Has anyone read lolita? what do they think of it?

Answer 1

One of the best books I have ever read. The characterisation, plot and the sheer quality of the writing are superb.
Although it had a reputation as a sexually explicit book, it is nothing of the kind.
The difficult subject of the love of an older man for a young girl is in fact handled in a very moral way and the outcome is very sad for both the main characters.
Anybody hoping for pornography would be very disappointed.
When it was first published it was banned in some societies by the small minded and repressed sort of people who controlled
life in those days but it does need a fairly mature mind to appreciate it.

Answer 2

I read it when I was around 20, and remember thinking it was interesting but not shocking.
I read it again a couple years ago, when my older daughter was 9 or so, and THAT time it was extremely shocking.
Pedophilia, schmedophilia, it's a story about controlling another person's every move. It is a truly disturbing book.
(I also recommend reading Reading Lolita in Teheran, the author presents a very insightful perspective on Lolita (and Pride and Prejudice, and the Great Gatsby--it's a literature course in a book).)

Answer 3

Lolita, light of so many lives, fire of so many loins, has become so much more than merely the book Nabokov wrote. The story of the young nymphet, Dolores (Lolita) Haze, and her seducer, Humbert Humbert, lives beyond the confines of the novel.
Essential reading, strongly recommended.

Answer 4

I listened to the audio book in an unabridged version. I think it has a special significance for heterosexual men who seem to very frequently harbor some degree of forbidden attraction to girls. Being gay, I simply found it fascinating. But for all its praise, I felt that it had a very limited awareness behind it. It probes and teases a very specific question about a very specific kind of human desire and its repercussions. If there were passages that revealed the author's larger sensibility about life, I didn't catch them.

Answer 5

That guy turned the English language into something singularly bizarre and satisfying. What a great book.

Answer 6

It´s a good book, but not Nabokov´s best. It´s his most famous however, due to the theme of pedophilia and the time it was first published.

Answer 7

I was so exicted when I first purchased it. To read a highly-acclaimed classic! But when I read it, what difference is it from porn? The main characther is a paedophile. Gross book.

Answer 8

I have seen the film is that the one about the child and the farther figure and they run away and have fun .... well if that what you could call it..... have I got the rite concept ....anyway i thought the book and film were portrayed very well.....