A review by lguzzie
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

“I looked and looked at her, and I knew, as clearly as I know that I will die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth. She was only the dead-leaf echo of the nymphet from long ago - but I loved her, this Lolita, pale and polluted and big with another man's child. She could fade and wither - I didn't care. I would still go mad with tenderness at the mere sight of her face.”

An amalgam of the utterly depraved and the poetically beautiful.  Nabakov's prose is nothing short of stunning, sometimes distracting the reader from the disgusting content and even moving them to briefly sympathize with HH. I will say, the French was very annoying, Nabakov acknowledges this, but I am not smart enough to understand the purpose aside from showing HH is an obnoxious intellectual. I get it.

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