Vladimir Vladimirovič Nabokov

Lolita

Vladimir Nabokov

'Lolita is comedy, subversive yet divine ... You read Lolita sprawling limply in your chair, ravished, overcome, nodding scandalized assent' Martin Amis, Observer Poet and pervert, Humbert Humbert becomes obsessed by twelve-year-old Lolita and seeks to possess her, first carnally and then artistically, out of love, 'to fix once for all the perilous magic of nymphets'. Is he in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert? A tortured soul or a monster? Or is he all of these? Humbert Humbert's seduction is one of many dimensions in Nabokov's dizzying masterpiece, which is suffused with a savage humour and rich, elaborate verbal textures. Filmed by Stanley Kubrick in 1962 starring James Mason and Peter Sellers, and again in 1997 by Adrian Lyne starring Jeremy Irons and Melanie Griffith, Lolita has lost none of its power to shock and awe.

For me a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm.

It is strange that the tactile sense, which is so infinitely less precious to men than sight, becomes at critical moments our main, if not only, handle to reality. I was all covered with Quilty - the feel of that tumble before the bleeding.

And I have still other smothered memories, now unfolding themselves into limbless monsters of pain.

Solitude was corrupting me. I needed company and care. My heart was a hysterical unreliable organ.

But who would upset such a lucid dear? Did I ever mention that her bare arm bore the 8 of vaccination? That I loved her hopelessly? That she was only fourteen?

There was another thing, too: moth holes had appeared in the plush of matrimonial comfort.

Stas

since I had disregarded all laws of humanity, I might as well disregard the regarded rules of traffic. So I crossed to the left side of the highway and checked the feeling, and the feeling was good.

By permitting Lolita to study acting I had, fond fool, suffered her to cultivate deceit. It now appeared that it had not been merely a matter of learning the answers to such questions as what is the basic conflict in "Hedda Gabler," or where are the climaxes in "Love Under the Lindens," or analyze the prevailing mood of "Cherry Orchard"; it was really a matter of learning to betray me.

I am going to tell you something very strange: it was she who seduced me.

im going insane, losing my mind, throwing up, ripping my hair out

This daily headache in the opaque air of this tombal jail is disturbing, but I must persevere. Have written more than a hundred pages and not got anywhere yet. My calendar is getting confused. That must have been around August 15, 1947. Don't think I can go on. Heart, head - everything. Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita. Repeat till the page is full, printer.

he really said «mhh akshually☝🏻🤓»

anyways i really love the writing and how Hubert is so adamant on convincing the reader about his ideas, like he’s trying to justify what he’s doing (which is objectively bad things)

Let me remind my reader that in England, with the passage of the Children and Young Person Act in 1933, `the term "girl-child" is defined as a girl who is over eight but under fourteen years" (after that, from fourteen to seventeen, the statutory definition is "young person").

L. J.

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. 

She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.

Viper

Most of the dandelions had changed from suns to moons. 

raia – inactive

I stood listening to that musical vibration from my lofty slope, to those flashes of separate cries with a kind of demure murmur for background, and then I knew that the hopelessly poignant thing was not Lolita’s absence from my side, but the absence of her voice from that concord.

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.

aquarius ♒️

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins

9-14 is his age range for sexual partners?!?! at 30 something?!?!?!

Brooke Barnett

It will be marked that I substitute time terms for spatial ones. In fact, I would have the reader see “nine” and “fourteen” as the boundariesthe mirrory beaches and rosy rocksof an enchanted island haunted by those nymphets of mine and surrounded by a vast, misty sea. Between those age limits, are all girl-children nymphets? Of course not. Otherwise, we who are in the know, we lone voyagers, we nympholepts, would have long gone insane. Neither are good looks any criterion; and vulgarity, or at least what a given community terms so, does not necessarily impair certain mysterious characteristics, the fey grace, the elusive, shifty, soul-shattering, insidious charm that separates the nymphet from such coevals of hers as are incomparably more dependent on the spatial world of synchronous phenomena than on that intangible island of entranced time where Lolita plays with her likes. Within the same age limits the number of true nymphets is trickingly inferior to that of provisionally plain, or just nice, or “cute,” or even “sweet” and “attractive,” ordinary, plumpish, formless, cold-skinned, essentially human little girls, with tummies and pigtails, who may or may not turn into adults of great beauty.

Lorainne Centeno

You are proud of sexually assaulting a child? 

I felt proud of myself. I had stolen the honey of a spasm without impairing the morals of a minor.

Why does the way she walks - a child, a mere child!- excite me so abominably?

I can't tell if he knows he's a piece of shit and it's trying not to be or if he knows and doesn't care.

.. if not to purge myself of my degrading and dangerous desires, at least to keep them under pacific control.

Let them play around me forever. Never grow up.

Vladimir V. Nabokov

yunaida canteli♡︎

Cate

wow i want to have his mind, his brain, his knowledge EVERYTHING !! what a language master!! i could cry at his writing it’s beautifully crafted, the words flow smoothly and they intricate like a poetry. he’ll make you feel a strange emotional paradox while reading lolita !! one moment u feel mesmerized by its beauty and then boom you snap back into reality and youre deeply unsettled by whats happening and you’ll think wow disgusting humbert just manipulated me and i allowed that happen just bc of his eloquent english and pretentious use of french?? it’s a cognitive dissonance 😭😭😭😭 ( i think his use of language will have a lasting impact on me (and i will never shut up about it))

This is only my second classic book, the first being an unsuccessful attempt to read 'Dracula'. The experience was certainly interesting. 

I find that the written moments of the book that I enjoyed most were the descriptions of the trip across the States. They invoked this aesthetic sense of mundanity alongside a romanticisation of these ordinary things. 

However, it is the sense of the characters a reader gets throughout the book that has caught (and kept) my attention. The complexity of the characters is astounding - it's been a long time since I read a book that has equally made me sympathetic and annoyed at all the characters the reader encounters. 

It's Lolita. The way she's encouraged to express her innocence in a situation where doing so has known consequences. It's the way some of her behaviour annoyed me due to its immature nature yet I simultaneously had to acknowledge that Lolita was a child and, therefore, it was expected (even encouraged and welcomed by Humbert). It's Lolita's acknowledgment of her situation and the undertone of the implied scenes. It's Dolly Schiller and her attitude towards Humbert at the very end. All of these form this image of a child who was doing the best she could in a no-win situation and that refused to be dragged down by traumatic experiences. 

It's Humbert. It's his manipulation tactics that suggest intelligence and cunning (traits that are usually admired) alongside his paranoia and possessive behaviour that leaves an impression of him as a pathetic character. It's the way Humbert says Lolita is his 'one true love' and the object of all his desires, while being frequently enamored with other prepubescents. It's the way I have to acknowledge his love for Lolita as being true but also as being selfish and self-absorbed. The way he accepts, at the beginning of the book, that after Lolita is no longer a 'nymphet' his desire for her will stop and yet, at the end, his desire remains. It shows Humbert as a flawed, likable-yet-not human being that is prone to self-delusion in the moment but one that has, in the writing of the book, reflected and acknowledged his actions and their consequences. 

I was bored; I was compelled; I was frustrated; I was content.

This is only my second classic book, the first being an unsuccessful attempt to read 'Dracula'. The experience was certainly interesting. 

I find that the written moments of the book that I enjoyed most were the descriptions of the trip across the States. They invoked this aesthetic sense of mundanity alongside a romanticisation of these ordinary things. 

However, it is the sense of the characters a reader gets throughout the book that has caught (and kept) my attention. The complexity of the characters is astounding - it's been a long time since I read a book that has equally made me sympathetic and annoyed at all the characters the reader encounters. 

It's Lolita. The way she's encouraged to express her innocence in a situation where doing so has known consequences. It's the way some of her behaviour annoyed me due to its immature nature yet I simultaneously had to acknowledge that Lolita was a child and, therefore, it was expected (even encouraged and welcomed by Humbert). It's Lolita's acknowledgment of her situation and the undertone of the implied scenes. It's Dolly Schiller and her attitude towards Humbert at the very end. All of these form this image of a child who was doing the best she could in a no-win situation and that refused to be dragged down by traumatic experiences. 

It's Humbert. It's his manipulation tactics that suggest intelligence and cunning (traits that are usually admired) alongside his paranoia and possessive behaviour that leaves an impression of him as a pathetic character. It's the way Humbert says Lolita is his 'one true love' and the object of all his desires, while being frequently enamored with other prepubescents. It's the way I have to acknowledge his love for Lolita as being true but also as being selfish and self-absorbed. The way he accepts, at the beginning of the book, that after Lolita is no longer a 'nymphet' his desire for her will stop and yet, at the end, his desire remains. It shows Humbert as a flawed, likable-yet-not human being that is prone to self-delusion in the moment but one that has, in the writing of the book, reflected and acknowledged his actions and their consequences. 

I was bored; I was compelled; I was frustrated; I was content.

emmy 

The book Lolita is a profoundly unsettling exploration of human depravity and moral ambiguity that earns its place as a literary classic. Despite my revulsion towards Humbert Humbert's despicable actions and manipulation of Dolores Haze, or Lolita, Nabokov's masterful prose captivated me from start to finish. Dolores deserved far better than the fate Humbert imposed upon her, and his character left me grappling with the complexities of morality and the nature of obsession. Nabokov's ability to evoke such visceral reactions while probing the depths of human psychology is a testament to his literary prowess.

Anna 

** spoiler alert **
           u lolity jsem se hodně bála toho, zda mi u čtení nebude špatně a jestli jí vůbec dokážu dočíst. je to ostatně jedna z nejvíc kontroverzních knih na světě. naštěstí mě ale příjemně překvapila. příběh vypráví o naší hlavní postavě humbertu humbertovi, který odjíždí do ameriky a tam nachází dvanáctiletou dolores haze, do které se na první pohled zamiluje.
tak zaprvé; očekávejte, že humbert není sympatická postava. je to postava, která je naschvál napsaná tak, aby se vám co možná nejvíce hnusila. a myslím, že nabokov tento účel splnil. celá kniha je o vztahu humberta a lolity, takže pokud vám toto téma nedělá dobře, knize se vyhněte.
lolita je velice 'filozoficky' napsaná kniha, takže čekejte, že mezi dějem vám hlavní postava bude 6 stran filozofovat nebo do nejmenšího detailu popisovat jakékoli maličkosti. dá se to ale přežít.
teď se konečně dostávám k mým pocitům; tahle kniha se mi líbila! humbert byl zajímavá postava, i když jsem ho nesnášela. měl v sobě šarm, díky kterému mu celá ta věc s lolitou prostě a jednoduše procházela. hodně lidí si myslí, že nabokov je vpodstatě humbert, protože proč by jinak psal o něčem tak odporném, jako je pedofilie. když ale začnete dávat při čtení pozor na detaily, všimnete si, že sám autor se své postavě vysmívá. popis jeho přemýšlení je prostě místy tak absurdní, že se musíte sami pro sebe usmát a poděkovat nabokovovi za odlehčení situace. zároveň je humbert ten typ vypravěče, kterému nesmíte věřit.
měla jsem třeba problém s lolitou - je vyzívavá, takže co když měla na celé té věci nějaký podíl? ne. i když je v knize napsáno, že lolita svedla humberta jako první, nesmíme zapomínat na to, že humbert říká to, co říkat chce. vždyť ta kniha je něco jako deníkové zápisky.
asi se v tom už ztrácím, takže to zkrátím; rozhodně to za přečtení stojí. když prohlédnete za oponu a snažíte se v tom cítit to, co cítil autor, když knihu psal, stane se z toho úplně jiný zážitek. zkuste si chování lolity vyložit vícero způsoby (s tím mi hodně pomohla filmová adaptace, tu také doporučuji) a budete překvapeni, čeho všeho si všimnete navíc. 
.
4*/5*, byla jsem až překvapena, jak se mi tato klasika líbila.

Chris Dailey

300 pages of poetry - even if the words are ramblings of a definite pedophile and likely schizophrenic - is still poetry. The classic novel that causes folks to stare whilst reading in public lived up to hype. Frenetic, manic writing that does not cease until the last page as our anti-hero and unreliable narrator details every emotion and desire he has for the nymphet Lolita (actually Dolores). Grippingly sad and disturbing, it is as if you've entered the mind of someone you don't want to know. Love, lust, lying, abuse, abduction and Americana all play a role as Lo and Hubert crisscross the county. Remarkable and revolting all at once.

Sohini Roy

part one was really engaging, but i felt as though part two had a lot of unnecessary detail that went over my head, until the very end. but it is beautiful prose

'Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta- the tip of my tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.'Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, frustrated college professor. In love with his landlady's twelve-year-old daughter Lolita, he'll do anything to possess her. Unable and unwilling to stop himself, he is prepared to commit any crime to get what he wants. Is he in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert? A tortured soul or a monster? Or is he all of these? 'A masterpiece. One of the great works of art of our age' Independent

Louisa

I don't know how to express my thoughts about this book without being tiringly unoriginal: repellent narrator and story, but the -in my understanding- intentionally mannered and overwrought prose is so astoundingly executed, consistently multilayered, allusive, and punning, for the duration of the novel. The only problem with reading the book (other than the mild nausea that naturally accompanies you throughout the journey) is that I now find my inability to write correct, remotely non-repulsive sentences in English, insufferable.

lolita is one of those books I can not see myself finishing, not because I find it boring but due to how disturbing and disgusting humbert is. I could barely get past page 88.. I hope one day I'll be able to pick it up again.

cain

Amelia C 

had to read this in college for a "women in film and literature class".. and i found i have a love-hate relationship with the book, and its characters....

Unfortunately, a stunning novel. The most disturbingly entrancing literature I’ve ever read.

i want to throw up, rip the skin off my body, tear the ears off my head, gauge my eyes out of my skull, and never read another book again, i hated this so much it was absolutely wonderful

wat can I say.  a rite of passage. LAWLS!!!!! 2nd time reading. watched the jeremy irons version ♥*♡∞:｡.｡

saleha

Colton Ray

A very conflicting book. Some parts were interesting, but much of it was interminably boring. I did appreciate the theme of how we are capable of building someone up in our minds to heights that they can never achieve and then becoming disillusioned when they don't live up to the fantasy we had concocted. Unfortunately, once the actual plot of the book starts, you realize that neither the narrator nor Lolita are pleasant company, but you're stuck with them in a hot car as they travel across the country, taking zero interest in anything except their own personal miseries. Not pleasant reading, not something I will ever read again, but still worth the time.

Sarah Sammis

A deliciously twisted roadtrip through American culture.

Is it a sin to genuinely enjoy every single word about male-gaze pedophilia towards someone's daughter? Seperate the fiction and reality, kid. Blown everyone's mind.

madreadz⟢

Brilliant and disturbing. This book actually took me forever to finish bc I first picked it up as a teenager and I lost interest in it for a while thinking it was a daunting, classic read. But the fact that I just finished reading this as an adult made me immerse myself in this writing that simply sucked me in for what it offered. Humbert’s narration is unreliable but Nabokov’s writing is scarily good at convincing me as a reader that somehow, Lolita had a role in his perverse decisions. Sick, scandalous and spectacular!

lily

pas une histoire d'amour, mais une histoire d'obsession

Kendall McClain

Incredibly messed up narrative that is crazily romanticized, the only good thing is the writing style which is beautiful

jack

amazing ending. bit of a drag in the middle though. good throughout but not as revelatory as i was hoping

Cait🪼

it's taken me a long time to get round to writing a review for Lolita, primarily because I wanted to convey the multitude of emotions this novel made me experience - as uncomfortable as they were. 
I found myself pitying Humbert at times while also constantly feeling disgusted by his beliefs and actions. This juxtaposition is testament to Nabokov's skill as a writer: the ability to make a character such as Humbert so detestable, while also evoking an air of sorrow around him is admirable. Lolita is the kind of book you think about even when you aren't reading it, I certainly found myself wondering why I pitied him - perhaps it is because he didn't choose to feel this way...? 
It is easy to focus on Humbert as he is such an objectionable character, yet I feel the need to emphasise how subtly Nabokov succeeded in showing the damage that has been done to Lolita. She is the eponymous character of the book, and the effects Humbert undoubtedly had on her life (particularly psychologically) is really difficult to ignore. 

This book was uncomfortable to read, but I think that's a good thing. Sometimes it's important to read things that make one grimace, to remind yourself that this can be a reality. I still don't really know how I feel about this novel a few months on, but I doubt I ever really will. What I do know is that I will be recommending this book to pretty much everyone - just be mindful of the very obvious triggers.

'There's no funnier monster in modern literature than poor, doomed Humbert Humbert' Independent Humbert Humbert - scholar, aesthete and romantic - has fallen completely and utterly in love with Lolita Haze, his landlady's gum-snapping, silky-skinned twelve-year-old daughter. Reluctantly agreeing to marry Mrs Haze just to be close to Lolita, Humbert suffers viciously in the pursuit of romance; but when Lo herself starts looking for attention elsewhere, he will carry her off on a desperate cross-country misadventure, all in the name of Love. Savagely hilarious, flamboyant, heart-breaking and full of ingenious word play, Lolita is an immaculate, unforgettable masterpiece of obsession, delusion and lust.

Annika Arguemore

Was too disturbed to get into it and analyze it from a psychological standpoint. I'm sorry.

désirée

nabakov is a philosopher. this book is amazing. the effort and creativity is just tangible enough to where i often caught myself rereading sentences to feel them twice and knew exactly what he must have intended. such a humble guy too.

hileahrious

I understand to an extent the literary and culturally disruptive point of this book, however I just don’t find its existence necessary... like a whole book about a pedophile just to make a satiric point? Nah. Creepy! Nabokov’s writing is exquisite, at least. I read the whole thing thinking there would be some greater point or humor, but alas.

Lolita

Reviews

Highlights