Lolita

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Summary: Jeremy Irons reading Lolita is better than sex
Review: It doesn't matter whether you've read Lolita a dozen times or seen the films more than once. When you listen to Jeremy Irons reading Lolita on these tapes, you hear the story, the passion and the language all over again for the first time. Listening to these while driving was intensely erotic -- I could not _wait_ to hop back in my car (alone, please!) and drift back into the continuous dream of Nabokov's masterpiece of desire.

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Summary: A grown man trying to deal with his desires for a young girl
Review: The story of a Humbert Humbert. He begins with his life as a young boy growing up in the countryside of France. He tells of his first love,of his first sexual experience. Throughout his adult life Humbert had tried relationships with other grown woman, but he had always been drawn to the young, unmatured body of preadolesenced girls. He struggles with his feelings, and his younger lost love. I felt bad in a way for Humbert Humbert. Even though it was obivous that this man had mental problems, (because no grown man should be attracted to young girls) he still loved and cared for his "Lolita" in ways that a grown woman could only dream of being loved like. When he first moved to the United States, he was lucky anough to move in with a young girl and her mother. He married the mother to ensure his placement with the young girl. When the supject aroused that Mrs. Haze (the mother) was going to send her daughter away to boarding school, (so that her and Humbert could spend more time alone) Humbert was sickened by the idea. Soon Humbert had it in his head that he would kill his wife so that he and Lolita could be alone. The day came when luck was on his side. Mrs. Haze was hit and killed by a car. This left Humbert Humbert and his little Lolita with a whole lifetime to themselves. In return for his guardianship, and financial support, Lolita repaid him by pleasuring him sexually. After a handful of shocking and twisting events Humbert Humbert's dream did not turn out the way that he wanted. His bood was wonderful, and I would suggest that anyone read it. I truely enjoyed it and thought that it gave you a great insight into the mind of an nymphomanic.

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Summary: Delves into mental illness...
Review: I don't know if the author ever intended to delve into the development of a mental illness, but this book does a good job. The main character, H.H., even acknowledges his downward spiral. A depressing, sometimes erotic book but well written.

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Summary: el amor a las ninfas
Review: esa pequena desviacion del amor, esa busqueda incansable por la nina perfecta, la perfecta ninfa, la nina de 12 a 17 anos que vive en los suenos y recuerdos de H. H es tal vez la ilusion de muchos hombres y el comienzo de pedofilia. aunque la novela no muestra directamente escenas de sexo, el lector las intuye a plenitud y mucho mejor, ya que la imaginacion de cada uno adornara la escena de las cosas que solo se refieren de manera indirecta en la novela. la pelicula debe definitivamente verse despues de leer el libro para que se capte la trama. esta es una obra maestra de nabokov , quien juega con el idioma ingles de una manera increiblemente buena.

LUIS MENDEZ

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Summary: The Art of the Novel
Review: "...and I looked and looked at her, and knew as clearly as I know I am to die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else." p.294

In his foreword as John Ray, Jr., Nabokov notes the fact that 'not a single obscene term is to be found in the whole work'. It is to Nabokov's credit as an author of considerable talent, to have so successfully created a novel that bristles with both obscenity and compassion, yet not to have relied on the crutches of linguistic slang. I believe Lolita was one of the most powerful novels I've ever read. Reflecting on the work and trying to capture some of my own thoughts and insights, I find it interesting that I am not able to decipher the author's inspiration. I find no underlying message or personal brand associated with the story. It seems to me that Vladimir Nabokov's inspiration was in the art of the novel, rather than the story itself. It's my naïve interpretation that Nabokov, as an author, was challenged by the dichotomy of the story and how to tell it. The story must have come in second place to the way it was told. But then through the telling, Nabokov's story took on a life and lasting mark of its own.

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Summary: Light of My Life -- Na. Ba. Kov.
Review: As I read a book, I copy down all the words I don't know on the inside back cover of a book, where it's usually blank. This is a newly acquired habit, probably only about two years old, and since on average I go through about a dozen books a year, I've done this for about twenty-four books.

Well, let me tell ya -- I had to find a couple of more blank pages. It's incredible to me that Nabokov's breadth of vocabulary was this wide, this complex, this difficult. These are SAT words on steroids. Here's a sample: meretricious, pharisaic, prehensile, purlieus, valetudinarian. If you didn't have to consult Daniel Webster's bestseller for the meaning of those words, well, I'd probably call you a liar. Just think that English was not this man's first language! English isn't my first language, either, and before reading Lolita, I actually thought that I sort of knew it.

Of course, I wouldn't be impressed of a blowhard who occasionally dropped in these muscle-bound words. The fact is, it's Nabokov's use of "regular" words that impresses me more. Some of these sentences he strings together are just golden. On a pure mechanical level, Lolita is a pleasure to read.

And that's not all, folks. This is a book with a plot, a story, and a truckful of emotion. It satisfies the two criteria I expect from a great work: it's weird, and it's full of heart. This tragic puppy-love story of Humbert Humbert will break your heart. And, on many occasions, it'll make you laugh, maybe even out loud. Yeah, it's that funny. Humbert's ironic, European points of view and his self-deprecating humor make a great comedic team.

It's not an easy book to read. Did I mention the oodles and oodles of French Humbert breaks out into? It's been too long since I studied francais, but it's okay. You don't really have to understand every word. You'll get the gist of it.

Tangent: Strangely enough, reading this novel made me realize just why Bret Easton Ellis's "American Psycho" was such crap. Utterly no heart in "American Psycho" -- not a hint of it. Of course, that probably was Ellis' point. If so, then I have news for Ellis: it ain't much of a point to make.

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Summary: Jeremy Irons...What a treasure!
Review: This is my third reading of Lolita... the audiotape version. It is one of my most favorite books of all time... now narrated by Jeremy Irons. Jeremy Irons' beautifully nuanced voice is like reading Lolita for the first time. What a treasure!

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Summary: Just read the first page...
Review: ...and you'll be hooked! I realize one cannot open the first page and begin reading in this forum but if you could, that's all it would take. The first page of this novel sucks you in as I imagine Nabokov intended. All I have had to do in the past is read the first page aloud and I've convinced a room full of people to go out an buy it the next day.

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Summary: What's love got to do with it?
Review: Lolita, the novel, is not about love. It is not a great love story. It is a great tragedy. I enjoy it immensely at each re-reading and find something new in it each time. I first read Lolita when it was published in this country in the 1950's, and I was Lolita's age. (It was the rebellious thing to do back then in my circle of friends; a few years later, the clandestine read was Peyton Place which paled in comparison.) I make it a point to get back in touch with my adolescent feelings as an American girl growing up in the 50's by picking up Lolita again every five or ten years for a fresh re-read.

As one matures, one's perception of this novel also matures. The poignant irony of its language continues to be Lolita's enduring best quality. I never had much sympathy for Humbert and, even as a teenager reading Lolita, I could recognize that he made too many apologies for himself. But presenting the story from Humbert's self-serving viewpoint was Nabokov's peculiarly brilliant means by which a straight, non-perverted reader is taken to secret places she/he might otherwise dare not go.

In those simpler times - the 1950's - in which the story takes place and when this novel first appeared in the English language, Nabokov gave us archetypal characters that mirrored the secrets of 1950's American society. Humbert, suave monster that he is, could have been the man next door or sitting on the park bench across from my school back then. Charlotte, the lonely lady putting up with an adolescent daughter who was fast becoming her rival even before Humbert came along, was struggling with a single parent and her place in '50's society as a woman. Lolita, the obnoxious little girl who's 11 going on 18, then 14 going on 24, as much loses her childhood (innocence) to what money can buy (the symbolism behind the pair's car travels from motel to motel across America) as she does to Humbert's disgusting obsession.

Flaws of this novel: Quilty's contribution as a character is wasted, even irrelevant. As another reviewer pointed out, the ending is weak, even anti-climactical. These are the novel's flaws. But they are so few.

I recommend Lolita to the reader who first loves words and, secondly, to the reader who read between the words. Lolita has within it at least the following emotions and experiences to be discerned: sense of irony, pathos, illicit pleasure, poignancy, dismay, outrage, humor, dark comedy, sadness, superficiality, loneliness, loss of innocence, and loss of what-might-have-been. But it is not about love.

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Summary: A 20th century King Lear
Review: The reviewer below says that this won't give you any insight into human nature, but it certainly does. As so many of his books concern middle aged, respectable men's sexual perversities, and Mr. Nabokov was a settled, respectable, middle class married man during most of the time he wrote his novels, it makes you wonder what kind of sick fantasies he had. Also, after reading "Lolita" you'll never look at a pre-pubescent girl through the same eyes ever again...

On the other hand, if Nabokov is a closet pervert, he has the amazing literary skills to express them well, and so does his character Humbert Humbert, whose amazingly eloquent prose is filled with his own sardonic view of life as well as the dramatic irony of the subject matter. For all those criticisms of being "bleak", or "empty" (or even "it's got no meaning!" as one stupid critic said at the time), then if we cast our eyes at literary history we find similarly dark themes for Shakespeare's "King Lear", Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" or even almost every ancient Greek tragedy, but no-one criticises them for that.

This is certainly the "great American novel" of this century; Hemingway and Faulkner don't even come near, and Fitzgerald just doesn't have the genius or the scope or the language or the humor. It's a pity that while people continue to search for the "great American novel" they pass over this, but maybe they don't want to face up to the fact that our country isn't that fun a place to be in, and this is not only the most talented candidate for the position, but also that it is representative of our messed-up country.