ISBN: 0140054723
The bookshelf picture isn't the cover of the copy I have. See the pic opposite.

Its been a while since I read it, but I thought it was tops at the time.

Currently its been borrowed by a work friend.

RING CLOSED - returned home May 8, 2007

Offering up as a Bookring in australia only

Participants:

1. Brazen20au ACT
2. Sabavana NSW
3. Awaywithfairies NSW
4. Funkybamboozle NSW
5. Catsalive NSW
6. Puppymummy VIC
7. Fushmush NSW
8. Leeny37
9. Melanie2474
10. Calissa
11. Merceria
12. -Bodhi-

and last....back to Pixette NSW

RELEASE NOTES:

Posted to Brazen20au as first on the bookring

got it a few days ago & have started it. alternately fascinted & repulsed. not sure how i'll go but will keep on with it - thanks pixette!

finished this last night and am still a bit all over the place about it! such an usual writing style (because of his background & translation?) mostly i enjoyed it though there were parts where i had to force myself to read on, due to thinking 'this could be my daughter'. anyway...

it's ready to send on but i think my pm to sabavana last week failed. will try again but sabavana if you see this please pm me your address!!

thanks Pixette :)

Well it finally made it to me, thanks brazen20au for the many PM's :-)
I have one other Ring in front of this, then away I go. It will be interesting to see how it compares to Innocents by Cathy Coote, which is the same story told from Lolita's point of view.

Hmmm... I wanted to like this book, but I'm afraid it just didn't do it for me.
I found it really hard to read, Nabokov's writing style did little to hold my attention. I found myself really concentrating for a while, then my mind would wander from the story. I guess I'm the opposite of a 'literary snob'!
It's a shame, because I really enjoyed the movie (the Jeremy Irons version), though I guess I should know by now that movies made into films are never quite the same!
Thankyou Pixette for the chance to read this, I'll send it on to awaywithfairies next week.

Posted to awaywithfairies today - enjoy :-)

Have been away from home for a month. Arrived home today to find this in my pile of mail. Look forward to reading it.

Have just finished reading it. Not quite what I expected and, like previous posters, I also found my concentration wandering a little, too.

RELEASE NOTES:

Posted to funkybanboozle from Adelaide.

I havent seen the movie, and the only concept of Lolita that I had, was of an adolescent seductress (sp?) Im half way throught this book, and finding it difficult to continue. I'm not enjoying the story I guess. It is interesting how Nabokov has provided some insight into the protagonist paedophilia. I am unsure how, regardless of the mans justification that its been happening forever take the historical figures of 500 years ago, the actions of Humbert can be tolerated- he continually implies that other men around him know what he is doing, but yet, they do nothing.

I will continue to the end, the start has informed me of what will happen to some degree, but I am curious as to how this comes around.

Although I can appreciate the lovely way the author has written the book, for some reason I am not open minded enough to look beyond the content, the story and the expectations of the main protagonist. There are many other brilliant authors out there that I would rather read at the moment. I have just too much experience within my profession with this type of person to have any sympathy or objectivness about the character.

I have failed to complete the book, and for once I really dont care.

On the writing style: I enjoyed the way the author used language to convey the simplicity of Lolita, and create such fluid writing that it almost resembled prose. We have to remember that english is his second language, so he has done a wonderful job.

I've heard that the book was a metaphor: "Humbert represents the formal, educated Old World of Europe, while Lolita is America: ripening, beautiful, but not too bright and a little vulgar" (Amazon revies)

Despite all this, I couldnt move beyond the subject and I might try something a little less erotic (not that I don't enjoy erotic books, not just ones with adolescent children!)

ill mail out to catsalive as soon as possible

Just as you think you're getting somewhere another bookring arrives, and a tough one too by the looks of the other journalists.

Nicely written, lyrically written, but bloody hard work. My mind kept wandering as well but I got to the end in one piece. Thanks, Pixette. I have to read something easy now to recover.

Off to puppymummy next.

Posted to puppymummy this morning.

Safely arrived in Melbourne, with a couple ahead but it looks short so I'll get to it soonish!

I had immense trouble with this one too. I nearly gave up halfway, but I kept reading and the twist that happened halfway through left me with just enough curiosity to finish it.
I am glad in one way that I read this, because I never knew what the Police lyrics about the book by Nabokov in 'Don't stand so close to me' referred to, I looked up 'Nabakov' one day and of course got no results! Now I know.
However, no matter how lyrically it was written (particularly considering the author does not speak English as a first language) I couldn't get over the subject matter either. This idea of pre-pubescent girls wandering around begging to be seduced is ridiculously deluded, and the book was quite unpleasant. I'd prefer to read an averagely-written book about a more interesting subject any day.
Pizette, despite having seriously disliked the book, I thank you for sending it out (and all the others who got it safely to my hands!) - now I can say that I have read it and therefore I have a right to my opinion to dislike it, rather than an uneducated dislike. If that makes any sense :)

This will be posted off to fushmush tomorrow.

I have it in my hot little hands.

I'm feeling ambivalent about this novel. It is beautifully written and a compelling read, but the subject matter was very hard to deal with.

Horrible HH! He blackmails, bribes and forces poor Dolly to become his personal prostitute. Vain and selfish, Humbert is a truly detestable character. He deprives Dolores of a childhood purely to satisfy his unnatural and obssessive needs.

Update: Posted 4/11/2005

I received this book today. The blurb on the back cover is quite disturbing already, a middle-aged man and a 12-year-old girl equates to "one of the world's great love stories"? Frightening. I will share my thoughts further when I have finished reading the book.

Like Funkybamboozle, I have not watched the movie before and my limited knowledge of Lolita was that she was supposed to be a sexy young thing but I most certainly wasn't thinking along the lines of a 12-year-old! The subject matter was uncomfortable and unpleasant and I found myself flipping through really quickly. Describing this as a great love story is beyond me. To me it's a pure one-sided obsession on HH's part; he took advantage of Lo and she never had a chance. The writing style also didn't appeal to me and not knowing French, the sprinkling of French phrases throughout the book was frustrating. Either way, this wasn't something that I was enjoying and I just could not finish it. I'm no literary snob; I would much rather read cheesy chick-lit (go Sookie Stackhouse!) than "literature classics" that I don't care for. Thanks Pixette for the opportunity though and I will send this on to Melanie2474 shortly.

RELEASE NOTES:

This is wrapped up and ready to go! This will be winging its way to Melanie2474 on Monday morning.

Another Relay - why do they all turn up at once? Will read in the next week now that I'm back home then on to calissa.

This one's on the list of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.

Edited 5 Jan: Okay, so I'm about 1/2 way through and I want to string HH up by his proverbials!! I have seen both movie versions (the black & white was probably more dramatic and less 'seductive' than the remake - all I remember about the actors was that Shelley Winters played Mrs Haze and was brilliantly pathetic...) so knew generally what to expect content-wise, but in the films Lo is always portrayed as mid-late teens which compared to HH is still pretty vile. To find she's actually 12 at the beginning of this story almost had me throwing the book away before I started it! But I'm persevering because I actually find the writing quite wonderful (although I agree with leeny37 about the pretentious French phrases spattered all the way through) in spite of the bile-inducing subject matter. Even HH refers to himself as being ill...

Edited 7 January 2006: well, I've done it; I've survived Lolita! I'm glad I read it because, like other journallers, I enjoyed the way the author wrote and can now consider myself to have an 'educated' opinion about the book. However, there were times when the descriptiveness in the writing, because of the subject matter, made my skin crawl; I had to wonder about the writer at times, such was the depth of emotion in his telling of this tale.

I have to admit there were moments I almost felt sorry for HH, driven by his sickness, by his compulsions, his obsession with his young ward; and to be sure Lo did play on his affections, but never could I see her as a seductress. No child, for that is what Lo is, could wield the power in such an arrangement no matter how much of a "nymphet".

I'm interested now to learn a bit more about Nabokov, maybe to answer some of the questions I had while reading. Why this subject matter? Why write in the first person? Was there something about the author or his life or those he associated with that gave him such insight?

This book is now off to Calissa via Monday night's Canberra Booking - brace yourself my dear, you have been warned!!

Kindly passed along at the Canberra January Booking by Melanie2474. I've decided I'm not going to read the comments here until after I've finished reading the book- I like to make my own mind up!

Hmmm. Well I can definitely say it was interesting. Not really my cup of tea though. I found his style somewhat overly flowery (perhaps trying too much to be like the Victor Hugo and the Dostoyevsky he refers to in the novel?) and a bit vague in places... which is actually an advantage sometimes, given the subject matter, but overall, I was left with the feeling the author could have covered the same plot in half the time, if he hadn't let himself get so carried away. And if I have to read the word 'pubescent' one more time I'm going to scream!
I didn't like HH or Lolita, and I felt both were rather to blame for their predicament. I found it somewhat curious that the author went to such lengths to make it seem as if one were mentally ill and the other had next to no morals. Some kind of justification to himself perhaps?
I also felt he was a little vague in relation to the plot in places, particularly after Q enters the scene.
But overall, a rather boring read. Which is probably just as well, given the subject matter.

I'll pass this on to Merceria in the next week or so.

To be passed on to Merceria tomorrow when we meet with eansworth to check out the OBCZ at Starbucks in Civic.

What to say...intriguing, disturbing and I would perhaps say illuminating. It was interesting to read after having been told very different things by others - one friend loved it because of Nabokov's prose, another couldn't stand it for the very same reason. I'd fall somewhere in the middle. At times the writing seemed spot on, at others, not enough. Overall, a worthy read, I feel - it was at the very least interesting and although, like others, I found it hard to concentrate after about half-way, it still managed to surprise me.

To be posted back to Pixette as soon as my meagre student's budget allows.

I've just been looking over the journal entries for this book. Yes, Lolita is meant to be disturbing but I think it is worth looking past the face value of the subject material.

You have a very humorous russian immigrant's view of the disturbing fast lane life of america, fast food, fast highways, etc. Which also happens to include the fast development of children. We may all feel a little disturbed by the relationship between Humbert and Lolita but ..... who really had the power here? Lolita to be sure.

The questions posed are far more numerous than the straight narrative of the story, I feel.

I came across these questions when reading about the book, and thought I might leave them here....not necessarily to discuss, but just for us to think about...it puts some depth to a book that many of us, myself included, were unable to take in due to the age factor.

1) On page 265 of Lolita Nabokov/ Humbert speaks directly about fictional characters. It is an important passage in that it makes an observation about literature in a text that is highly aware of itself as a written art work: a fictional character is speaking about fictional characters. Does Humbert Humbert's character fit his own description of himself? How does your interpretation shed insight into the text?
2) Humbert Humbert makes "mistakes" in his carefully constructed narrative. Do these mistakes jeopardize his authority or at least the credibility of certain parts or aspects of his story? For example on page 284 H.H. admits that in some ways he has no idea about Lolita's personality; consequently one questions how much of the previous narrative was a projection of H.H.'s feelings and thoughts. You might want to look at the cracks in Humbert Humbert's character to expose his hypocrisy. What lies behind the aloof, intellectual facade that H.H. constructs and how does this effect our reading of the book? Remember that it is not enough to say that H.H. is unreliable; your focus must be on how his faults inform our understanding of his character. A good place to start might be to ask, "How are we to read Humbert Humbert's account of Lolita?"
3) How is Lolita portrayed in the novel? Obviously this question forces you to navigate H.H.'s narrative with great tact, but this does not diminish Lolita's role in the novel that uses her name as its title. Is she a victim? temptress? victor? or even a object to be despised?
4) Examine family relations in Lolita. How do they explain/ influence the course of the novel? Charlotte's character is particularly fertile ground, especially as she remains a haunting figure throughout the book: what is the meaning of her haunting Humbert? You may also want to examine her relationship with her daughter as it potentially sets a pattern for Lolita's behavior.
5) Nabokov makes many references to the media - advertising, film, magazines, comics, television - throughout the novel. What is Lolita's relationship to the media? Is Nabokov critiquing the mass media? If so, does this critique extend to American society as a whole? How does the author navigate film as a competing genre to literature - what is the relationship between books and film?
6) Independent of Nabokov's opinions, Humbert Humbert's pretensions create an image and feel about America and American society. Select a particular aspect of the America that H.H. describes - hotels, shows, schools and so forth - and argue what cultural critique Lolita offers of mid-twentieth century America. Questions 3 and 4 might provide a good starting point to access this broader discussion.

If you think this isnt appropriate for the journal, tell me and Ill delete it

Thanks

FunkyB

I think the journal entry is fantastic, thank you Funkybamboozle.

This book was a formative one for my literary education. I must say I read Lolita 20 years ago and am certainly going to re-read it when it comes home now. I wish to have a mature adult look at it and will then love to post a discussion here on my latter day findings of the work.

This isn't just a novel - Nabokov was most certainly making social comment. What I do very much recall is the author (as an immigrant from an old historied Europe) taking great pains to portray the America he saw, with such a biting satire. The plastic, media-crazy, roadtrain, trailertrash society painted was totally divergent from his other works.

The subject material was used to awaken and shock - and the humour used to unbalance the reader.

This novel is loved and hated, but to be sure has it's firm place in 20th century literature.

It caused social awareness of the previously unspoken outrage of paedophilia and affected major change in the media. Look at any Shirley Temple film and post Lolita wonder that they don't do this style adult-male/girl-child relationships anymore.

Returned to me by Merceria and posted off today.

I have wanted to read this book for some years now so I am glad to be on the bookring. I am also daunted by the subject matter and the fact that I have just finished a very heavy book on war crimes. Oh well, sometimes its more rewarding to have a run of "difficult" books before reading something refreshingly simple.

OK I want to preface this entry with this statement: I don't usually give up on books before I finish them. In fact I can only remember two books that I chose to not finish reading out of the many thousands I have read in my lifetime. Unfortunately this will be the third. I can only agree with Funkybamboozle who said "I have failed to complete the book, and for once I really dont care." I have not an ounce of guilt or regret over not finishing it. Why did this book cause such an extreme reaction in me?
a) I found Nabokov's writing style flowery and pretentious. In my opinion it was overwritten.
b) The parts that were supposed to be comic I found to be only disturbing and nauseating.
c) HH's deluded concept of "nymphettes" made me cringe with a disgust that I could not overcome.
d) HH sad belief that what he was experiencing for Lolita was "love" was a laughable concept to me.

Perhaps this novel can be called a classic by those who find quality in Nabokov's writing style and who can see layers of depth in such things as metaphors for the old and new worlds of Russia and America. However, I like to call a spade a spade and all academic posturing aside it is quite simply about how a vain and manipulative misogynist paedophile attempts to justify his sickness to the world...and that to me does not classic literature make. Though it makes my skin crawl to think about how this novel is probably held as a true classic in the paedophile world.

Thanks Pixette for offering this up as a bookring, despite my negative reaction I found the experience valuable :)

Little Lolita has returned home thanks all for participating.

It's been 20 years since I read this - I will put it on my tbr pile to reread I think

This book has finally fallen apart after so many travels and reads.

It has completed it's destiny