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| Lolita (Penguin Classics) | 
 enlarge | Author: Vladimir Nabokov
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Category: Book
List Price: £8.99
Buy Used: £2.02
You Save: £6.97 (78%)
New (36) from £2.48
Avg. Customer Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 6172
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 0.6
ISBN: 0141182539
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780141182537
ASIN: 0141182539
Publication Date: February 3, 2000
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: A tradition of southern quality and service. All books guaranteed at the Atlanta Book Company.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
 "You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go" August 25, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
For as long as I can remember I have resisted reading Lolita. But because it is so often referred to as a "classic" I felt in the end I should put aside my prejudices and tackle it.
In many ways it is as I expected it to be. It is not a comfortable read and the unreliable narrator continually beguiles and tricks us. Humbert claims to love Lolita deeply but at the same time reveals the damage he is doing to her. The narrative is made even more intriguing by its attitude to Lolita - neither "innocent" nor "pure". Nabokov's language is superb - he revels in word play and the book is filled with literary allusions. The road trip across America is brilliantly seen through an outsider's critical eye.
I can see how Lolita has enthralled and irritated so many readers. It is in turns sad, subversive, funny and creepy.
Can I also recommend Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi which explores the book through the thoughts of young Iranian women.
 One of the best books I've ever read April 9, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Without a doubt, one of the best books I've ever read. It's warm and funny and scary and confusing and (at times) an outright assault on everything polite society brought us up to expect. I liked it so much that the second I finished Lolita, I started right back at the beginning. I was excited... really excited (ok, maybe excited is a poorly chosen word in this case) about what I'd just read, still, I didn't want to hastily declare it one of my favorite novels. So I went back... read it again... re-read my notes and highlighted text, and added even more notes and highlights.
Here are a few random thoughts:
- It seems to be predominately women who love Lolita. I'm thinking this is half because women, by nature, are more likely to romanticize the situation and overlook the pedophiliac angle... and because I imagine very few men are comfortable in any way identifying with the subject matter.
- I agree 100% that Humbert loved Lolita, but I balk at some of the reviews claiming this to be the best love story ever written. Unrequited love? Sure. But reciprocal, healthy and mutual love... what are these people smoking??
- I find it fascinating that a small but vocal faction of women who loved the book feel the need to vilify Lolita for her cruelty to Humbert. It's almost as if - in order to love & approve of Humbert, Lolita must be the persecutor and not the victim. No consideration is given to the possibility that Lolita's circumstances formed her as a person.
- Nabokov is an extremely gifted writer. His long, complicated sentences unfold like exotic hothouse flowers. And kudos to him for taking no prisoners in the telling of a difficult tale. I mean, it took balls to write a story like this. He had to anticipate the backlash. Still, he didn't shy away or give his readers an easy out - a good reason to forgive Humbert. Yet they still did/do. That alone I admire beyond belief.
I honestly didn't feel that Nabokov glorified or sensationalized the subject of pedophilia. He just told a story and told it extremely well. I can appreciate it the same way I appreciate ultra-violent films or novels like A Clockwork Orange: they're all stories that remind us of the fine line between humanity and brutality.
The sexual aspect of Lolita is 100% repugnant, no denying that. And if Nabokov had soft-peddled that part one iota, I'd be pulling up a soapbox decrying the whole thing. Instead what he did was enable the reader to imagine... really imagine... what must go on in the head of a pedophile. He also shows us how these monsters can be (and often are) the school teachers, guidance counselors, Scout leaders, coaches and pastors. They're not all scary, toothless guys in trench coats offering candy to babies in parks. If nothing else, Nabokov shows us this with gusto.
Is it ugly, vulgar at times, and uncomfortable? You bet, and it should be. I'd question it if it were any other way. But it's also beautifully written and something that will stick with you long after you've finished the final page. And that's ok, too. It's possible (though extremely rare) to have both coexist in a kind of uncomfortable harmony... and, credit where it's due, Nabokov, I felt, walked that line better than just about anything else I've ever had the pleasure of reading.
 A depraved work of fiction November 28, 2007
1 out of 32 found this review helpful
I bought this book because it always appears in the lists of classic novels and the reviews I read spoke of the beautiful language it is written in.
I have to say I found it utterly revolting. Let's be perfectly straight about the plot. It is about a middle-aged man who lusts after young girls (a paedophile, in other words) and who preys upon one particular twelve-year-old girl, compelling her to have sex with him (often painfully so) over the course of a year.
I do not care how wonderfully Nabokov commands the English language, his subject matter is repugnant.
I would give this book no stars were it possible and urge anybody thinking of buying it to look elsewhere for a genuine classic.
Gifted writing style makes this a classic. August 8, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I agree with a number of other reviews in that the subject matter - a man's obsession with a 12 year old girl - initially put me off reading Lolita. However, given the large number of people who have this book rated as one of the best of the 20th century, I thought I'd give it a go. Simply put: this is a brilliant read. I took pure delight is Nabokov's writing style; as Martin Amis writes on the back cover 'Lolita is comedy, subversive yet divine... You read Lolita sprawling limply in your chair, ravished, overcome, nodding scandalized assent'. Yes, there was an instance or two where I blanched, but the author carries the theme so well that it is soon forgotten. I even found myself feeling sympathy for Humbert and feeling guilty about it! If you have read and enjoyed 'The Ginger Man' by J.P.Donleavy, you'll enjoy Lolita; likewise if you have enjoyed Lolita go and read The Ginger Man. This is a book that could easily be read a number of times and each time new word-play/expression would be unearthed.
I would agree wholeheartedly with the view that Lolita is a 20th century classic and a very readable one too.
A gloriously satirical look at the frailties of our minds October 23, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Lolita probably does not need much of an introduction. In the unlikely event you have never heard of this tome, made into a movie twice, the title gives a substantive hint. I will summarise just in case. Humbert Humbert is a rakishly good looking man with eyes only for nymphet's; pre-teen girls of a certain character. Delores Haze is the primary object of his affection which the story mostly tracks after a preamble designed to give you same idea of Humberts substance; nefarious and sardonic. The entire story is written in the first person as a narrative by Humbert in the form of a memoir.
The story opens with a forward credited to John Ray and then launches into the memoir. My oh MY! We could go into the moralities, but to read this through moral eyes is to waste your time and put you at the irreverent hands of Nabokov.
Taking this for what it is then. It is a gloriously satirical look at the frailties of our minds, manipulated by a plot cleverly woven through a beginning that magically tells you all, a middle that horrifies while enticing you, and an end that turns the whole thing on its head.
Having finished this, so enthralled, my first impulse was to turn back to the very beginning and go again. Not for any weakness in the structure but to find everything in certainty I had been told but dismissed as irrelevant and of course to spend more time with these endearing, vivid characters.
If for some reason you finish this book and can only think the 'P' word then you have been misled by your culturally ingrained moral code. What a pity that so many people read this and miss the real story.
A must read for my mind.
Pros - Written by a master of multiple languages, it is riveting, horrific, charming, funny and poignant. A tale with prose that is almost poetry. Even if you're going to view this through moral eyes any lover of words is going to come out of this enriched.
Con - Nabokov was an aspiring American Writer at the time he wrote this. His unfamiliarity with American geography shows during a brief section towards the middle, sounding a little like he is describing post cards.
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