Lolita

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Fri Sep 22, 2006 9:25 pm

Emerson says...

I finished this book about a month ago. It has raced to the top of my list, I fell in love with it. Nabokov did such an amazing job with everything. It was called "One of the best love stories of our century" and I completely agree. The voice and the style were both unique, and it was hard not to feel sympathetic for Hum Hum, Even if he was a pedophile.

It was one of the most amazing books I've ever read. Sorry my description of it is so bland, a month took a lot of it from me! When I finished it, a few days later, I really wanted to pick it back up again and reread it!

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Sun Sep 24, 2006 5:30 am

Persephonie84 says...

~ I love that book. I read years ago and I keep on reading it. I think its one the best novels of our time. A true masterpiece. It was brilliantly done & very unique. I couldn't bring myself to dislike Humbert Humbert either. Have you seen any of the movies of Lolita :?:

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Sun Sep 24, 2006 5:41 am

Sam says...

I liked Humbert a lot more than I did Lolita...the character, anyway. :wink:

I love the way Nabokov writes- it's very detached and random, but sort of Lemony Snicket for its wordiness. Or span of vocabulary, depending on the way you look at it...

'Twas a very good book, though it took forever to read.

Graffiti is the most passionate form of literature there is.

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Sun Sep 24, 2006 8:36 am

Galatea says...

Brilliant. One of my favorites.

Nabokov is (was) a synaesthete. His writing really speaks to me.

Sing lustily and with a good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice with strength.

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Sun Sep 24, 2006 1:39 pm

Emerson says...

I haven't seen any of the movies no, but I'd really like to.

What I think is impressive is the fact that Nabokov's first language was Russian. He mastered the English language better than most English speaking people!

I'd really like to get my paws on Pale Fire, but I can't find it at any of my local libraries.

“It's necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

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Sun Sep 24, 2006 6:12 pm

Griffinkeeper says...

What is Lolita about, very generally speaking?

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Sun Sep 24, 2006 6:25 pm

Emerson says...

Very Generally speaking?

It's about a man named Humbert Humbert who loves Nymphets (Girls that are of the age 9 to 14, if I remember correctly) I know it sounds strange by that description, but its something just have to read. He marries a woman, just to try to be alone with her daughter Daloris (whom he calls Lolita) It's rather romantic, I think. Maybe some one could give a better description than I.

“It's necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

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Sun Sep 24, 2006 6:26 pm

Cassandra says...

Griffinkeeper wrote:What is Lolita about, very generally speaking?

^ Aye, I'd like to know, too. It's obviously very good if everyone likes it so much but...what's the story about?

"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring."
-Chuck Palahniuk

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Sun Sep 24, 2006 6:29 pm

Emerson says...

It seems I beat you, Cassandra :-)

I have my very poor synopsis above. I'll try to find another, better one out there on the web...

Taken from the description listed on my Library's web site...

With an Introduction by Martin Amis When it was published in 1955, Lolita immediately became a cause célèbre because of the freedom and sophistication with which it handled the unusual erotic predilections of its protagonist. But Vladimir Nabokov's wise, ironic, elegant masterpiece owes its stature as one of the twentieth century's novels of record not to the controversy its material aroused but to its author's use of that material to tell a love story almost shocking in its beauty and tenderness. Awe and exhilaration--along with heartbreak and mordant wit--abound in this account of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America, but most of all, it is a meditation on love--love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.

“It's necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

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Sun Sep 24, 2006 7:31 pm

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Cassandra says...

Claudette wrote:It seems I beat you, Cassandra

It would seem so.

I shall add this book to my ever growing reading list.

"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring."
-Chuck Palahniuk

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Wed Nov 01, 2006 1:17 am

lucafont90 says...

I am reading Lolita and have fallen in love with it, even though I am still on chapter twelve of part one. The word play is marvelous.

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Mon Nov 06, 2006 1:39 am

doubt_all says...

I read Lolita a few years ago, but it's stuck with me for a while. Definately one of my favourites. I remember I especially found Humbert's rivalry with the other (better) pedophile ironically amusing. (Can't remember the other pedophile's name. Begins with a Q, if I remember correctly?) I was cheering for Hum in his rivalry, though I never found that I was able to empathize or sympathize with him. After reading Nabokov's introduction and a few papers he wrote on the book after, I'm still not entirely sure whether you're supposed to or not. Then again, one should never trust what an author says about their own work. (They/we like to play with readers.)

Above all, the prose in Lolita is brilliant.

"Every man is born as many men and dies as a single one." - Martin Heidegger

"Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy." - Martin Heidegger

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Wed Nov 22, 2006 6:48 pm

lucafont90 says...

I just finished reading it a few days ago. Nabakov sure was a brilliant writer. I especially liked the ending where Humbert murders Quillty.

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Wed Nov 22, 2006 10:18 pm

Emerson says...

Begins with a Q, if I remember correctly?

If I remember correctly, didn't Hum name Quillty after an uncle of his? Because the man looked like his Uncle? I remember something like that. Hum was kind of crazy like that.

I'm going to be getting his Pale Fire soon, but I can't read it until I finish The Brothers Karamazov. But at least I'll have it!

“It's necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

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Wed Nov 22, 2006 11:25 pm

lucafont90 says...

Yeah, he thinks that he's a relative or something of his. Right now I can't remember his name. My mind's going. I finished the book a few days ago. I should know this.

Right now I'm reading Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle. I finished Pale Fire last night. Great book, by the way.

I am a published author with two novels on the market.

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