Published 1955 / Length 368 pages
An extraordinary masterpiece of subtle horror, Lolita was one of the most controversial novels of the twentieth century. The evasive and ingratiating narrative voice is that of Humbert Humbert, intellectual and monster, who is fixated on the sexual pursuit of young girls: nymphets or ‘demon children’, as he terms them. The events of the novel are filtered through the prism of Humbert’s dazzling prose, as he mounts an impassioned and erudite defence of his depravity. Leaving his native Europe for America after spells in various facilities of psychological correction, Humbert becomes the lodger of Charlotte Haze, a suburban widow with a twelve-year-old daughter – Dolores, Lo, Dolly or Lolita – with whom Humbert becomes dangerously obsessed. It’s a challenging read – Nabokov’s beautifully wrought prose resonates with literary and cultural references and deft wordplay – that has lost none of its power to shock.
‘The filthiest book I have ever read … sheer, unrestrained pornography.’ – Sunday Express, 1955
• Does any responsibility for the novel’s events lie with Lolita? Does she ever have control of the plot or of Humbert?
• In what ways does Nabokov lead us to distrust Humbert’s narration?
• Lolita is peppered with comedy, albeit often tragicomedy. Is it possible to enjoy Humbert’s puns and barbed wit in the context of the novel’s disturbing subject matter?
• The book has been interpreted as a metaphor, casting Humbert as Old Europe – cultured but corrupt – and Lolita as America – ‘ripening, beautiful, but not too bright and a little vulgar’, in the words of critic Simon Leake. Does this reading work?
• What roles are played by fate and coincidence in the novel?
• Four American publishers rejected Lolita due to the subject matter, but it was eventually published in Paris. British Customs seized imported copies and it was subsequently banned in France for two years.
• The first American edition in 1958 sold 100,000 copies in the first three weeks of publication.
• Lolita has been filmed twice: in 1962 by Stanley Kubrick, starring James Mason, and in 1997 by Adrian Lyne, starring Jeremy Irons. In both cases, the actresses playing Lolita appeared older than she actually is at the beginning of the book – she is only twelve years old when Humbert first meets her.
• In Brian Boyd’s biography of Nabokov, Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years (1991), he details the author’s intensive research for Lolita: ‘He would do things like travel on the buses around Ithaca, New York and record phrases, in a little notebook, from young girls that he heard coming back from school.’ As a European writing about 1950s America, Nabokov felt it was crucial to make these nuances ring true.
• Reading Lolita in Tehran by AZAR NAFISI – a covert Iranian women’s book group discuss banned Western literature, including Lolita.
• Oryx and Crake by MARGARET ATWOOD – a futuristic portrait of a sexually precocious young girl.