Light of my life, fire of my loins... (Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov)

Member Name: spacelamb

Product:	Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Date:	01/02/01 (104 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: engaging writing and theme

Disadvantages: subject matter a bit hard to digest for some

This is a very difficult book both to read and to review, which is not a reflection on the writing (outstanding), but on the subject matter.

The main character, Humbert, recounts the story of Lolita from his prison cell. He is a paedophile.

It is a shame to give away the story so I will leave the details out! - but he marries a woman to get close to her beautiful (and precocious) 12 year-old daughter Lolita. The wife dies (did she fall or was she pushed?) and Humbert goes on the run with Lolita. They enter into what she naively sees as a kind of 'relationship', and he sees as...well, it's hard to say. His professions of love for her ring true but they are not the regular feelings of a man in his forties towards his step-daughter (to say the least).

Although you have a constant slightly churning feeling in your stomach as you work your way through the book, you can't put it down until you know what becomes of the two of them. It is not a 'happy' ending, but it didn't turn out the way I expected either. Nabokov is one of the masters of twentieth century literature and writes with such grace (which sounds a pretentious description but really, it is the most accurate word) and feeling, but it is also a very darkly funny novel.

The great shame about this book is that a large number of people would probably be put off reading it because of its theme (especially given recent events, for which The Sun has a lot to answer for). Of course I'm not advocating the crime but reading about the psychology of it is not the same thing - if this is your reason for staying away from Lolita please, please rethink.

If you enjoy reading this book I (and it's very hard not to), Emily Prager wrote a modern-day version in the late 90s called Roger Fishbite, which - unusually - does a great deal of credit to the original and is wholly recommended.

Summary: