Lolita (Selected Works of Foreign Literature in the 20th Century)

Author: (American) Vladimir Nabokov
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2000-11-01
Features: The publication of this book brought the author unprecedented fame and also stirred immense controversy. The novel tells the story of a love affair between a middle-aged man and an underage girl, and it is always shrouded in the indifferent attitude towards the world as portrayed in Lolita. We can follow Humbert's journey across the United States to delve into the confused life of a young girl. A life of sin, a beautiful dream of spring, an restless desire, an arrogant dream, a heart-wrenching suffering. Lolita—a snowflake thats all men's dreams. The entire book is a torrent of Humbert's first-person monologue. But first-person narration is often no more than an unverified one-sided account. The reader has no reason to fully trust the honesty of "I," yet there is no more reliable objective basis either. Lolita is not merely concerned with pedophilia. Humbert did indeed say that he wanted to "once and for all determine the dangerous magic of the little fairy," but there seems to be no reason to doubt that his concluding words were not meant seriously. To think of an unforgettable secret, a prophet's sonnet, an asylum for art. This is the only eternal that you and I can share, my Lolita.