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“Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita” – Book review


Nabokov employs an unconventional narrative style in his magnum opus. The book is considered by intellectuals and common public in general, as one of the ten greatest and most influential books ever written in any language. The protagonist’s morbid fantasy, for nymphets, eleven to thirteen years old girls, has stirred the world in a grip of fiction that portentously swayed outside the novel. Into the world, Lolita issued a word, a phrase, that prancing wildly, melting morals on its way, tramping literary conventions under its rabid feet , attained martyrdom that few books in the history can claim the status of.

Rose bud pink cheeks, slender waist, slack limbs, hoisted figure, honey coated soft pale white skin, perfunctory clothing, bare feet, toe nails polished of red, plump under lip, cropped eye lids, pale grey eyes, bobbed hair that sullenly slanted on naked flesh, slim shoulder blades……the protagonist, H.H’s avid, detailed and myriad imagery of Lolita in prismatic patterns fills the pages full of insidious infatuations. In light snow, under heavy sun; in waters of love and gardens of seduction, H.H adores the nymphet, Lolita.

Book begins with H.H’s confessions; through his memoirs, from the present day, seated before the jury, protagonist presents his case. He is a man in his forties, and is besotted to death for his love of life, Lolita. Book begins with protagonist accosting a school friend of his, describes the brief yet indescribable pleasure that he felt and longed for since then. His adventures with prostitutes! His marriage to Valerie who ditches him for a Russian who spoke French awfully, and left his toilet without flushing after use

A series of dubious events land him at Dolores Haze’s home. And here, begins his tryst with the nymphet of his dreams. He marries the widower, in an attempt to get closer to Lolita. His stay at her home, the marriage, and Dolores’ stay at a camping site- all of these are rather uneventful, for the pages are all filled with a concomitant of passionate outbursts through out the day, for his Lolita. H.H imagines getting rid of the elder Haze; throughout the platitudinous love making with the elder Haze, he imagines the features of the elder, of what his nymphet would pale out to adorn in future; in the family albums, H.H calculates how the elder resembled the younger, and with this, he compensates for the time being, with excursions and trips, to the pool and to the farm. It’s the school frock and tall slender legs that H.H longs for, not coarse skinned, rotund featured, heavy bosomed old ladies.


“….Pulled the pistol's foreskin back, and then enjoyed the orgasm of the crushed trigger” writes Nabokov. Lolita enthrals the readers who like wordplay, and the ones that like unconventional style, drama and plot.

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