Rating: 
Summary: The best way to understand this misunderstood classic
Review: Several correspondents responded to my comments on Nabokov's Pale Fire by suggesting that I read his most famous novel, Lolita. I am somewhat wary of classics, having the same poor introduction to them as the majority of American public school students, and Lolita has an additional stigma of being a controversial book (some of which, like Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, are better forgotten than revered on banned books shelves). The recommendations came from reputable sources, however, and I had determined from Pale Fire that Nabokov was to my liking, so I purchased a copy.It sat on my shelf for a few weeks, then I ran across this version of the novel, containing notes by Nabokov scholar, Alfred Appel, Jr. For those just tuning in to First Impressions, I am a sucker for annotations. (A quick aside: I like the trend that Dorling Kindersley started with regard to mixing text, notes, and graphics, but I was alarmed to see their initial entry into children's literature was annotating abridged novels. As much as I love annotations, I hate abridgements.) I knew that I was missing a lot of the allusions in Pale Fire, and the opportunity to read Lolita and not be quite as clueless was too good to pass up. There are three basic types of annotations: 1) explanations of uncommon terms and phrases, 2) information about the referenced person or thing, and 3) notes on the story itself. The first two I like as footnotes, the last as endnotes. Unfortunately, Appel has all the types mixed together in the back which makes it very difficult for a first time reader to enjoy the allusionary explanations yet skip the references to what occurs later in the book. It would have been better to have split the annotations into footnotes to be read with the text and endnotes for scholarly study. Even though I was often clued in to later events in the book, I thoroughly enjoyed Lolita. The first half of the book, where Humbert Humbert falls into the seductive trap that he built himself is undeniably erotic, but not pornographic. However, because the erotic object is a 12-year-old, the book does tread fine ground. If Lolita had ended at the Enchanted Hunters Motel, it would not be worth mention here. But it continues for another 200 pages, and the repercussions of both Humbert's and Lo's actions are visited upon them. Having exposed myself to several anonymous novels in my sordid past, I was able to compare Nabokov's work to those lesser authors. Although everyone's definition of pornography differs, there does seem to me an obvious difference that goes beyond the question of style or intent. A sex novel relies on a building of intensity, leading the reader from tame necking to pneumatic exercises over the course of a few pages, then rebuilding and doing it again, and again. Nabokov starts intensely and keeps the pressure high until the actual culmination over nearly 200 pages. It takes a strong libido to maintain an interest that long, even for a fast reader like myself. I'm glad I finally read Lolita, and I expect that you will see more comments on Nabokov in this space.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: Book took over a month to arrive and was in poor conditon
Rating:
Summary: Still ahead of its time
Review: Some observations on this, one of the great novels of the twentieth century: Shakespeare's Juliet was 13-years-old, but Nabokov's Lolita was 12. The so-called "shocking" and "perverse" nature of the sexuality that Nabokov explores is lost if the nymphet is a sexually mature teenager. Incidentally, by the time they are wheeling across the country, Lolita apparently gains sexually maturity, as evidenced from the first sentence of Chapter 33, Part One which reads: "In the gay town of Lepingville I bought her four books of comics, a box of candy, a box of sanitary pads...." Humbert's sexuality is actually a strategy in the evolutionary game. Instead of waiting until the female is sexually mature, the Humbert Humberts of the world pre-select their little darlings so that they are already in position, so to speak, when she reaches sexual maturity. Society, of course, cannot buy this. Its abhorrence is but one of the myriad taboos it concocts to protect itself from the evolutionary mechanism, a mechanism that cares not at all what society thinks, thumbing its nose, so to speak, at all societies and their ephemeral prejudices. Among the most chilling sentences in the novel are these at the end of Part One after Lolita learns that her mother is dead. Humbert narrates: "At the hotel we had separate rooms, but in the middle of the night she came sobbing into mine, and we made it up very gently. You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go." Also chilling is this from Lolita (half in jest, half in bitter revelation) the morning after their first night together: "You chump...You revolting creature. I was a daisy-fresh girl, and look what you've done to me. I ought to call the police and tell them you raped me. Oh, you dirty, dirty old man." As a literary artist, Nabokov might be compared with Anthony Burgess. Both are strikingly original stylists and gifted masters of the language, and both had one very popular novel that made them famous (which of course neither thought was his best work), and both have written many erudite and precious volumes. Although I usually find Burgess's style a little too dense for me, his A Clockwork Orange was excellent. Also both Lolita and A Clockwork Orange were made into movies directed by Stanley Kubrick. While one might imagine that women, especially feminists, would positively despise Lolita, it ain't necessarily so. I know one feminist English prof who teaches it at the university level. Understandably they emphasize the depravity of Humbert and his virtual enslavement of Lolita. But those women who do resist the novel do so because the story reveals a disagreeable fact of human sexuality they would prefer to forget, namely that for most males, youth itself is a supreme value in the old sex game. By the same token most young men do not like to see aging rockers or graying Richard Gere types or fat Hollywood producers walking off with beautiful starlets. Although Lolita was (and is) ahead of its time, it is necessarily a "fiction" with the central character necessarily an "antihero" for the sake of the prejudices of society. Nonetheless, one of Nabokov's motivations in writing "Lolita" was to show that, however strongly society condemned their love it was a real expression of human sexuality and not a Freudian type "perversion." (Nabokov despised Freud and considered psychoanalysis a "racket.") Unfortunately (but understandably!) he was not able to overcome the taboo himself and come out of the closet. (If indeed he was in the closet.) Additionally, he discovered, I suspect, in writing the novel that not only would society (and his readership) accept only a tragic version of the story, but that inevitably, given the mores of society, such a version was the only one possible. To write the story with a happy ending, with Humbert the proud father paying for the wedding, perhaps, and sending his little love off to middle class banality with some "Dick Schiller" was unthinkable artistically and psychologically. Indeed, it would have been the common place resolution of the usual "family affair." By the way, Nabokov wrote a precursor of Lolita, a rather longish short story entitled "The Enchanter" which was eventually published in English. "The Enchanter" is interesting but doesn't have the delicious ironic humor or anything like the scope of Lolita. The edition with annotations by "Alfred Appel Jr." adds to the enjoyment of the novel if you tend to the pedantic. Most of the French phrases are translated. Be aware however that "Alfred Appel Jr." is really Vladimir Nabokov himself in pseudonym!
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Complexities
Review: I could read this book many times and never fully understand it, but this edition helped me come to at least a partial understanding with all the helpful notes in the back. I wouldn't call this story beautiful, because I can't call a love-lust story between an old man and a teenager beautiful when it wasn't something they both wanted. However, the book is well written and I like Nabokov's style. I also liked comparing H.H. to Poe.
Rating: 
Summary: Alfred Appel's Annotations Are Appalling
Review: Perhaps appalling is too strong a word. In fact it quite clearly is. But that's what I felt whenever I had just put the book down. Imagine reading a detective novel where every significant clue in the book was tagged with a little asterisk in the margin. That's what happened when I read Lolita, in this volume, for the first time. An envelope is half-mentioned on a table and Appel immediately chimes in with "look, its a letter from Quilty" - uh-huh, thanks for that, shut up, I'm trying to enjoy this movie. I would also have to agree with Theodore Shulman's complaint that many of the annotations are just french translation. The "I'm only explaining this because you probably don't understand the culture way back then, and thus will miss the subtleties" smacked of someone telling a joke, then having to explain the punch line, and wondering why I'm not rolling on the floor laughing - if the cultural reference hasn't survived till today, then frankly the allusion is not worthy of note today either, except perhaps in the most ridiculously scholarly tomes. I would also question the inclusion of annotations that suggest an allusion, but then explain that, in discussion, Nabokov didn't agree. By all means Appel is entitled to read whatever he likes into what he's annotating, and share *his* opinion of what a cigar is. But please don't say "isn't this allusion stunning" when in a number of cases even Nabokov didn't know it was there. Frankly, if I hadn't read Pale Fire first, this edition of Lolita would have killed Nabokov for me.
Rating:
Summary: Buy it.
Review: "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins, my sin, my soul, my Lolita." If there's such a thing as a "top ten" for 20th century lit, this book easily makes the cut. Appel's annotations are judicious and informative-- he's a wit in his own right, and his love for Nabokov (a former professor) is evident. This is the version to read-- Nabokov's genius and Appel's diligence meld nicely to enhance an already great work.
Rating:
Summary: the ultimate road novel
Review: Full disclosure: I credit "Lolita" with turning me into the lit geek recovering English major type that I am today. Read it when I was eighteen; got sucked in on the first page by the haunting echoes of Edgar Allen Poe. No mere mortal should be able to perform the tricks with the English language that Nabokov got away with in this book. Get the annotated edition. On a first reading it's more fun to puzzle things out for yourself, but when you go back (and you will) Appel's notes will show you everything you missed the first time around. Much has been made over the supposedly pornographic nature of this book. Far more fascinating to me is its hilarious depiction of all that was middlebrow tacky in postwar American pop culture -- particularly tourist culture. Screw "On the Road." "Lolita" is the ultimate road novel.
Rating:
Summary: must have
Review: Buy this book. Appels annotation doesn't only explain the book, but also show's you how to read.
Rating:
Summary: Magical Reading
Review: Ah! Lolita! Magical words, enchanting reading, literary treat, intellectual marvel, this Lolita! Yes, also morally depraved, socially shocking etc etc. But so what? The annotated version shed light and connected things that someone like me would have had no way of knowing about. Thus making a great book greater. This book is not just for the bibliophile or the pervert. This book is for anyone with a love for literature and language.
Rating:
Summary: Get the annotated version!
Review: Lolita is a great book on the surface, but when you delve into the hidden meanings as The Annotated Lolita does, it is an unbelievable book! Alfred Appel was actually my professor last year and he is not only a leading Nabokov expert, he also knew Nabokov personally. His annotations are essential to this book - it is so dense and complicated that you will miss out on a masterpiece if you ignore them. Nabokov is a genius when it comes to using the English language - he not only tells a good story, he tells it exceptionally well. It's amazing. P.S. Don't be deterred by the common misperceptions of this book. It's about a lot more than what you've probably heard.
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