Disgustingly beautiful. ( )

The best opening sentences of any novel. Read the first paragraph out loud--language never felt so sublime. ( )

I read this book with the NYRB seminar led by Merve Emre. Her discussions of Nabokov, the American landscape, HH, and Lolita provided excellent elucidation into the brilliance of this novel. It is interesting to see other readers struggle between Nabokov's artistry and his story of rape and pedophilia as they try to rate this book. Is approval of Nabokov also approval of HH? ( )

Enjoyed the film with Jeremy Irons more than the book. ( )

I read this book for one reason only -- I was watching YouTube videos of various classes at Yale, and this English professor had assigned the book and was reading passages from it. And, of course, it's a famous book, though it had never interested me before. Plus, there's the book "Reading Lolita in Tehran" which was good. So, finally, I read "Lolita." And wasn't very impressed. It's not only disturbing, but it's also disjointed, and I sometimes didn't know what was happening, especially toward the end. So, not a horrible book, but not recommended either. At least I can now cross it off my list of famous books to read. (Would you call it a classic? Not sure.) ( )

В "Лолита" на Владимир Набоков не става дума за възрастен мъж, който прелъстява малко момиче, както може да си помисли човек и както всъщност е известна книгата сред тия, които не са я чели, или които не са я разбрали. За радост, сценаристът на едноименния филм от 1997 г. я е разбрал отлично, а Джеръми Айрънс е разбрал сценария отлично и така и го е изиграл.

Значи, има един тип мъже, доста широко разпространен, даже мога да кажа, че това са голяма част от мъжете, които са интелектуални льольовци, имат се за много умни, възвишени и над нещата, които смятат, че могат да дадат на една жена всичката любов, разбиране, нежност и грижа, от която тя, мислят те, се нуждае, а самата жена ще се възхити на тия им усилия и ще им отговори със същото. Горките тъпанари...

Говоря толкова убедено, щото и аз бях от тях като малък ;) Смятам няма нужда да обяснявам... а може би има?... че ако не си мъж на място, цялата нежност и любов която даваш на някоя жена тя ще приеме за чиста лигавщина и или ще те остави, отвратена от това че не можеш да бъдеш мъж, или ще се възползва от тебе по всички начини, които са й известни. Щото жените търсят любов и нежност, ама от мъж, а не от лигльо.

Погледната през тази призма, връзката на Хумберт с Долорез добива доста различни очертания от "дърт перверзник съблазнява малко дете". Вълнуващият, интелигентен и красив професор от първите месеци на познанството им е забранен плод - сладък и интересен и тя сама, ентусиазирано и с желание го захапва.

Хумберт си мисли, че е намерил това, което е търсил в нимфетките цял живот - невинност и красота, които още не са покварени от цинизма на живота и ще му се отдадат така, както той иска да им се отдаде. Само че разбирането за мъжкото и женското привличане е заложено в самите нас на емоционално, инстинктивно ниво и при децата това е особено видно.

Много бързо, в процеса на пътуванията им, макар да е само на 12 години Долорез започва да вижда с женския си инстинкт, че поведението на възрастния й любим е на жалко създание, което по най-лигав начин се умилква около нея като куче, моли я, и й дава пари само за едно потупване по главата и беззъбо беснее, когато не го получи. А за женският инстинкт няма нищо по-противно от подобно поведение.

Една от ключовите за разбирането на отношенията между двамата сцени е в края, когато той отива да я посети при новия й съпруг. Всъщност не цялата сцена а само кратката размяна на реплики, в която той я моли да отпътува с него, а тя му отвръща "О, миличък, аз по-скоро бих се върнала при Куилти." Същия Куилти, който е импотентен алкохолик, опитвал се да я накара да се снима в порнофилми и от когото е избягала. Защото даже той е по-приемлив от скимтящото куче Хумберт.

Нямам идея дали Набоков е осъзнавал тия неща, когато е писал книгата си, но мисля, определено е описвал правдиво каквото е виждал и преживял и в това се състои геният му. ( )

Full review to come this weekend. More tragic and violent and insightful and funny and appalling than I recalled. Humbert is the most loathsome character ever put to paper, in the best way.
________________
Okay, Let's get this party started.

I first read this in college and in the many many many years since I have found myself defending its brilliance many many many times. I have been intending to reread the book for some time. I am a different and better reader now and I live in a world sensitive to things most people were insensitive to in the 1980's, and both those things might sway my feelings about the book. Then several months back my son read this. He is in his 20's, just a few years older than I was when I read the book, and had a lot to say. Those discussions made me realize I am old and no longer clearly remembered the book, and so that reread was imperative.

I was right to reread. This was a very different reading experience than my first go-round. It turns out it was a better one. It also reinforced my utter confusion over why anyone ever says this is a book that glorifies pedophilia. In my progress notes I said:

"Even better than I remembered. Though the author takes an amoral stance, Humbert is painted like the glutton licking his greasy fingers. He is repulsive. Nabokov doesn't have to pretend that the ridiculous cannot be simultaneously appalling and hilarious. He trusts his readers, Also surprised at how this ties into other recent modern reads that tap into the beastly things that grow from early trauma."

So yes, all of that. And also in my progress notes I included a couple quotes from the book

"Little Delores would scream if I touched her with any part of my wretchedness."
and
"After a long stirless vigil my tentacles moved towards her again."

How do people think this is a justification for pederasty? Humbert is a revolting predator, compelled to defile innocence, Lola is afraid and appalled and Humbert is the terminator, set on one single vile goal.

This reread also helped me see more clearly how honest Nabakov was being when he said Lolita was an anthropomorphized America. Here was this immigrant running first from the fall of Russia (his was an aristocratic family) and then from the rise of the Nazis (his wife was a Jew, and they escaped on the last boat out of Germany) and from Europe in tatters. He was seduced by America's newness, its optimism (even in wartime), its freshness, and in embracing it wholeheartedly he despaired that he might defile it with his trauma. He was also sort of disgusted with himself for being seduced by things he intellectually found appalling and yet still loved. That comes through so much more clearly for me now, reading this as an adult.

Nabakov was a brilliant writer. (And in his third language no less.) In anyone else's hands I suspect this would have been a failure but every moment of this book works. Nabakov made me laugh and recoil simultaneously many times. (I was worried I would throw out my back the way he made my body flinch and giggle. That is a lot of twisting!) My interest never flagged, no matter how repulsive Humbert Humbert became there was never a moment, not a second, where I was not excited to read the next sentence. This is sheer genius, one of the best books I have ever read. ( )

Though I enjoyed the writing style of the book (I thought it was interesting that this is one of the first novels Nabokov wrote in English), I really couldn't get past the idea of following the mind of a pedophile. I just couldn't stop trying to figure out what Nabokov's intentions were. Humbert is totally depraved - not only a pedophile, but also a narcissist, and totally nuts. I didn't want to get inside his mind, but the book is his story, so I was stuck! So for anyone who liked this book, what did I miss? ( )

Daring, disturbing and deeply serious meditation on the meaning of beauty. ( )

Age gap between Humbert and Lolita v troubling imo. ( )

***NO SPOILERS***

Lolita surprised me--in many ways, good and bad. The first surprise came when I turned to the first page and read the opening sentences. It starts beautifully, with possibly one of the best beginnings I’ve ever read. I reread that beginning three times just because. From there, I was surprised that I next felt such sympathy for the narrator as he described a childhood loss, only to feel aversion toward him a few pages later. All along the way, I was surprised by Nabokov’s unique view of the world and the character of Humbert, a character that never ceased to surprise.

I also was surprised it took me much longer to read this than I was expecting. Lolita isn't a page-turner, and certain aspects severely slowed my reading progress. The book starts out so remarkably strong; however, around the middle point the pace lags and never recovers. The main characters take a long trip, and that's interesting except for the part detailing the trip’s itinerary for pages.

Every scene featuring Humbert and Lolita, whether directly--as in each character talking to the other or Humbert talking about Lolita--piqued my interest; the scenes deviating from this are notably weaker. Possibly too much is going on, what with the introduction of two side characters. The extra characters--and thus, the introduction of side plots involving them--switch focus away from the two most interesting main characters.

Furthermore, on the technical level, Nabokov's writing is problematic, with little mistakes and inaccuracies stalling the story. To cite just three examples:

Nabokov at one point described some young girls as “ugly dumplings,” and I wondered whether he really meant “ugly ducklings.”

On page 214 of the edition I read, he wrote, “I plumped down my heavy paper bag and stood staring[...]” It should be “plunked down.”

Then this on page 227 struck me as most inaccurate of all: “[the car] contained four or five loud young people of several sexes[...]” rather than “of both sexes.”

Nabokov’s writing is overwrought, and it’s likely inaccuracies resulted from that. Absolutely essential commas missing from sentences rendered them sometimes very difficult to understand. I had to read sentences like these three times, mentally inserting the commas, before I understood just what Nabokov was communicating. This was an issue from page one all the way to the end and deeply frustrated me. The story also starts out in first person, switches to third person at times, then back to first, then to third again, and back and forth, back and forth. At a few points it switches to second person. This is yet another distraction, especially when the protagonist refers to himself in the third person. I didn’t appreciate having the pace slowed by something as simple as a lack of basic punctuation, and I didn’t expect an author as celebrated as Nabokov to have written overly complex, very long sentences sometimes containing weird, imprecise word choices.

Liberal sprinkling of French sentences and phrases throughout are off-putting and struck me as pretentious--and I know French. I kept wondering whether non-French speakers would feel they're missing part of the story and be frustrated. I am unsure why Nabokov felt the need to include the French--sometimes blocks of it--other than that he could.

With this said, the book absolutely contains many instances of beautiful, vivid writing:

I would gather her in my arms with, at last, a mute moan of human tenderness (her skin glistening in the neon light coming from the paved court through the slits in the blind, her soot-black lashes matted, her grave gray eyes more vacant than ever—for all the world a little patient still in the confusion of a drug after a major operation)—and the tenderness would deepen to shame and despair, and I would lull and rock my lone light Lolita in my marble arms, and moan in her warm hair, and caress her at random and mutely ask her blessing[...]

What will stick with me most about Lolita is how it made me feel. Overall, it’s contemplative and somber, and I do appreciate Nabokov’s unique take on pedophilia and child-rape. Even though I would have liked to know in more detail how the rapes truly affected Lolita--she's unrealistically detached from the situation too many times--I was intrigued by this character, Humbert, that Nabokov chose to focus on. It couldn't have been an easy feat to craft such a character, to make the reader dislike yet understand a pedophile at the exact same time. To read Lolita is to feel some of the greatest ambivalence. So, it’s safe to say that two things about this book are unequivocally true: It's truly one-of-a-kind, and it has the ability to make a reader feel a range of emotions--to sadden, infuriate, and move--every few pages.

Readers hesitating to read Lolita thinking it'll be graphic or vulgar need not worry. The controversial scenes, although upsetting, are oblique and brief. Much is implied.

Final verdict: Read it, but with a heavy dose of patience, and it helps to know French or at least have Google translate nearby. ( )

writing is fascinating but still vomit inducing nonetheless

It’s tough to even give it stars. The writing is really good tbh but the subject matter is tough to stomach. I had to skim toward the end but honestly this is my first Nabokov and I hope the others aren’t as beautifully revolting as this one. ( )

I...I don't know how to explain how this book made me feel. In summary, it is one of the most beautifully crafted and well written novels about the most vile and heinous person. It is a beautiful book about absolute ugliness.

I'm not sure anything will ever be written like this, or has been written like this. And I know that some people won't be able to read it. It isn't graphic or pornographic, but it is still hard to read at points. And what makes it tricky is that fact that we, the reader, are reading his account and it is almost certainly full of lies and subtle deceits to portray the situation the way he perceived it.

Ugh. This one will hang with me for a while. ( )

Reading Nabokov's famous - or infamous - Lolita was not an easy choice for me. While I was always interested in what exactly the story was about, the topic of pedophilia seriously put me off for a while. The novel relates the story of Humbert Humbert, a middle-aged man who has a thing for pubescent girls whom he always refers to as nymphets. When he falls in love with his landlady's daughter Lolita, he tries anything in his power to be with her. He marries his landlady, but soon enough trouble emerges in the marriage when the landlady finds Humbert Humbert's journal. Some day, Lolita's mother runs out of the house and is run over by a car. It is then that Humbert Humbert assumes the guardianship of Lolita and travels through the country with her, stopping at motels whenever they please. An ever stranger relationship oscillating between love and hate on Lolita's part and bordering on insanity on Humbert Humbert's part unfolds. The question arises how far Humbert Humbert will go to keep Lolita at his side forever.

Reading this novel was quite disturbing in parts, especially when it comes to the physical interaction between Lolita and Humbert Humbert (even if only alluded to at points) and the descriptions of the latter's thoughts about young girls and his love for Lolita. Yet, I still wanted to find out what would happen to the two of them at the end and whether Humbert Humbert was to be found out and brought to justice. 3.5 stars for a troubling read. ( )

I'm not sure how to rate this book. One the one hand it is beautifully written, but it's disgusting and disturbing. I don't know how could anybody write about this. I kind of wish we heard the story from Lolita point of view. Being written from Hambert's POV, it kind of makes us want to be sympathetic towards him, which is sick.

So like 2.5/5 ( )

Book 243. Also 31/100 books that changed the world. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.
After seeing both films and as it was in 100 books that changed the world I read this. Much more descriptive than the film and Lolita is 12 in the book (14 in the films). Beautifully descriptive to the point that I felt guilty reading it. I read parts out loud to Peter and wrestled a little with the perversion.
9/10 ( )

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, luce della mia vita, fuoco dei miei lombi. Mio peccato, anima mia. ( )

Most good reviews for this novel tend to say that it manages to make you like and support the pedophile protagonist. And indeed, it is a most well made trap, from beginning to end, one which I really wanted to fall into for the sake of drama, but I really didn't. It becomes really sad in the end, and I do feel pity for him, and I times I did find Lolita(the girl, not the book) really annoying, but the best parts of the book, for me at least, are those in which our pedophile suffers in one way or another, mostly in the two opposites parts of the narrative. That's my big grudge, that the point seems for me to like a character but instead I really like watching him suffer. In general, pretty good but not the high-caliber classic many say it is. ( )

Wahrscheinlich liegt das an mir... falsches Buch zum falschen Zeitpunkt... Aber ich kann das wirklich nicht ertragen. Ich breche das (Hör-)Buch bei ca. 13% ab. ( )

I think what the scariest thing about this book is not what actually happens in it (which is thankfully fictional), but what it reveals about ourselves. We, the readers, are the real jury here, with the power of either condemning or acquitting Humbert ditto. But Humbty-Dumbty is so suave and such a smooth operator that he spellbinds us into his little game of sensational excuses and slippery lies. I'm ashamed to admit at times I actually found myself sympathizing with old wily Humblepie. Like a demon he tempts us with poisoned candy apples and Turkish delights and we gormandize them ravenously, and we only realize what we've done once it's too late. What a exceptional, ghastly book. ( )

Too creepy to be one of the top 100 books of the twentieth century. I view it as smut masquerading as literature. It was hard to keep reading a book entirely devoted to justifying pederasty. (regardless of the "beautiful" writing )

July 2020
I gained more insight to the novel's use of language and manipulation by listening to a lecture by Professor Amy Hungerford, through Open Yale (https://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-291/lecture-5). It is still creepy and spine tingling. I think that was Nabokov's aim.

March 2021
Another resource that explores the novel and its misrepresentation popular culture, listen to Lolita podcast on iHeart radio. ( )

Yeah, I think you've likely heard of Lolita. It's astonishing however how this novel seems to get characterized, in blurbs such as the one here on Goodreads. The "freedom and sophistication" in the telling of "a love story almost shocking in its beauty and tenderness", and "most of all, it is a meditation on love". How different and much less appealing the novel would seem I guess if advertised as a story told from inside the head of a child rapist. That would be irresponsible commercial blurbing.

It's an excellent novel, but a love story it is not. The protagonist is written in a way that certainly causes Nabokov controversy, because the character is writing this story to the reader from his prison cell and wants the reader to, yes, view it as a doomed love story. But that's what the character is doing, not what Nabokov is doing. Nabokov is tricky, I mean this is the 13th novel of his that I've read now, I know he's tricky and an extremely erudite writer, but still, this should be apparent.

Humbert tells us from the start of his journey with Lolita that he won her compliance by threatening her with what would become of her as an orphan child if she tries to escape him. He writes of withholding breakfast from her until she "performs her morning duties". He writes of "her sobs in the night - every night, every night - the moment I feigned sleep."

Humbert himself, despite his other self-delusions, seems pretty clear that the "love" in this situation is entirely one-sided, it's just that though he makes performative nods in his telling of the story to feeling guilt on occasion, he's entirely self-centered. He feels love, therefore this is a love story. The reader should obviously know better. It's not a love story, it's a story from the point of view of a child rapist. ( )

They say a reader can live a thousand lives. I've always believed it but never felt it until now. Reading Lolita was seeing through the eyes of a tortured man who hates almost everything including himself. The delirious love he bore for the little girl shone a single hazy candle in the dark vile cellar of his life.
I was mesmerized by Nabokov's elaborate depictions of people, places and events that Humbert encountered, how none of them were of any importance to him, how he loathed them all, pushed them away from him, manipulated the world to leave him alone with his treasure so he could drown in it completely.
It's poetic and utterly terriifying how one sided a man can get, how one desire can dominate and ruin his life. ( )

Strap in, folks, because "Lolita" is a rollercoaster through the murkiest corners of literature, and somehow, it's a good ride!

Pros:
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