The Annotated Lolita
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Description
"Fascinatingly detailed." -Edmund Morris, The New York Times Book Review
When it was published in 1955, Lolita immediately became a cause célèbre because of the freedom and sophistication with which it handled the unusual erotic predilections of its protagonist. Awe and exhilaration–along with heartbreak and mordant wit–abound in this account of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze.
Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America, but most of all, it is a meditation on love–love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.
Book Information
Posts
So I read the annotated Version & it was a pain to get through. First of all, that introduction was so hard to get through. Alfred Appel really does not know how to get to the point, i guess he has that in common with Nabokov. The notes for the book are helpful half the time but a lot of times it's just a slog to get through. The actual book itself - Lolita - was meh at best. I really continuously grappled with the thought of DNFing it., but i tried to power through as it's considered a classic & so many people love it. I thought there must be something in this book worth my time; I was wrong. The beginning was pretty good, but after 1/4 to halfway through the book it just becomes super tedious to read. The only saving grace was that Nabokov managed to show how disgusting the main characters is, but that is all there is. There are stretches of the book, especially in the second half, that just drag on and on and on... I was so bored out of my mind, did not like the writing style for most of the book. So no enjoyment reading it & personally I learned nothing from it. Maybe at the time this came out you could gain something from reading it. In todays world? Questionable. This book really is a good reminder that it is okay to DNF books.
Description
"Fascinatingly detailed." -Edmund Morris, The New York Times Book Review
When it was published in 1955, Lolita immediately became a cause célèbre because of the freedom and sophistication with which it handled the unusual erotic predilections of its protagonist. Awe and exhilaration–along with heartbreak and mordant wit–abound in this account of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze.
Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America, but most of all, it is a meditation on love–love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.
Book Information
Posts
So I read the annotated Version & it was a pain to get through. First of all, that introduction was so hard to get through. Alfred Appel really does not know how to get to the point, i guess he has that in common with Nabokov. The notes for the book are helpful half the time but a lot of times it's just a slog to get through. The actual book itself - Lolita - was meh at best. I really continuously grappled with the thought of DNFing it., but i tried to power through as it's considered a classic & so many people love it. I thought there must be something in this book worth my time; I was wrong. The beginning was pretty good, but after 1/4 to halfway through the book it just becomes super tedious to read. The only saving grace was that Nabokov managed to show how disgusting the main characters is, but that is all there is. There are stretches of the book, especially in the second half, that just drag on and on and on... I was so bored out of my mind, did not like the writing style for most of the book. So no enjoyment reading it & personally I learned nothing from it. Maybe at the time this came out you could gain something from reading it. In todays world? Questionable. This book really is a good reminder that it is okay to DNF books.