Vladimir Nabokov

Francesc Roca

Lolita

'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♡︎

Nina Alexandra Bacrau

Found on my bookshelf after getting it during the middle school library sale bc it was a really nice hardcover and never touching it again till now. Nabokov’s afterword dissecting his own prose was superb and recontextualized a lot of the book for me. 

Beyaz Irktan Dul Bir Erkegin Itiraflari

Arzular söz konusu olduğunda ahlakın nasıl eğilip bükülebileceğini, kişinin kendisine bile ne yalanlar söyleyebileceğini harika bir dil ve eşsiz bir tarz ile okusam da yer yer sayfaları yırtmak istediğimi ifade etmeliyim.

Cemrenur Solakoğlu

Nabokov says in his essay about writing Lolita that for him "a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss." If I take him at his word, I'll say he did it, if there is a true achievement here, it's the way the writing takes you to a place, a moment, a feeling. In the first part of the book, those feelings and moments did come with a wave of disgust that made it really hard to keep reading. I admit that if I had begun without previous knowledge about Lolita I might have given up. Nabokov does a great job depicting a very specific USA and a very specific way of travelling through the USA. His language play is clearly very intentional and works with the moments and characters really well. I read a portuguese translation by Margarida Vale de Gato and she must have done a great job because somehow it comes through.

That Nabokov did not give any value to didactic or moralizing literature adds a perspective on Lolita as an intentional work that is quite hard to pinpoint. Did the author intend for us to feel things while reading about a child abuser, not wanting to atribute any moral value to what he says or does? Did he think it was possible for most readers to go through this, surf through the amazingly well described moments when Humbert is "lovingly" watching a twelve year old girl and not react viscerally, emotionally and with those, morally? I find that baffling. I'd understand Nabokov better if he'd stated he wanted precisely to imagine the perspective of a pederast. But I'm just one reader of many, wondering about authorial intent on the hardest book to do so.

Ignoring now what Nabokov stated as his intentions or artistic values, I do have to say that it was incredibly well conceived. The way the narrator describes what you presume are his rationalizations and biased interpretations of a girl's behaviour makes your mind work. The way Humbert describes his own actions and feelings, the contrast between accepting he is sick and still considering himself a man in love, manipulated and betrayed by the object of his love, is sometimes overwhelmingly unnerving. That is, I must say, a testament to the power of Nabokov's writing.

I disagree with Nabokov about good literature, good art, its worth and achievement. I like to learn things from a book, I like to be left pondering perspectives, biases, moralities, choices and purposes, I like to leave a book and look around with new lenses. Even when I entirely disagree with an author or the apparent intent of a book, if there's still a lesson, a new idea, or the development of a previous one, it was worth my time. I also like art that is in and of itself an aesthetic experience and nothing more. The thing is, I often feel like I still learn something, about existence, about reality, about myself, when I go through those experiences. I live those experiences. Lolita was such a book, whether the author wanted it to be or not.

For those who have never read Lolita and are considering picking it up, I'd say the writing technique is great, the plot is fine but well told and developed, the "view" from the mind of a paedophile and abuser is well constructed, explored and thought-provoking if one can engage with it. If you think you can withstand the theme, it is a great book. Is it inescapable, an obligatory reference? No, I wouldn't say so. If you think you can't deal with this perspective or this theme, I'd say you should leave it to a later moment in life. To some of us, this moment may never arrive, and that's perfectly ok, obviously.

I don't know yet if I'll read more Nabokov, but I'll probably do so in a few years, away from the shadow of Lolita, to try to enjoy his purported "aesthetic bliss" on some other context.

André Nóbrega

Nabokov says in his essay about writing Lolita that for him "a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss." If I take him at his word, I'll say he did it, if there is a true achievement here, it's the way the writing takes you to a place, a moment, a feeling. In the first part of the book, those feelings and moments did come with a wave of disgust that made it really hard to keep reading. I admit that if I had begun without previous knowledge about Lolita I might have given up. Nabokov does a great job depicting a very specific USA and a very specific way of travelling through the USA. His language play is clearly very intentional and works with the moments and characters really well. I read a portuguese translation by Margarida Vale de Gato and she must have done a great job because somehow it comes through.
That Nabokov did not give any value to didactic or moralizing literature adds a perspective on Lolita as an intentional work that is quite hard to pinpoint. Did the author intend for us to feel things while reading about a child abuser, not wanting to atribute any moral value to what he says or does? Did he think it was possible for most readers to go through this, surf through the amazingly well described moments when Humbert is "lovingly" watching a twelve year old girl and not react viscerally, emotionally and with those, morally? I find that baffling. I'd understand Nabokov better if he'd stated he wanted precisely to imagine the perspective of a pederast. But I'm just one reader of many, wondering about authorial intent on the hardest book to do so.
Ignoring now what Nabokov stated as his intentions or artistic values, I do have to say that it was incredibly well conceived. The way the narrator describes what you presume are his rationalizations and biased interpretations of a girl's behaviour makes your mind work. The way Humbert describes his own actions and feelings, the contrast between accepting he is sick and still considering himself a man in love, manipulated and betrayed by the object of his love, is sometimes overwhelmingly unnerving. That is, I must say, a testament to the power of Nabokov's writing.
I disagree with Nabokov about good literature, good art, its worth and achievement. I like to learn things from a book, I like to be left pondering perspectives, biases, moralities, choices and purposes, I like to leave a book and look around with new lenses. Even when I entirely disagree with an author or the apparent intent of a book, if there's still a lesson, a new idea, or the development of a previous one, it was worth my time. I also like art that is in and of itself an aesthetic experience and nothing more. The thing is, I often feel like I still learn something, about existence, about reality, about myself, when I go through those experiences. I live those experiences. Lolita was such a book, whether the author wanted it to be or not.

For those who have never read Lolita and are considering picking it up, I'd say the writing technique is great, the plot is fine but well told and developed, the "view" from the mind of a paedophile and abuser is well constructed, explored and thought-provoking if one can engage with it. If you think you can withstand the theme, it is a great book. Is it inescapable, an obligatory reference? No, I wouldn't say so. If you think you can't deal with this perspective or this theme, I'd say you should leave it to a later moment in life. To some of us, this moment may never arrive, and that's perfectly ok, obviously.
I don't know yet if I'll read more Nabokov, but I'll probably do so in a few years, away from the shadow of Lolita, to try to enjoy his purported "aesthetic bliss" on some other context.

Santiago Alejandro Crime

vladimir nabokov’s lolita is one of those rare books that stays with you long after you’ve finished it. i read this 2 years ago but its exploration of obsession, manipulation, and morality still continues to provoke thoughts in my head. it’s a book that lingers in your mind, both for its literary excellence and the discomfort it evokes. the way its written contrasts starkly with the darkness of the story, making it both beautiful and disturbing.

aahir

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.

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

Lolita

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