Search - Lolita

This is a relatively quick-reading gem of a book that may surprise you. Don't go into it thinking it's the story of a predatory man lurking after a young girl. Think of this as a glimpse into the mind of man who finds himself feeling emotions he knows are wrong, but chooses to ignore them based on reciprocity.

Nabokov fills this book with puns and anagrams galore, and having dear Humbert Humbert poke fun at the names of Lolita's classmates at one point. This is a word lover's dream if you pay close enough attention.

Additionally, this novel contains my favorite sentence in all of literature, describing the death of Humbert Humbert's mother; again, an example of Nabokov's command of words and sentences. Definitely recommended.

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.

This is one of the best novels I've ever read. It is a horrific story that is elegantly written. I find it fascinating how many people consider Lolita a love story. I personally found it to be a disturbing tale of unrequited obsession, and the lengths one man is willing to go in order to possess the object of his desire. But one of the great things about this book is how many ways it can be interpreted. The reader is left to decide whether the narrator, Humbert Humbert, can be trusted to accurately relay the events that occur between himself and Lolita. Is he just a man desperately in love, or is he a monster trying to seduce the reader into empathy?

This is an intelligent, brilliantly written book. Those who are disgusted by the subject matter really do not get the point. There are so many layers here...Humbert Humbert is a sociopath, and somehow you are in his head and seeing life through his eyes! If the story line makes you queasy, (and everyone knows it before they even pick the book up) for heaven's sake, don't read it! If you want an intellectual, intense, clever, comical, awful, sad book then by all means read it. Nabakov was way before his time.

I think the posted description of this book as a "love story" is somewhat misleading (although it is certainly open to interpretation). This is the story of a sick and depraved man who is completely obsessed with a 12-year old girl. Only a master of the English language like Nabokov (and it's not even his first language!) could write so superbly as to entice readers to stay on this emotional rollercoaster of a book. Lolita was both more graphic, disturbing, charming and funny than I expected it to be - and that combination is certain to make you uncomfortable at some points in the novel. My book club was deeply divided over this book, some people loved it and others hated it, even refusing to finish reading it. For my part, I think it's one of the best-written novels I have ever read, and I'm really grateful that I got the chance to experience it, after it sat on my shelf for many years. It's a quick and engrossing read, I finished it in a day, but it leaves you with many questions afterward. Highly recommended for book clubs!

Another of my favorite classic novels. This book has a strange way of making Humbert likeable, though he does dispicable things. Great writing.