What is Lolita?

Question

It sounds kind of weird, but I know there's a book. What is the word Lolita mean and should I read the book by Vladimir what-his-face?

Answer 1

How rude to give away the whole plot and spoil books for people She asked who or what Lolita is, not for the whole story. People shouldn't post spoilers here without saying so first. And only when someone asks for one in the Question Line. That is just mean spirited to cut and paste a Wiki passage here and ruin the book for anyone who reads the thread for two lousy points. Sorry but I had to say that.

Lolita is Humbert Humbert's fantasy female. There really is no Lolita. Her name is Dolores Haze. Humbert Humbert meets Dolly's mother after his first "nymphet" dies of typhus before he can consummate their relationship. He moves to NY after a failed marriage in Paris and finally settles in a town in New England where he meets Charlotte = Dolores's mother. Unwittingly, Charlotte assists Humbert in his quest to seduce her daughter. Lolita is the fantasy name he uses for her. There never is a real character named Lolita in the story - only in Humbert's sick and twisted mind.

Pax - C

Answer 2

A "Lolita" is a word for a young girl (9-14) who is sexually attractive to some older men. It is from the book "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov, where Lolita is the nickname for a girl called Dolores.

The book is beautifully, poetically written, and there are no explicit sex scenes, although the subject matter is definitely "adult" in nature.

Answer 3

"Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov tells a story of a middle aged schoolteacher named "Humbert Humbert". To a degree, it can be said that the book puts you in a pedophiles viewpoint. That can however be seriously debate, which is the main reason why you SHOULD, by all means, read the book.

The term "Lolita" was popularized by this book and it refers to a sexually desirable, albeit very young girl. The term "nymphet" is used in the book if I recall correctly.

As I said, the book is rather controversial and you should read it to form an opinion about it and the socio-psychological situations it describes.

Answer 4

Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita is the name of the 13 year old girl the narrator Professor Humbert becomes obsessed by. Humbert is a brilliant, witty, intelligent man with a terrible fatal flaw. I would highly recommend it, it is not pornographic don't worry. A beautifully written novel. Nabokov was a Russian writer who fled to America under Stalin and continued writing in English, even though it was his second language Nabokov use of it was original and inventive. A complete original.

Answer 5

"Lolita" is a name of a 13 year old girl from the book by Nabokov. a russian write. They guy was much older, and fell in love with her. Then he had to steal her and right around to have sexual relations. Lolita became a name for all the young sexy girls.

Answer 6

Lolita - light of my life, fire of my loins. When a book begins like that, how could anyone not want to read the rest of it?

Answer 7

Thats up for discussion and there are in fact multiple potential answers to the question..

Answer 8

Read it and find out, what's-your-face.

Answer 9

From the "Urban Dictionary:"


Lolita

n.
a young girl that gets innapropriate sexual attention from an older man or men After Lolita, the heroine of Lolita, a novel by Vladimir Nabokov.

adj.
a type of pornography depicting underage girls, or woman made to appear as underage girls

n.
His friend's sister thought it was fun being the neighborhood lolita, but then she got knocked up, had to drop out of school, all the while her baby' daddy is doing time for statutory rape.

adj.
The well respected teacher got twenty years to life in the federal pen for making lolita videos and selling them on the internet, now he's been reduced to a crybaby punk."

And yes - you should read the book by Vladimir Nabokov; it's a classic.

Here's a plot summary


he protagonist, Humbert Humbert, is writing the manuscript for Lolita, or the Confession of a White Widowed Male from a jail cell, where he is incarcerated for the murder of Clare Quilty. Although he is about to be placed on trial for murder, his manuscript recounts the history of his sexual affair with a young "nymphet" named Dolores Haze, a.k.a. Lolita. Humbert writes that he has had an obsession with nymphets his whole adult life, beginning with his unrequited passion for a young girl named Annabel with whom he fell in love as a young boy. His sexual acts with Annabel were never fully satisfied, leaving a perpetual desire for young girls, fulfilled only when he falls for Lolita.

After telling about his own family life, Humbert mentions his first marriage to a woman named Valeria, a marriage that ended very badly when Valeria left him for another man on the eve of their emigration from France to America. Having never really loved her, Humbert is not too shaken up about his loss, although he does mention having several work-related mental breakdowns.
Once in America, on the advice of a friend, Humbert takes up residence in the town of Ramsdale; he rents a room in a house owned by Charlotte Haze and her daughter, Dolores (also known, in Humbert's mind, as Lolita). He immediately becomes obsessed with the 12-year-old Lolita, a nymphet who reminds him of Annabel. Charlotte and Lolita do not get along at all, however, and Charlotte decides to send Lolita off to summer camp followed by boarding school. Meanwhile, Charlotte proposes marriage to Humbert. Despite his great dislike for her, Humbert readily accepts, because the marriage will give him the opportunity to be with Lolita at all times. Lolita goes off to summer camp, and the marriage occurs while she is away, but before she returns her mother discovers Humbert's private journal. After reading of Humbert's disgust for her and lust for Lolita, Charlotte goes insane, telling Humbert that he will never see Lolita again. She runs out into the street to mail a letter to Lolita about Humbert's sick intentions, but she is suddenly hit and killed by a car.
Soon afterwards, Humbert goes to fetch Lolita from camp, although he tells her that her mother is only in the hospital. They go to a hotel for the night, where they have sex for the first time and become lovers. Humbert later tells Lolita that her mother is dead, and they begin a year-long driving tour that takes them to almost all 48 contiguous states. They see hundreds of attractions everywhere, all the while continuing their affair.
After a year, they move to Lolita's hometown, Beardsley, where Humbert enrolls Lolita in a private girls school that stresses social interaction with males above academics. Humbert, however, quickly becomes paranoid and jealous, fighting with Lolita frequently about her allowance and her associations with boys her age. Eventually, Lolita mysteriously announces that she wishes to leave Beardsley and go on another long drive, to which Humbert readily consents. While touring the nation again, however, Humbert notices that they are being followed by what appears to be a detective (we later learn that it is Clare Quilty, a demented writer with an obsession for child pornography and an intense love for Lolita). Suddenly, Lolita completely vanishes, leaving Humbert all alone. We learn at the end of the novel that she has gone off with Clare Quilty. At the time, though, Humbert does not know any details about her disappearance; he drives around by himself looking at all the places they had visited, trying to learn the truth. Later, he has a two-year love affair with an insane woman in her mid-20s named Rita.
About three years after Lolita's disappearance, Humbert receives a letter from the now 18-year-old Lolita, announcing that she is married and pregnant, and that she needs money. Humbert goes to her house and tells her that he still loves her immensely. He gives her four thousand dollars to help her and her husband, but in exchange he demands to know with whom she had disappeared on that road trip. She tells him about Quilty, which sends Humbert into a rage. He bids goodbye to Lolita for the last time before setting out to find Quilty. When he reaches Quilty's house, he breaks in with a gun, tells Quilty what a horrible man he is, then murders him. Driving away from the house, Humbert realizes that in his life he has broken virtually every moral law imaginable, so he might as well break some legal laws as well. He begins driving on the left side of the road just for fun, and he makes a practice of running red lights, which quickly gets him arrested. The police officers, seeing him covered in blood and finding his gun, arrest him and later charge him with the murder of Quilty. Humbert, who is writing this book as his testimonial for the jury, admits that he deserves to be locked up for his affair with a 12-year-old girl, but he claims that the murder of Quilty did society a favor by destroying a sick pervert.

We learn from the Foreword that Humbert died in prison and that Lolita died in childbirth a short while later. Her baby was stillborn.