mature words far beyond the reading level of an average citizen's had the meaning of the section fall on deaf ears. Sure, it was simple to overlook the words in favor of the continuity of plot, but the reader feels similar to American in a French embassy, knowing they are talking poorly about you with no other defense than to act dumb.

The beauty of the relationship between Humbert Humbert and Lolita is trite and insignificant without the diction and mechanics lining up with the heartbreaking storyline. "Lolita"'s splendor is lost among a sea of difficult vocabulary, random French, and implications far beyond the capacity of most. Out of respect for the literary world, it is certainly imperative to read, but the subtle allusions and irony are lost to confusion and ignorance.

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