Despair Author:Vladimir Nabokov "One of Mr. Nabokov's finest, most challenging and provocative novels, also one of his least gentle. In tone (or as Mr. Nabokov says, 'rhetorical venom') it is most similar to Pale Fire; and in his foreword he is careful to protect Lolita's Humbert, whom he loves, from too close a comparison with Hermann, whom he doesn't. Both are dragons, both ... more »neurotic scoundrels, 'yet here is a green lane in Paradise where Humbert is permitted to wander at dusk once a year; but hell shall never parole Hermann.' Perhaps, perhaps.