Name: Lolita
Rating: 3.843488372093023 (1075 reviews)

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

A novel that studies the moral disintegration of a man whose obsessive desire to possess his step-daughter destroys the lives of those around him

Lolita

Vladimir Nabokov

Ariana Wertheimer

there is nothing i could say here that hasn't already been said. not his best but a classic for a reason, ofc

the prose was perfect literally the best display of mastery over the english language ever. it was terrifying in a way that how such awful actions could be communicated so eloquently and deceptively.

Ahmer Nadeem

Silvia Guerra

Greg Talbot

“There are gentle souls who pronounce Lolita meaningless because it does not teach them anything. I am neither a reader nor writer of didactic fiction..Lolita has no moral in tow. For me, a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss.” - Vladimir Nabokov (on evaluating his novel). From the opening exaltation, Nabokov keeps his key in palm, building a world of impulse, throb, sensuality and bliss. Through the lens of a charming and diabolical narrator, Humbert Humbert (H.H.) the book charts a course in two parts. Humbert’s mad quest for the nymphet he calls Lolita, a 12 year old girl that he madly falls in love with. And the second part, a furtive and anxious trip across America, where our narrator heightens his emotional states, and begins to unwind mentally. On my third reading of Lolita, what I appreciated so much is Nabokov’s parody of so many other European writers. Yale academic Andrew Goldstone (<a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPnxLNFzA8s&amp;t=882s" rel="nofollow noopener">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPnxL...</a>) has a great lecture on this. In his lecture he explains how Nabokov parodies literary sensualist Proust, and the indefatigable work of Joyce. Throughout the book though, Nabokov uses references from Greek mythology, fairy tales, Goethe, Cervantes and perverts for more sly jokes, often turning their seriousness into silliness. Although I don’t read a lot of fiction, I have rarely come across a fiction work that just bleeds with beautiful sentences. Imagery, sentence structure, playful word pairings, coyness between the author and the writer. And yet, like most readers, I feel revulsion. When you consider the disgusting underbelly of the subject matter. For Nabokov to write a best seller, and share a story with so much darkness and perversion, and take away moral clarity...well it sort of feels like a big joke to what many of us want from art - honesty, clarity, truth. For all it’s jokes, irreverence toward writers of his generation and traditional values, Lolita is a masterpiece in challenging the reader to separate the art from the truth. There are moments where our narrator shows his hands, alludes to his corruption, alludes to murder, kidnapping and other perversions. We are under his cloud of bliss for a good portion of the novel, but any astute reader can discern a truth. Truth isn’t relative...only the most emotionally immature would buy into H.H.’s evil selfishness and disregard to all the emotional and physical damage he does to the world. Truth and art can be separated...and though they are enmeshed in the novel at times, an astute reader should be able to look past the manipulations of language, deceptions of the charming world, and an artificial narrator Morality is to be found between the words, caught by the reader’s eye, with the ability to appreciate beautiful prose and the good morals to condemn a man who has chosen to follow gross and base instincts. For those brave enough to buy the ticket, the ride is worth every penny.

Tim Pendry

I put off 'Lolita' for many decades. Perhaps it is because a Humbert Humbert (my variant now dead) existed in the first half of my existence on this planet. Every attempt to bring this real HH to book for his crimes against others or to recognise his crimes as crimes failed for reasons out of my control. My variant was not quite as 'bad' as HH but only because he predated in Epstein territory rather than with 12 year old children (I hope) but that is bad enough. Nabokov goes to the extreme in 'Lolita' to elucidate an 'actuality' about male desire not to moralise. It is for us, not the book, to be moral. Whatever the reason, I have read it now. It is a paradox - an extremely entertaining, witty and exceptionally well written book with many laugh out loud moments that still manages to leave a persistent bad taste in the mouth. It is utterly brilliant literature. An undoubted work of genius. Humbert Humbert, as what has become an even greater figure of collective loathing since the book was published in 1955, is a predatory psychopathic paedophile and a famously 'unreliable narrator'. This leaves little room for moralism (a problem for many twenty first century minds). The law and morality could be clear but both law and morality often preferred not to enquire too deeply. The main issue for a predator is not to be good or legal but not to be caught acting illegally or amorally. Manipulative and predatory paedophiles become adept at this. Much of the book is certainly about the devious business of making sure that predation is done but never seen to be done. HH steers himself into a fatherly position towards Lolita with the accidental death of her mother. This becomes his ultimate legal cover for his private atrocities. As in 'real life', the child is held in place by gifts and charm but also through fear of what may happen to her if something were to happen to him like exposure and arrest. And, of course, there is the insistent claim of the predator that all is good because he 'loves' her. 'Love' is possession for gratification and control tempered by habitual concern and care. The latter is seized upon as the justification for the former. Nabokov delivers a remarkable account of the sexual dynamics of abuse that I have observed myself albeit at a distance and in retrospect. However, HH's quasi-redemptive appreciation at one point of the harm he has done is utter nonsense. Abusive paedophile predators genuinely believe they do no harm. Any guilt is performative. They are more concerned to evade shame. They cannot help themselves. They are always 'right'. This sole lapse shows a flaw in Nabokov's genius, a determination to come up with the right literary answer instead of a true one. Nevertheless, there is, in general, no better account outside psychological literature of the self-delusions, cunning and malignancy of the weak predator. Much of the book is a road trip as Humbert Humbert travels from lodging place to lodging place across America with his 'nymphet' (Dolores Hayes aka Lolita). This gives Nabokov the opportunity to offer a wry commentary on the US from the vantage point of the minor European intellectual. Nabokov, expatriate Russian noble, with perhaps a rather distant view of the norms of the culture in which he was to be lionised, also developed an unparalleled ability to observe and reproduce the habits, environment and language of post war America. Is it an 'erotic novel'? There is much debate about this amongst 'litterateurs'. It certainly has a very few moments of surprisingly explicit and uncomfortably honeyed accounts of the rape of a 12 year old girl and of lustful male gaze at young girls ('nymphets') in general. This feels grimly authentic. But these are just moments. The bulk of a very long book is an exploration of the mind of the self-absorbed perpetrator in whose eyes we see other people, including the ultimately sad but resilient figure of the sanctified Lola who is only adopting survival tactics that blow up eventually in HH's face. Nabokov does not shy away from the complexity of Lolita's own sexuality and it is rather disturbing that some commentators think that this mitigates HH in some way. This falls into the trap of taking our unreliable narrator's world view at face value. An even more unpleasant character (if that were possible) appears towards the end. This with the daft redemptive aspect (which does not last long) seems to have deluded a few literary types into having some 'simpatico' with the monster. It perhaps tells us something about literature as morality. Humbert is the minor intellectual's intellectual, quoting French poets in the original, offering sardonic commentary on the pretensions of even more lightweight characters. He is, above all, self-absorbed. Perhaps some commentators are not getting the cruel satire of themselves. The 'erotic aspect' is simply that the book is about 'eros' (desire and its obsessive blindness to the actuality of the objects of desire). HH's indirect seduction of a few intellectuals strikes this reader as simply an indication of the inherent moral inadequacy and erotic confusions of such men. As always, we have to remember time and place. Today, our understanding of the harms of child sexual exploitation is central to our social self-image but it was not always thus. Indeed, Nabokov himself pointed out that teen-type 'relationships' were observable as a norm at that time. He went on to point out what should be obvious. HH is not having sex with teenagers. On the contrary, HH is not attracted to any girl over 14. Lolita is 12 when the rape starts. HH is a child rapist. He is true monster. We can say that as 'unreliable narrator' HH is evasive even in his admissions. Since the 1950s, we have tended to elide the difference between children and teenagers, infantilising the latter while we expect too much sometimes of the former but there is still a difference in sexuality between those under 15 and over 15. We really do have to keep in mind the excess of horror in HH. This is not the place to try and unravel issues of sexual exploitation which relate to other issues of the autonomy and development of young people (right up to 24), imbalances of power, the strength of desire, adult immaturity and social norms. Knife-wielding sexual predators from foreign parts and gangsters can be deemed children as can self-possessed young women exploring their sexuality but HH's victims really are very very young. Today we elide the young into children but then children could be elided into the 'young'. It cannot be said that Nabokov justifies HH (quite the contrary and, if he did, he would not be publishable at all today) but merely observes with a ruthless, witty and critical eye what actually 'is' in the world. His HH is a caricature closer to Hannibal Lecter than to any character in a realist novel. Whilst driving it in an extreme direction, the author 'gets' male sexual obsession at its most self-defeating, as self-justificatory absurdity. HH's constant literary and old world nostalgic references construct a dream world of how things should be to the obsessive and then makes it 'actual'. It is deservedly a classic but I have a tip. Much as I recommended Joyce's 'Ulysses' as a drama read by a cast from RTE (Ireland) in preference to reading the text, I recommend digging out Jeremy Irons' brilliant audio book reading. His elegant tones capture perfectly the narcissism of HH. Could it be published today? It is re-published today because of its exceptional literary quality and sufficient ambiguity but I suspect culturally nervous publishers would have found an excuse to bury it rather than face the outrage in the age of Epstein. I am glad it is available because Nabokov has brought something into the open where it can be inspected. Driven underground, the desires of a Humbert Humbert are not destroyed but fester and always find ways to work any system that fails to recognise his type as a problem to be solved. And it is great literature much as De Sade's 'Justine' is good literature. Literature is just writing, that is all. It is not a moral enterprise. Life is a moral enterprise or, rather, an ethical one. Anything that takes us out of our comfort zone and forces us to think has value in that context.

Dani

Una historia que se podría haber contado en la mitad de páginas. Capítulos completamente innecesarios que no aportan a la trama. A punto de dejar el libro varias veces y me sigue pareciendo que he perdido un poco el tiempo. A parte, parece que a los rusos les pega fuerte el vodka desde pequeños dejando sus consecuentes secuelas, proporcionándonos así historias poco comunes.

'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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Lolita

Reviews

Highlights