Lolita is a novel narrated by Humbert Humbert, a cultured European scholar who settles in small-town America and becomes obsessed with his landlady's young daughter. He tells his story in elaborate, seductive prose, presenting himself as a man of refined feeling. Yet the book gradually lets the reader see the harm he does and the self-deception behind his eloquence. Following their journeys across motels and highways, it is both a comic road novel and a disturbing study of abuse, manipulation and unreliable narration. It remains controversial and endlessly discussed, praised for its artistry and for the moral questions it raises about how language can disguise cruelty.
Quotes
Oh, my Lolita, I have only words to play with!
All I want to stress is that my discovery of her was a fatal consequence of that 'princedom by the sea' in my tortured past. Everything between the two events was but a series of gropings and blunders, and false rudiments of joy.
Then she crept into my waiting arms, radiant, relaxed, caressing me with her tender, mysterious, impure, indifferent, twilight eyes--for all the world, like the cheapest of cheap cuties. For that is what nymphets imitate--while we moan and die.
Her brown rose tasted of blood.