Lolita

Rating:
Summary: The most seductive bedtime story-teller ever...
Review: Reading 'Lolita' is a decisive moment in every reader's life. If it isn't for the controversial issue or the overwhelming narrative, then it's for the unique half-ironizing, half-desperate tone that Nabokov and nymphets will stay in our minds forever. As I see it, the book is no light meal; it has to ripen like fine wine in the reader's own dark vault.
Listening to Jeremy Irons' voice performance is about as decisive for the literary gourmet as the reading of the book. Quite simply, Irons has THE voice for the text as well as he has THE looks for a silver screen Humbert. This trained, sophisticated British voice with its alternating speed and tone irresistibly lures the listener into Humbert's secret world. Irons has amazing command of his text. The job's extremely difficult, given the sheer size and the draining complexity of the Nabokovian text; but Irons has the talent to show the taste of every single word, so that the plainest descriptive bit turns into textual pleasure. (He manages elegantly even with the French quotes; an additional delight!) Needless to say, pleasure peaks at the rare love moments Humbert and Lolita share. Forbidden passion vibrates in Irons' dark-chocolate voice that virtually melts along with Humbert's lonely ecstasies and despairs. Yes, it's mainly about pleasure - Irons delivers all the delight and harmony that Humbert never experienced. To put it briefly, this 12-hour voice performance is a pleasure you would not want to miss. So, buy and enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: One for the ages
Review: In no sense is Lolita bedtime reading. Only the wide awake need attempt it.

Vladimir Nabokov did not write novels. He crafted jewels, star sapphires that seem at first to have hard, mechanical, intellectual surfaces. But as the attentive reader turns them over, noting the reflection of one facet in another, the fire in the gem's core ignites, warms the soul as well as the mind, and grows in value with each re-inspection.

Lolita is one of his crown jewels. He never wore his considerable heart on his sleeve, but he perhaps came closest in his afterword to this book, when he wrote of "what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm." That credo is also the key to understanding the sense in which, despite Nabokov's contempt for "morality" in the censors' understanding of the word, there are deep moral underpinnings both of Lolita and of his whole body of work.

Humbert Humbert is a fabulous monster: an endlessly charming ogre, a dangerous pervert, a seducer as much of the reader as of the doomed and triumphant Lolita. The author has been generous to his dark creation, endowing him not only with erudition and wit, but - to run through the catalog - with genuine tenderness, with a capacity for ecstasy, and a wide ranging curiosity. But he lacks all kindness, until it is far too late; and his curiosity has huge blind spots, that allow him neither to see his "darling" whole, nor to see the humanity in much of anyone else at all.

On a first reading, all his positive endowments nearly win us over to affection for Humbert. We are intended to fall into this trap, one which Humbert himself deconstructs with little clues along the way, and with nearly frank admissions of guilt at the end. On better acquaintance, none of his rationalizations or seductions work on us anymore. Nothing redeems him, because nothing can restore Dolly's stolen childhood. What transforms him from a mere monster into a human monster, and allows him to retain something like sympathy from the re-reader, is his act of writing the book. He becomes determined that, since he cannot give Lolita back her innocence or her lost time, he will give her the poorer gift of immortality.

Ultimately, besides being a love letter to America and the English language, "Lolita" is a poignant meditation on time, and immortality, and the connection of art to each. What has made Humbert into a monster is his drive to stop time, to catch and freeze the butterfly at the moment it emerges from the chrysalis. The other, simply human, characters differ from him in accepting time's flow. Let me give one example, out of dozens, of the way the theme surfaces.

For several chapters at the start, Humbert looks forward to a promised picnic with Lo and mother Charlotte on the beach at "Our Glass Lake." It's a mirage. When, finally, he gets to the beach, Lo is gone off to camp, Hum is stuck with Charlotte for company, and the lake's real name turns out to be "Hourglass." A bait-and-switch has magicked his motionless, timeless, glassy idyll into a timepiece. He makes up his mind to drown Charlotte as they swim there, but can't bring himself to do it. When the two get back to shore, another beachgoer points out to Humbert that he's made the mistake of wearing his watch (a gift from Charlotte) into the water. She taps his wrist and announces, "Waterproof." Humbert may be forgetful of time, but he can't help taking it with him wherever he goes. And it keeps on ticking. Was it really her new husband's conscience, as he would have us believe, or was it Charlotte's being at home with fluid time that made her "waterproof," despite his homicidal inspirations?

Dealing with one's reactions to Humbert can be unnerving, and may put off some readers who might otherwise have learned to appreciate Nabokov. I'd suggest starting with a (relatively) straightforward work like _Bend Sinister_, or _The Defense_, to get a feel for the kind of active reading that this author demands, and the delight he gives in return. If you like those, you will love Lolita, and you will eventually want to get the annotated edition from Vintage.

Five stars are not of course enough. I would like to award this book a sixth, grey star, outshining all the hosts of heaven.

Rating:
Summary: Stunningly beautiful
Review: If you have not read this book, go and get it right now. You may stuggle through the first chapter or two, Nabokov's books can be like that, but once you get into it you will never, ever want the book to end. Dolly is the most distinct character I've ever come to read about, every word past her lips is convincing. Humbert Humbert's story is one that should never, ever be passed off as less than it is- a masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: Everything Is True
Review: Literary criticism has become so fickle, so arbitrary...it's turned into a game of grasping at straws. Whoever "locates" the most "profound" meaning or symbol within a novel wins. I read reviews and papers these days and find I agree with almost nothing anyone has to say. It's a big game.

That said, this is the one book I've read that is big enough (figuratively) to contain any idea or notion I could see someone projecting onto it. In his relatively simple story, Nabokov somehow managed to create a wealth of ideology and symbolism. As anyone will tell you, the guy was an absolute master of language, and his talent allows him to explore the meanings and motives of human intelligence and heart. This is a complex, beautiful, heartbreaking work. In a word: transcendant.

Rating:
Summary: Great book.
Review: I think it's a great book. English translation doesn't stand a chance. Whoever is capable of reading the original Russian version do so. You will defenitely appreciate the language and the text itself. Nabokov did a great job.

Rating:
Summary: Not for the conservative
Review: Vladimir Nabokov has created a seemingly perverse, yet full-blooded Parisian idealist in Humbert Humbert, the protagonist of his now classic "Lolita". Well past his prime, Hum still has a strong relish for pubescent girls (nymphets, as he affectionately calls them) and we see why from the first few chapters of this grand work of art. The answer lies in his youth, when at a mere thirteen Humbert Humbert experienced his first amour with a girl-child who was a few months his junior. Quite frankly their love was an impassioned one, and as Hum himself states, they were "all at once . . . madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other; hopelessly, I should add", yet tragedy strikes and Hum is forced to live with his vision of the perfect love and eventually tries to recapture it through Dolores Haze. Lo. Lee. Ta. The girl who was "Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita."

Nobokov's prose style is as gratifying as the best of literary voices before or after him. He has complete command of his craft and his absolute love for the English language shines through like sunlight through gossomer material. A master writer if ever I read the work of one.

A must for any true lover of classic literature, or lover of the English language, period.

Rating:
Summary: Three Characters in Search of an analyst
Review: It's easy to read Lolita as only a string of clever puns and brilliant allusions, and as such it's just as easy to overlook the troubled characters these words contain. While Humbert's conflicts and motivations are always in the foreground, you have to dig a little deeper to get to the heart of Lolita and Quilty. Obviously, Humbert doesn't delve into their psyches except in their relation to him, so this can be quite a scavenger hunt. Many interesting questions are raised: Did Lolita bring this upon herself(she had had sex at least twice before Humbert, once with a boy and once with a girl) ? Did she intentionally seek this depravity? Was she anticipating her "rescue" by "Trapp" from the onset(she has know him since she was ten, two years before Humbert, remember)? As one other reviewer said, Lolita and Quilty exist outside of being plot devices.

This was one of the best books I have ever read, honestly, and I hope to read more by Nabokov soon. I also want to read Lolita: Annotated to catch all of the puns and wordplay. I got some of the puns on my own, my most proud moment came when I got the "Nightmares / Noctis Equi" pun in the beginning of Part II. And with the help of dictionary.com I was able to translate most of the French passages.

Some object to the themes of the book, but if you aren't familiar with the plot, do a little more research before you give up on Lolita. This is NOT "dirty old man rapes sweet little girl". Humbert is hardly a moral character, but neither is Lolita. At 12 years old she is already an accomplished seductress, and through the course of the novel she hardly redeems herself. Humbert walks away less scathed than she.

And regardless of its moral value or literary worth, it will always have its place on my desk with the rest of my favorite novels.

Rating:
Summary: not so good
Review: I usually don't write negative reviews, but.. This is not worth buying. It is historically relevant. I see why it caused such a stir when it came out. It is well written. But think of the subject matter before buying.

Rating:
Summary: Funny and moving . . .
Review: Despite his many flaws, you just have to love Humbert Humbert. I found myself reading this book after I had seen the movie and, as has been the case many times before, was able to understand the book better because of this. I found that little Lo was a delightfully belligerent, intelligent, cocky, and sad girl. Humbert was naturally a selfish jerk, but that was his character. Nabokov did an excellent job with this novel. It offers many insights into the human mind and is not even graphic or vulgar. What a good read!

Rating:
Summary: True excellence in literature
Review: Don't dismiss this novel based on the squawking of the offended and appalled! Take the time to read the first 100 pages and see for yourself. If you allow yourself to appreciate Nabokov's mastery of the English language and recognize the strength and depth of the characters, you will be unable to put it down. You will see past the obvious. Past the pedofile. And find comedy, tragedy, horror, and mystery. This is indeed a masterpiece...unforgetable.