- ISBN13: 9780679727293
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
The Annotated Lolita: Revised and Updated
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.Amazon.com Review
In 1954 Vladimir Nabokov asked one American publisher to consider “a firebomb that I have just finished putting together.”
The explosive device: Lolita, his morality play about a middle-aged European’s obsession with a 12-year-old American girl. Two years later, the New York Times called it “great art.” Other reviewers staked a higher moral ground (the editor of the London Sunday Express declaring it “the filthiest book I’ve ever read”). Since then, the sinuous novel has never ceased to astound. Even Nabokov was astonished by its place in the popular imagination. One biographer writes that “he was quite shocked when a little girl of eight or nine came to his door for candy on Halloween, dressed up by her parents as Lolita.” And when it came time to casting the film, Nabokov declared, “Let them find a dwarfess!”
The character Lolita’s power now exists almost separately from the endlessly inventive novel. If only it were read as often as it is alluded to. Alfred Appel Jr., editor of the annotated edition, has appended some 900 notes, an exhaustive, good-humored introduction, and a recent preface in which he admits that the “reader familiar with Lolita can approach the apparatus as a separate unit, but the perspicacious student who keeps turning back and forth from text to Notes risks vertigo.” No matter. The notes range from translations to the anatomical to the complex textual. Appel is also happy to point out the Great Punster’s supposedly unintended word play: he defends the phrase “Beaver Eaters” as “a portmanteau of ‘Beefeaters’ (the yeoman of the British royal guard) and their beaver hats.”
Anonymous said
Rating: 1 / 5
Anonymous said
Rating: 1 / 5
Chelsea Doll said
Rating: 5 / 5
Zach Everson said
Nabokov is a superior writer for the reasons that Appel mentions in his detailed notes: his allusions to other works, the book being a parody of itself, effective use of foreshadowing, putting the author’s fingerprint on the narrative, the double, and all of the other literary techniques. In the end though, the story is lousy. A 13-year-old girl is getting raped and I couldn’t care and it’s not because I sympathized with her tormentor either. Does that make me a bad person? Perhaps. Does it make Nabokov a lousy storyteller? In this instance, yes.
I just couldn’t care about the characters. The book took me two years to read – I kept putting it down to read another novel. I wasn’t expecting – and didn’t want – an erotic thriller. That’s what late-night Showtime is for. If the point of the novel was to make a story about pedophilia mundane, than Nabokov succeed. It still doesn’t mean it’s a good book. (Some of the other reviews here sound as if they gave the book a good rating just because it’s been deemed a classic.)
As a former English major, I’ve read many classic novels. Read this one if you are interested in the technical aspects of writing. Examining Nabokov’s approach will make you a better writer. Don’t read it because you are looking for a classic that tells a good story though – check out Joyce, Steinbeck, or Fitzgerald for that need.
Go ahead – say this review wasn’t helpful too. God forbid someone actually has a negative opinion of this book.
Rating: 2 / 5
Elaine Sokoloff said
Rating: 5 / 5