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the complete review - fiction
Lolita
by
Vladimir Nabokov
general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author
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Our Assessment:
A+ : one of the modern greats
See our review for fuller assessment.
Review Summaries
Source |
Rating |
Date |
Reviewer |
The Atlantic Monthly |
A+ |
10/1958 |
Charles Rolo |
The NY Observer |
. |
12/9/2005 |
David Thomson |
The NY Times Book. Rev. |
A- |
17/8/1958 |
Elizabeth Janeway |
Partisan Review |
A |
Fall/1956 |
John Hollander |
Saturday Night |
. |
11/10/1958 |
Robertson Davies |
The Spectator |
C- |
6/11/1959 |
Kingsley Amis |
Times Lit. Supp. |
B+ |
13/11/1959 |
. |
The Village Voice |
. |
3/9/1958 |
Jerry Talmer |
The complete review's Review:
Lolita, light of so many lives, fire of so many loins, has become so much more than merely the book Nabokov wrote.
The story of the young nymphet, Dolores (Lolita) Haze, and her seducer, Humbert Humbert, lives beyond the confines of the novel.
In all the fuss about the story (and the films and Lolita-variations that keep appearing) Nabokov's novel is sometimes forgotten.
This is unfortunate, because Nabokov's novel is a remarkable work of artistry, among the finest written in English in the second half of the twentieth century.
The story is well-known: Humbert Humbert has a thing for young lasses, "nymphets" as he calls them, certain maidens "between the age limits of nine and fourteen" whose allure certain "bewitched travelers" can succumb to.
Succumb he does, marrying Dolores Haze's mother, becoming the girl's sole guardian, travelling across the country with her, losing her.
It is a tragic love story, a paean to America, a sordid tale humanized, a work of comic genius.
Most of all it is Nabokov's writing: artfully crafted the book is a delight to read (and re-read -- as is necessary to uncover some of its secrets).
What happens in the book is terrible -- and its focus, which is, after all, around a man of about forty engaging in sexual relations with a barely pubescent girl, is particularly nasty -- but Nabokov humanizes his characters, and though what Humbert does is unforgivable the reader is entranced by the story.
It is a peculiar thing that Nabokov has wrought here, but it is brilliant.
Few novels are both as sad and as amusing as this one, with Nabokov mixing and managing both tragedy and comedy perfectly.
Essential reading, strongly recommended.
Note that the novel should not be judged by its films.
Kubrick's and Lyne's versions are pornographic in their own right, but what Nabokov proposed is of a different order.
Both Sue Lyon and Dominique Swain (the film Lolitas) are considerably too old and mature in bearing for the part.
Nabokov's nymphets are different creatures.
And, while Kubrick's atmospheric film conjures up something (and Lyne's absolutely nothing), Nabokov's prose is so rich and his presentation so carefully thought-through that the book proves superior to the films at every turn.
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