Lolita

Rating:
Summary: Lyrical, Beautiful, Disturbing
Review: This book is truly a masterpiece. I bought it while abroad and I savoured every word. The sensual lyrical quality of the language is what most stood out in my mind. Many of the reviewers here, and indeed I imagine hundreds before, have done the book justice with their comments.

However, I must take issue with one of the reviewers ([e-mail]). He is right to write that the book is no mere smut. However, this is certainly no love story. I found his suggestion that it is a 100% love story puerile in the extreme. What about Lolita's lonely sobs at night and her lost childhood?

As Jim_Steel correctly argues it is a tale of obsession. Criticism of the usage of French is extremely finicky in my opinion.

Nabovkov makes the language dance and sing. I read the (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) edition which contained a superb afterword by Craig Raine.

The one thing that is clear is that to read it once is not nearly enough.

Rating:
Summary: Nothing less than amazing.
Review: I'll keep it simple.

Poweful, Beautiful, Genius.

I'll read Lolita again and again.

Rating:
Summary: Try to read LOLITA before you read reviews
Review: I bought LOLITA knowing of it only by its reputation as a controversial novel and by its first-place position on a recent critical list of the best novels in decades. I began LOLITA on a recent business trip and found it a very clever work of absolute creative genius, so fascinating that I didn't notice the time and missed a connection home, which however gave me time to finish it.

Its surprises made it all the more wonderful. So I suggest reading the book before you reading reviews that might disclose its contents.

LOLITA is, or includes, a story of filial love. Lolita helps old Humbert to grow into a father more than he helps her to develop as a youth. She does her weird chores and earns her tiny allowance. She loyally keeps their secrets to the end. Humbert, who must be the least effective fictional American father since Huckleberry Finn's, barely notices her supreme adolescent compliment that he was a good father to her. The character of poor Lolita, not of Humbert, reminded me of a comment by Nabokov's countryman Dostoyevsky: "One feels compassion for the ridiculous man who does not know his own worth as a good man, and consequently sympathy is invoked in the reader. This awakening of compassion is the secret of humor." (Quoted in Boorstin, THE CREATORS, 1992).

A work of fantastic fiction in the 1950s, LOLITA is eerily prescient about today when 15-year-old girl athletes dodge marriage offers from fans and even younger children describe "my first time" on the Internet.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: The best writing I've ever read. Nabakov makes the language sing. Truly a masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: An rainbow of colorful, dancing sun-flecked jewels
Review: Nabokov said an author's primary purpose is to "enchant" the reader and "Lolita" is an arrow fired from Neptune which nets a New Hampshire bullseye. Nabokov's gift to the enraptured reader is not merely the poignancy of hopeless, perverse romance, but of Humbert's melancholy genius for expression, nuance and passion: Twelve year-old Dolores Haze is defiled by a pathetic beast in every carnal region of America; Humbert doesn't just cry, he weeps "lovers tears, hot, thick opalescent;" Psychoanalize "Lolita" to death if you must; I prefer allowing the rhapsodic, untrammeled prose of Humbert's observations to ENCHANT me. Most immemorial works are tragic, many are hilarious, all are love stories of some kind. These are but a few of "Lolita's" traits, only a shimmering sample--as is realized when one has finished the book and returned to terra fimra after an indescribable, utterly magic ride. I love "Lolita."

Rating:
Summary: I enjoyed the prose even more than the plot.
Review: This is a book that had me falling in love with the style of prose. I had to read it aloud because half the joy was in the voicing of the words.

But, there is the story as well, and in a way it's the typical love story of two people who shouldn't be in love being in love (at least one of them). To the comment below by the 17 year old from England, I'd like to add that Nabokov did not seem to be saying in any way that there's nothing wrong for a Humbert Humbert to love a 14 year old nymphet. If anything, he said too well that it WAS wrong. Even Humbert thinks so at the end. Humbert's logic in the beginning about the historical nature of such relationships is rationalization, not reason. The tragedy is that Humbert, who loved her so much, did not bring her happiness. Instead, he stole her childhood and her life was ruined. Is that how love should be?

Anyway, this is a book that made me love literature a little more. Nabokov has influenced many (if not all) writers of today. I can't disagree with Updike: "Nabokov writes prose the only way it should be written, that is, ecstatically."

Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully written with the insightful eye of youth
Review: Hard to believe Nabokov was getting on in years when he wrote this. He sets an unjaundiced eye upon the marvelous newness of America, as it must have seemed to him coming from his native Russia that had yet been feudalistic a generation earlier. Ignore those who complain of too much French in the book. There's an insignificant French phrase every five pages, and when you need to know what it means, he translates for you. Humbert Humbert is a Swiss citizen teaching French in America. What does one expect? Also ignore those who say this is a love story. It's not. It's a story about obsession. I've noticed many people confuse obsession with love, and quite a few of the reviewers below do so too. HH leaves Dolly sobbing at times. He wrecks her psychologically. He pays her for sex. Forces it upon her every day in exchange for clothes. Keeps tabs on her every second of the day. Love? Uh-uh. Obsession. Oh...and before you get put off by this, the book is funny too, occassionally laugh outloud funny. A classic.

Rating:
Summary: 14-year-old loved boook
Review: Im 14 years old and I thought that the book was well written. This book is an instand classic. I saw the movie and right after i rushed to get the book and i really felt like i was in it. This book deserves 6 stars!!

Rating:
Summary: An astonishing reading by Jeremy Irons!
Review: One of the best audiobooks I have ever heard(and I've heard a lot). Jeremy Irons' reading is captivating, electrifying, and thoroughly nuanced.Do not miss this performance!

Rating:
Summary: Fantab!
Review: I've never read more beautiful or engrossing prose. Nabokov is truly a great author. My only complaint was the inclusion of way too many French phrases, which I found very off putting. In the afterword, Nabokov claims that he was trying to write an "American book" with Lolita, so why all the French? Great, Vlad, so you can speak French, I am so impressed. What a show off! Otherwise, great book.