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Lolita: Introduction by Martin Amis (Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series)

Name: Lolita: Introduction by Martin Amis (Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series)
Rating: 5 (22 reviews)
Author: Vladimir Nabokov
ISBN: 9780241951644

Vladimir Nabokov · 1995 · 368 pages

When it was published in 1955, Lolita immediately became a cause celebre 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.

recommended by 22 people

sourced from public statements

Bryan Callen
“Top Must Reads”↗
PewDiePie
“Loved it.”↗
Nick Cave
“I’ve sent both my older kids Lolita and advised them to read the first chapter. They’re older than when I had it read to me – I was about 12. I didn’t read the whole thing [at the time]. The point was the first chapter is very short, half a page. It’s undeniably beautiful even to a young child, to someone who doesn’t really understand.”↗
15 Books on Cheryl Strayed
“We all have books on our shelves that we’ve not yet read. I’d never read Lolita. So I thought I’ve got to read Lolita.”↗
Jo Nesbø
“How do you make the reader sympathize, or at least tolerate reading about, a man who is lusting for a child? I don’t know. You have to be good. And it’s probably a good idea to start the novel with the potential child molester declaring his love in a passionate and honest way, so you can always retreat to that later, when you want to flee: he actually loves her.”↗
Bradley Cooper
“Nabokov’s writing is brilliant, especially considering that English was his third language.”↗
Phoebe Waller-Bridge
“Humbert Humbert in Lolita was the most unforgettable, uncomfortable relationship I’ve had with a character I can remember.”↗
Martha Wainwright
“I have a song called ‘Lolita’ and I saw the movie before I read the book, to be honest. But when I read Nabokov’s book, I was bowled over. I probably read it when I was about 19. And I didn’t identify with Lolita at all, but rather with the character of Humbert Humbert, which is what I wrote about in this song. I understood the feeling of having an obsession with someone you probably should stay away from.”↗
Zoe Kazan
“@parabasis lolita *is* my favorite book tho.”↗
Cindy Gallop
“'Best book you have ever read?' "Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov." I answer @zanger @thedrum 10 Questions”↗
Billy Collins
“Nabokov demonstrated how brilliantly ironic prose could lift a perverse longing to the level of great literature. Humbert puts himself on trial, turning his reader into jury member, as he describes his pursuit of a nymphet, his flight from justice, and the menace of his rival.”↗
J. K. Rowling
Anthony Bourdain
Natalie Portman
Ev Williams
Leo Babauta
Richard Cohen
Ella Berthoud
Steven Amsterdam
Mario Gabriele
Frank Chimero
Tavi Gevinson