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.
Rating: 
Summary: Heartbreaking disappointment
Review: I read the summary and I read the reviews and thought this book would be fabulous. The perfect book for my vacation; an adult story line to keep you interested and an arousing theme to keep you entertained on the beach. Well I was wrong! The author strings you along through the first quarter of the book with his dreaming of this young girl, finally gets her and doesn't tell you about it! Instead, he drowns on about the sites they saw across the US! What a bore! I've got half way through this book and have absolutely no desire to continue reading it! I was so looking forward to enjoying this novel. What a disappointment!
Rating: 
Summary: A 17-year-old girl who would be proud to be loved like Lo.
Review: Nabokov's 'love affair with the english language' had me burst out laughing at various intervals. It is tremendously funny, and a powerful book. I would not recommend the film until one has read the book because it denies a truly personal response; you should make up your own mind first and not have it made up by the film directors. My reactions to the films were very different to my reaction to the book. This book seems often misunderstood to me : How can one categorically state that that relationship was wrong? Men in their 40's married 12-year-olds in ancient Greece and Rome - Humbert uses this argument in the book - how can we say that it's wrong? Humbert loved her more than a lot of men love a lot of women, and I think Nabokov was trying to show the purity and beauty of his love. In many ways their relationship was like a lot of marriages; she depended on him for her welfare; he bought her clothes and took her to the movies. He got sex in return. Humbert loved her so purely, completely, absolutely and unconditionally: how can that be wrong?
Rating:
Summary: a must read book
Review: what struck me most about this book is how funny it is what was expected to be a book full of sexual obsessions turned into an intellectualy rich full of beautiful details masterpiece.Nabokov has a way of convincing u of the sole exsistance of the hero's point of view that u never see the victim's. but when he finaly give's it to u in the end the result is a very tragic novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Poetical
Review: I must confess that I am quite undecided as to whether or not I liked this book. The writing style is excellent, with much in a poetic and lyrical style that tickles the eyes and the imaginative senses. There are few writers that can achieve the magical flow of words and give the reader mental pictures of what is being seen, heard, or experienced by the characters. The character of Humbert Humbert is very real and very human -- and the character of Lolita is actually that of a very lovable child. On the down side, however, is the subject matter. To be sexually obcessed with children is an illness and a crime, certainly not a trait that should be given to the hero of a novel. Even though the author continually states that the obcession is wrong, Humbert Humbert is such a realistic person that he still comes across as a heroic character. Hence, as I am undecided, I give it a rating of 3 for average, even though the writing style is a 5 plus.
Rating:
Summary: Utterly hypnotic.
Review: The reviewer who wrote "Humbert made me puke" is actually a fairly perceptive person. Humbert should revolt us. He is an egotistical, vain, manipulative, self-justifying pedophile and murderer. That we readers do not find him revolting speaks for the skill Nabokov used in creating him. In the introduction by Dr. Ray, we find a reference to a mask behind which two eyes glow at us. Readers can be utterly hypnotized by those eyes. This is a beautifully rewritten masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: And so I was moved...
Review: Let me tell you why I loved Lolita. As we read this book, we come to know rather intimately the character of Humbert Humbert. What is revealed is the portrait of a man who although quite apparently filled with the capacity to be unbelievably cruel, is also in his own inexplicable way filled with a veiled tenderness. It is, more than anything a story about the human experience. How as humans we must suffer and we must weep and how little real control we have over who we are to become. Just as innocent Lolita must be thrust into the grubby paws of Humbert the terrible, just as Charlotte must be cruelly granted the revelation of Humbert's brilliantly wrought duplicity and then destroyed by it, Humbert was a human being. Out of touch, undoubtedly, but made by other hands. Shaped. Affected. Worn. We are not the products of our own volition. We are what we are made. This is a tragedy. Not only because death and suffering pervade the work but also because it reveals the awful truth of our own mortality. So many cruelties! Perpetrated by us and against us and the only lonely salvation to be found, is yet another cruelty, love. We are not luminescent creatures. We are beings of flesh and body. And we ache and we starve. To assume this complex story merely a commercial for pedophilia not only downspeaks the work but it also downspeaks everything vital about human life. This is a complex story about human beings. As long as we give regard to the myriad tortures of our own lives we must be prepared to give regard to this book. It is a tragedy, as life is a tragedy. But what is more subtle and what makes this masterpiece so powerful and so intensely moving is this. That amid the pain and the suffering of all these little people. There is still some measure of beauty to be found. Beauty, as it is, immutable, undeniable and true. And only by seeing the tragedy can we see the real beauty. The beauty of being a tiny being in the shadow of forces infinitely greater than ourselves yet still faithfully searching for happiness under a blanket of cruelty. (That human beings can live without flooding the world with their tears astounds me!) Nonetheless while we see the pain as it is a real and powerful thing, it is still in beauty that Humbert finds his redemption, not just Humbert, but all of us.
Rating:
Summary: The musings of a madman
Review: This book is, at the same time, both humorous and tragic. The humor is found in the unusual thought patterns we see in Humbert during Part 1 of the novel. The tragedy comes, of course, when the pedophile has reached his goal and "McFate" eventually sends down his punishment. Nabokov paints the perfect picture of a psychopath throughout this flowing, wonderful work.
Rating:
Summary: A feast
Review: and a visual masterpiece. Nabokov creates two novels and links them through the rational but oft crazed rantings of the obsessed Humbert-Humbert, proving his genius with language, even one he despises (English). A novel rich in detail and stunning in its scope. Skip the films: read the book.
Rating:
Summary: An erotic book in unconventional english.
Review: As you probably know by now from reading all the reviews, the book is a tragic tale dealing with a middle-aged man's sexual obsession with a 12 years old girl. The book does not flow easily and I find it hard to read because the English used is quite unusual (English is not Nabokov's native tongue after all) and the frequent use of French (I think, cause I don't understand French) in the novel. Nonetheless the story is quite satisfying (sexually, hence the 3 stars), though many people might find the idea quite nauseating (i.e. paedophilia). This does not mean that I agree with paedophilia. Also, the author likes to use brackets (like this) in the novel, which I find quite irritating. A final tip: Do watch the movie starring Jeremy Irons and Dominique Swain after/before reading the novel.
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