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Lolita
by Vladimir Nabokov
The famously controversial story of a middle aged man and his desire for a twelve year old girl.
The book manages to be morally repugnant and tantalizingly seductive at the same time, and reading Lolita is akin to the experience of watching a car wreck and not being able to look away. Even though the narrator’s plight might be hard to relate to, Vladimir Nabokov’s writing is such that the reader continues to follow his train of thought. Nabokov’s innovative style provides a look into the harrowing world of obsession.
Lolita is about a middle aged man named Humbert Humbert, who becomes sexually obsessed with a twelve year old girl named Delores Haze. His obsession takes him so far as to marry her mother. When the woman dies, he then takes Delores around the country pretending to be her father. At first, Delores goes along with the scheme, but increasingly becomes frustrated with Humbert’s jealousy and her own entrapment. Humbert’s desire gets harder and harder to control. He knows it is only a matter of time before he is found out.
Told as a memoir, the reader follows the story through the eyes of the pedophiliac Humbert. The irony here is that the well educated Humbert knows how to win the reader over with words. The mellifluous style makes it almost easy to accept Humbert’s self delusion. Nabokov spins his words so charmingly and enchantingly that the reader almost forgets their derision. However, this is what makes this tragic novel so great. The book provides a social commentary as well as a story that is impossible to put down.
Title: Lolita
Author: Vladimir Nabokov
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0679723161
Review written by: Marguerite Spellman
Reviewer's Rating:9
Reader's Rating: 0
Reader's Votes: 0
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