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Lolita
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Manufacturer: Penguin Books Ltd
Author: Vladimir Nabokov
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
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Our Price:
You Save: $ 16.50 ( 100% )
Manufacturer: Penguin Books Ltd
Author: Vladimir Nabokov
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Average Customer Rating:
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Lolita Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780140264074
ISBN: 0140264078
Label: Penguin Books Ltd
Manufacturer: Penguin Books Ltd
Book Pages: 320
Publication Date: 1998-04-30
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Studio: Penguin Books Ltd
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780140264074
ISBN: 0140264078
Label: Penguin Books Ltd
Manufacturer: Penguin Books Ltd
Book Pages: 320
Publication Date: 1998-04-30
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Studio: Penguin Books Ltd
Editorial Review of Lolita
Customer Reviews of Lolita
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Sensual...interesting...
Review: When I read this book, I was surprised by the authors voice. There was a delicate beat and melody to his words. His writing was beautiful, and I felt as though I could feel everything that was happening.
It is a bit graphic, so I would recommend this for a more mature audience..young adult(18+).
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: I hated Lolita
Review: I am aware there is a difference between an author and his characters. I am aware that art does not need to plead for morality. I acknowledge Nabokov's skill as a stylist of english prose.
I hated the book after it left planet earth about half way through and orbited somewhere in Nabokov's childish brain while treating a deeply troubling theme. Lolita never became real as a character - a fatal literary, rather than psychological or moral, flaw.
I could not read it without being acutely aware that: why does L. appear not to ever grieve her mother's death? WHy does she not miss her friends? Why is she not cutting up her arms with a piece of broken glass? Why does she have so little to say? After driving around the country in a small car for a year cooped up with the H why has she long ago not throttled him and left his carcass for the vultures to feed on (road tip rage - we've all felt it)?
Where are the authorities, the police?
If HH is so gah gah over her why can he not seem to remember anything specific about her - her interests or conversations? We know plenty about what she smells like, by contrast.
Why does she not act or talk like a 14 year old but instead exactly like HH himself? WHy is she so shadowy, 2 dimensional? At one point I started to wonder if maybe L was HH's deranged hallucination or phantom - which made me slightly warm up to the book - but that doesnt seem to be Nabokov's intent at all.
All of these questions - and many more which I would have to return to the novel to remember (and I have no intention of doing that) - spoiled my 'enjoyment' of the work and interjected a draft of cold wet reality into the fun so that I lost interest.
Nabokov's stylistic brilliance was used only to serve up HH's non-stop sardonic and caustic observations on American middle class life, and they became ennervating over the long long haul. And pleading Nabokov's psychological insights doesnt help much. Is this a comedy, tragedy, psychological portrait? It fails on all those counts because it is tiresome, shallow and obtuse. But I guess I DID learn a lot about motels in middle america in the 50s.
And all the little literary games and such, and the self-serving, classless forwards and afterwards only made it worse.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Selfishness and stupidity cause more pain than evil can
Review: In the field of erotic literature, this novel has probably touched the awareness of the public more than any other, to such an extent that the once innocuous name of Lolita has become another name for youthful feminine charm and sexuality, to put it mildly.
Those are the historical facts, but what of the novel's merits? What is most definitely is not is pornographic: it doesn't contain a word of even mildly bad language, nor is it a trashy series of sex scenes featuring a girl of that name. In fact - surprise, surprise if you've never read it - Lolita doesn't even contain a girl called Lolita.
Writing in the first person, Nabakov does not directly tell the story of his famous heroine, but that of Humbert Humbert, a man obsessed with the memory of his dead childhood girlfriend, Annabel, to such an extent that his life is dominated by her loss. As his teens pass, and then his twenties, he fails to mature beyond his loss. When he meets a girl of twelve, Dolores Haze, who resembles his lost love, he attempts to posses her, body and soul, and in his obsessed mind he re-names her "Lolita." The final result is that both he and Dolores are destroyed, along with several other characters.
Is it a sad story of an unfortunately obsessed man, who should perhaps be pitied as much as condemned? No, for there is more to it than that. Is it a simple story? No, for Nabakov is not a simple writer, telling a plain story of black versus white. If he were, then Dolores would be a naïve and innocent girl, and Humbert an absolute villain.
But Nabokov is not a limited moraliser, wagging a solemn preacher's finger at a wrong-doer seeking his evil way in a world of innocence. Instead he examines the complexities of both love and lust, for Humbert finds that his hidden, furtive desire has met its mate, as he discovers that Dolores has an open, natural tendency to depravity to match his. Moreover, most of the characters that the two are in contact with are flawed, and some are so self-deceiving and tacky that the reader may be drawn into preferring Humbert's admitted lechery, and the reader, not allowed to deal easily with absolutes in a simple situation of right and wrong, is made to journey in an intriguing world of comparisons.
Whereas Dolores's nature is a mixture of easily given love and defensive cynicism - she rapidly falls in love with the handsome, exotic Frenchman - Humbert is cowardly, conceited and stupid, with a talent for bungling everything he attempts, from emotional relationships to violent crime, a failing that he does not notice.
Failing also to see that Dolores is attempting to seduce him, he seeks to trick here into a physical intimacy that she would have awarded him willingly. As his stupidity becomes more apparent, so does his indifference to the well being of others, as he accepts marries a woman he detests to gain control of Dolores, and later contemplates murdering her.
But all his desperate, bungling manoeuvres fail, until to his surprise - Dolores casually offers herself to him, after revealing that she has already had a lover.
Technically this is the climax of the novel, and here Nabokov ends the first of the two books into which it is divided. Some critics say that the latter half is too long, and I agree with them, remarking however that it may merely seem to long, due to being the record of a highly unpleasant relationship.
At about this time, the death of her mother gives Humbert total control of Dolores. He has achieved his great ambition, but he proves utterly incapable of living with his success. Dolores, sullen at the wandering life that they adopt, but entirely dependent on Humbert, strives not to regain her freedom, but for the two to lead some kind of stable life. But Humbert, living in a world of his own, composed of ecstasy and fear - he has gained Dolores, but is terrified of discovery - fails to listen to her, or realise that the actuality that he has gained is living Dolores, not imaginary Lolita.
Trapped in his conceited self-image - he is a pedantic scholar, who has produced no work of his own, but imagines himself a sophisticated artist - he fails to communicate with Dolores, or lower himself from his pretensions to her simpler, healthier attitude to life - "speak English!" as she says at one point - and he destroys what remains of her love for him.
As Dolores grows older she is able to gain more control over her affairs, and she tortures him as he has tortured her, and eventually escapes him. After several years of agonised search Humbert finds her again. Dolores, prematurely aged by hardship, is no longer the cute nymphet that he lusted for, but Humbert still loves her. He has finally achieved a maturity of sorts. He gives her a needed gift of cash, and the two part forever. Later both are destroyed by exterior forces.
However, Nabokov is not such a sentimentalist as to make Humbert's redemption complete, and it is by a further lunatic act that he causes his own end.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Read it before making up your mind about it.
Review: Psychological Journey through a man's broken mind, yes you do start to feel empathy for Humbert, however as he's an adult & educated and should know better. The book takes you into his reasoning and fight within himself. This is probably one of the most controversial books I've read and owned, I even find myself placing this book at the bottom of my bookshelf due to the fact that many people know the title and kind of what the book is about but not why it is good literature.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Fifty years old, but still a breath of fresh air
Review: Lolita is the greatest American novel i have ever read, and it was written by a guy for whom English was a third language. Nabokov masterfully seduces the reader with the florrid tongue of the monstrous Humbert Humbert. The prose is simply remarkable. The author, in his meticulously concieved English Professor persona, lays out one intricate metaphor after another, brilliant wordplay in every line. His choice of wordage is so utterly perfect that i found myself constantly thinking that i had never before heard the English language used in this way. He uses phrases so witty that i would continuously pause my reading to dissect and appreciate the craftsmanship. Perhaps, for Nabokov, imbibing the language at a mature age allowed the adoption of such exquisitely strange writing. Reading Lolita is like hearing Debussy for the first time, or viewing a painting by Picasso after being accustomed only to classical art.
Humbert Humbert is potentially the greatest literary creation of the 20th Century. He is the snake in the garden of good and evil; a vain and enigmatic character with whom you will sympathise, through no choice of your own. The book, written from his first-person perspective, will shock you, not with its own content, but with your own reaction. You will find yourself condoning, even agreeing with, Humbert's hideous actions. He is one of the most repugnant persons in literature, but you will grow to like him. That, perhaps, is the greatest genius of Nabokov's novel: it forces us to look at ourselves, and see just how much of Humbert is within.
Review Summary: Sensual...interesting...
Review: When I read this book, I was surprised by the authors voice. There was a delicate beat and melody to his words. His writing was beautiful, and I felt as though I could feel everything that was happening.
It is a bit graphic, so I would recommend this for a more mature audience..young adult(18+).
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: I hated Lolita
Review: I am aware there is a difference between an author and his characters. I am aware that art does not need to plead for morality. I acknowledge Nabokov's skill as a stylist of english prose.
I hated the book after it left planet earth about half way through and orbited somewhere in Nabokov's childish brain while treating a deeply troubling theme. Lolita never became real as a character - a fatal literary, rather than psychological or moral, flaw.
I could not read it without being acutely aware that: why does L. appear not to ever grieve her mother's death? WHy does she not miss her friends? Why is she not cutting up her arms with a piece of broken glass? Why does she have so little to say? After driving around the country in a small car for a year cooped up with the H why has she long ago not throttled him and left his carcass for the vultures to feed on (road tip rage - we've all felt it)?
Where are the authorities, the police?
If HH is so gah gah over her why can he not seem to remember anything specific about her - her interests or conversations? We know plenty about what she smells like, by contrast.
Why does she not act or talk like a 14 year old but instead exactly like HH himself? WHy is she so shadowy, 2 dimensional? At one point I started to wonder if maybe L was HH's deranged hallucination or phantom - which made me slightly warm up to the book - but that doesnt seem to be Nabokov's intent at all.
All of these questions - and many more which I would have to return to the novel to remember (and I have no intention of doing that) - spoiled my 'enjoyment' of the work and interjected a draft of cold wet reality into the fun so that I lost interest.
Nabokov's stylistic brilliance was used only to serve up HH's non-stop sardonic and caustic observations on American middle class life, and they became ennervating over the long long haul. And pleading Nabokov's psychological insights doesnt help much. Is this a comedy, tragedy, psychological portrait? It fails on all those counts because it is tiresome, shallow and obtuse. But I guess I DID learn a lot about motels in middle america in the 50s.
And all the little literary games and such, and the self-serving, classless forwards and afterwards only made it worse.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Selfishness and stupidity cause more pain than evil can
Review: In the field of erotic literature, this novel has probably touched the awareness of the public more than any other, to such an extent that the once innocuous name of Lolita has become another name for youthful feminine charm and sexuality, to put it mildly.
Those are the historical facts, but what of the novel's merits? What is most definitely is not is pornographic: it doesn't contain a word of even mildly bad language, nor is it a trashy series of sex scenes featuring a girl of that name. In fact - surprise, surprise if you've never read it - Lolita doesn't even contain a girl called Lolita.
Writing in the first person, Nabakov does not directly tell the story of his famous heroine, but that of Humbert Humbert, a man obsessed with the memory of his dead childhood girlfriend, Annabel, to such an extent that his life is dominated by her loss. As his teens pass, and then his twenties, he fails to mature beyond his loss. When he meets a girl of twelve, Dolores Haze, who resembles his lost love, he attempts to posses her, body and soul, and in his obsessed mind he re-names her "Lolita." The final result is that both he and Dolores are destroyed, along with several other characters.
Is it a sad story of an unfortunately obsessed man, who should perhaps be pitied as much as condemned? No, for there is more to it than that. Is it a simple story? No, for Nabakov is not a simple writer, telling a plain story of black versus white. If he were, then Dolores would be a naïve and innocent girl, and Humbert an absolute villain.
But Nabokov is not a limited moraliser, wagging a solemn preacher's finger at a wrong-doer seeking his evil way in a world of innocence. Instead he examines the complexities of both love and lust, for Humbert finds that his hidden, furtive desire has met its mate, as he discovers that Dolores has an open, natural tendency to depravity to match his. Moreover, most of the characters that the two are in contact with are flawed, and some are so self-deceiving and tacky that the reader may be drawn into preferring Humbert's admitted lechery, and the reader, not allowed to deal easily with absolutes in a simple situation of right and wrong, is made to journey in an intriguing world of comparisons.
Whereas Dolores's nature is a mixture of easily given love and defensive cynicism - she rapidly falls in love with the handsome, exotic Frenchman - Humbert is cowardly, conceited and stupid, with a talent for bungling everything he attempts, from emotional relationships to violent crime, a failing that he does not notice.
Failing also to see that Dolores is attempting to seduce him, he seeks to trick here into a physical intimacy that she would have awarded him willingly. As his stupidity becomes more apparent, so does his indifference to the well being of others, as he accepts marries a woman he detests to gain control of Dolores, and later contemplates murdering her.
But all his desperate, bungling manoeuvres fail, until to his surprise - Dolores casually offers herself to him, after revealing that she has already had a lover.
Technically this is the climax of the novel, and here Nabokov ends the first of the two books into which it is divided. Some critics say that the latter half is too long, and I agree with them, remarking however that it may merely seem to long, due to being the record of a highly unpleasant relationship.
At about this time, the death of her mother gives Humbert total control of Dolores. He has achieved his great ambition, but he proves utterly incapable of living with his success. Dolores, sullen at the wandering life that they adopt, but entirely dependent on Humbert, strives not to regain her freedom, but for the two to lead some kind of stable life. But Humbert, living in a world of his own, composed of ecstasy and fear - he has gained Dolores, but is terrified of discovery - fails to listen to her, or realise that the actuality that he has gained is living Dolores, not imaginary Lolita.
Trapped in his conceited self-image - he is a pedantic scholar, who has produced no work of his own, but imagines himself a sophisticated artist - he fails to communicate with Dolores, or lower himself from his pretensions to her simpler, healthier attitude to life - "speak English!" as she says at one point - and he destroys what remains of her love for him.
As Dolores grows older she is able to gain more control over her affairs, and she tortures him as he has tortured her, and eventually escapes him. After several years of agonised search Humbert finds her again. Dolores, prematurely aged by hardship, is no longer the cute nymphet that he lusted for, but Humbert still loves her. He has finally achieved a maturity of sorts. He gives her a needed gift of cash, and the two part forever. Later both are destroyed by exterior forces.
However, Nabokov is not such a sentimentalist as to make Humbert's redemption complete, and it is by a further lunatic act that he causes his own end.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Read it before making up your mind about it.
Review: Psychological Journey through a man's broken mind, yes you do start to feel empathy for Humbert, however as he's an adult & educated and should know better. The book takes you into his reasoning and fight within himself. This is probably one of the most controversial books I've read and owned, I even find myself placing this book at the bottom of my bookshelf due to the fact that many people know the title and kind of what the book is about but not why it is good literature.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Fifty years old, but still a breath of fresh air
Review: Lolita is the greatest American novel i have ever read, and it was written by a guy for whom English was a third language. Nabokov masterfully seduces the reader with the florrid tongue of the monstrous Humbert Humbert. The prose is simply remarkable. The author, in his meticulously concieved English Professor persona, lays out one intricate metaphor after another, brilliant wordplay in every line. His choice of wordage is so utterly perfect that i found myself constantly thinking that i had never before heard the English language used in this way. He uses phrases so witty that i would continuously pause my reading to dissect and appreciate the craftsmanship. Perhaps, for Nabokov, imbibing the language at a mature age allowed the adoption of such exquisitely strange writing. Reading Lolita is like hearing Debussy for the first time, or viewing a painting by Picasso after being accustomed only to classical art.
Humbert Humbert is potentially the greatest literary creation of the 20th Century. He is the snake in the garden of good and evil; a vain and enigmatic character with whom you will sympathise, through no choice of your own. The book, written from his first-person perspective, will shock you, not with its own content, but with your own reaction. You will find yourself condoning, even agreeing with, Humbert's hideous actions. He is one of the most repugnant persons in literature, but you will grow to like him. That, perhaps, is the greatest genius of Nabokov's novel: it forces us to look at ourselves, and see just how much of Humbert is within.