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The Annotated Lolita

Revised and Updated

By Vladimir Nabokov, Alfred Appel Jr.

(649)

| Paperback | 9780679727293

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Book Description

The annotated text of this modern classic. It assiduously illuminates the extravagant wordplay and the frequent literary allusions, parodies, and cross-references. Edited with a preface, introduction and notes by Alfred Appel, Jr.

30 Reviews

4 people find this helpful

« LOLITA, light of my fire, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at ... (continue)

« LOLITA, light of my fire, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the little dotted line, But in my arms she was always Lolita. »
Questo libro è un capolavoro, ed a renderlo tale non è l'inglese assolutamente delizioso di Nabokov o il tema scabroso, quanto più il modo dolcissimo e assolutamente impensabile che ti porta, alla fine del racconto, a chiudere il libro e provare un senso di tiepida tristezza ed empatia nei confronti di Humbert -cosa che si poteva presumere impossibile, cominciando a leggere.
Meraviglioso.

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ogni osso ha il suo cane said on Jan 26, 2010 | Add your feedback

3 people find this helpful

This book is definitely great. Humbert Humbert is a fuckin' pedophile, a maniac, the kind of man that everyone would hang as soon as possible. But! But Nabokov makes you love him, understand him, and follow him during his crazy journey all over the States with his kidnapped, raped, psych ... (continue)

This book is definitely great. Humbert Humbert is a fuckin' pedophile, a maniac, the kind of man that everyone would hang as soon as possible. But! But Nabokov makes you love him, understand him, and follow him during his crazy journey all over the States with his kidnapped, raped, psychologically overwhelmed Lolita...But! But in the end you like him, he is ironic and has culture, and after all you come to think that Lolita wasn't that innocent and that Humbert is a fuckin' pedophile as said before but you deeply undestand him. And that is a crazy and great effect, that just a great novelist can achieve. (Last but not least: Nabokov uses a better english than 99% of english-speaking writers, but his mothertongue is russian)(and we shan't forget that american people are always shown as stupid and empty folk. Yeah)(I ask your pardon for the innumerable grammatical mistakes and mispellings I must have made in this short writing)

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Katjuša Tupolev said on Oct 27, 2008 | 1 feedback

3 people find this helpful

There is a reason why Vladmir Nabokov is considered one of the greatest writers of this past century - and this novel is the best-known example of his deceptively simple style. Nabokov is a master storyteller, he gives great characterizations and has amazing attention to detail. (some may contend t ... (continue)

There is a reason why Vladmir Nabokov is considered one of the greatest writers of this past century - and this novel is the best-known example of his deceptively simple style. Nabokov is a master storyteller, he gives great characterizations and has amazing attention to detail. (some may contend too much of the latter, especially in the various hotel entries.)
It is often maligned by people who only have heard the concept of this work, and never actually read the book. It's a beautiful, finely wrought jewel of a book, deservedly acclaimed as one of the best of the 20th century.
Read it and judge for yourself.

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guaddess said on Aug 18, 2007 | Add your feedback

Humbert Humbert loves little girls, the so-called nymphets, those girls who seduce adults through their behavior through their true nature, that is not human, but demoniac.
In fact the book was successful because for the first time it has delineated he figure of nymphet.
When Humbert Humbert meets ... (continue)

Humbert Humbert loves little girls, the so-called nymphets, those girls who seduce adults through their behavior through their true nature, that is not human, but demoniac.
In fact the book was successful because for the first time it has delineated he figure of nymphet.
When Humbert Humbert meets Lolita, a lovely nymphet of twelve years, he immediately falls in love with her.
She seduces him since the first moment he sees her and after her mother’s death, he starts a long travel through America with the girl.
From this instant, Humbert Humbert lives an important love story during which loves her madly: he adores her, he watches her spasmodically, while Lolita thinks to other things.
Lolita is a pungent,lovable, smart and naïve girl, but also one of the most female enigmatic character of the literature.
When someone else takes Lolita away from Humbert Humbert, he cannot stand it and he wants to revenge this bad action.
He is clearly a pedophile, even if he has a great respect for the common girls, for their purity and their vulnerability and in absolutely no case, he would have attacked the innocence of a girl, if there would have been the risk of a scandal.
He knows he loves Lolita more than anything he has ever seen or imagined on earth, he loves that pale and contaminated girl, who is pregnant of another man.
That grey eyed girl , with her sooty eyebrows.
He does not think he has deprived Lolita of her innocence and of her childhood, because according to him the moral sense is considered by mortal people the price to pay to the sense of beauty.
He decides to ignore the fact that for her, he was not a lover, or a charming man, or a big friend, and not even a person.
He says he is a monster, but he loves her and he does not consider himself a criminal sexual psychopath taking indecent liberties with a child.
And what is most singular is that she, this Lolita, his Lolita, has individualized the writer’s ancient lust, so that above and over everything there is Lolita.
What drives him insane is the twofold nature of this nymphet of every nymphet, perhaps; this mixture in her Lolita of tender dreamy childishness and a kind of eerie vulgarity, stemming from the snub-nosed cuteness of
ads and magazine pictures, from the blurry pinkness of adolescent maidservants in the Old Country (smelling of crushed daisies and sweat); and from very young harlots disguised as children in provincial brothels; and then again, all this gets mixed up with the exquisite stainless tenderness seeping through the musk and the mud, through the dirt and the death.

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Cri1967 said on Mar 21, 2012 about the Others edition | Add your feedback

While the author is a very talented man, and his words flow flawlessly, I found it hard to go through the whole novel and stopped a bit over halfway. The novel is based on a pedophile's lust for a young girl, Lolita and how he manipulates the situation by marrying Lolita's mother to get closer to h ... (continue)

While the author is a very talented man, and his words flow flawlessly, I found it hard to go through the whole novel and stopped a bit over halfway. The novel is based on a pedophile's lust for a young girl, Lolita and how he manipulates the situation by marrying Lolita's mother to get closer to her.
It is a very delicate subject matter (even for myself...and I've read a bit of everything) and it was just too much for me. It's not for everyone.

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dieselk10 said on Jul 7, 2011 | Add your feedback

1 person find this helpful

Reading Lolita in English (its original version) is highly recommended, since the almost poetic quality of the language

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Elaine said on Jun 13, 2011 | Add your feedback