Must Read
shock factor is still there, well written classic
Hala
Sydney, Australia
Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita is a dark and daring story of
obsessive love and transgression. Humbert Humbert's lust for his
pubescent step-daughter, Lolita, shocked readers when it was first
published in the 1950s; yet the novel was also celebrated for its
beautifully lyrical writing. Almost fifty years after its first
publication, Lolita remains a powerful tale of perversion and
love gone wrong.
About The Author
Born in St. Petersburg in 1899, Vladimir Nabokov was the eldest son
of an aristocratic and culturally educated family. Russian, French and
English were spoken in the Nabokov household and as a child, Nabokov
read authors such as Poe, Melville and Flaubert. Following the
Bolshevik revolution, the Nabokovs moved to London before settling in
Berlin. Nabokov stayed in England to study at Trinity College Cambridge
where he completed his studies. He was married to his wife Vera in
1925. In the first twenty years of writing, Nabokov's writings were in
Russian and it was not until later that his works were translated; many
by his son Dimitri . In 1940 he moved with his wife and son to America
where he lectured at Wellesley College from 1941 to 1948 before filling
the post of professor of Russian literature at Cornell until 1959. His
first novel written in English was The Real Life of Sebastian Knight
written in 1941. Nabokov is arguably most famous for his 1955 novel
Lolita. As well as writing novels, Nabokov wrote works of non-fiction;
notably on Nikolai Gogol (1944) and Eugene Onegin (1964).
In an interview with Alfred Appel, Nabokov stated that 'the writer's
art is his real passport and not his nationality' and that he was 'an
American writer who has once been a Russian.' This reflects Nabokov as
a writer of great linguistic flexibility and suggests that the early
influence of foreign literature perpetuated throughout his life, giving
him the tools to portray ideas in different languages. The ideas are
the speakers in his work, not the language. This ability to disorganise
space is also reflected in Nabokov's own compositional style where he
purports in his early years as a writer to have constructed paragraphs
in his mind to be re-written later and, later on in his career, to
write sections on note cards to be later re-arranged and re-written;
the final work appearing as a sequence of mental spaces materialised on
paper.
Writers such as Martin Amis and Brian Boyd have positioned Nabokov
as one of the greatest writers of the century. Amis has commented that
'to read him in full flight is to experience stimulation that is at
once intellectual, imaginative and aesthetic, the nearest thing to pure
sensual pleasure that prose can offer.'
'Vladimir Nabokov was a literary genius' David Lodge, Guardian
'Even first time readers cannot fail to appreciate Nobokov's
marvellous and distinctive way with words' David Lodge, Guardian
shock factor is still there, well written classic
Hala
Sydney, Australia
This type of of book is good book to read at night before heading to sleep. It helps me relax my mind and always have interesting stories.
Ming
Melbourne, Australia
Stunningly written. Shocking subject matter, executed brilliantly. I'm going to keep this very brief: Extraordinary.
Sim the reader
Sydney, AU
100.0
ISBN: 9780141037431
ISBN-10: 0141037431
Series: Popular Penguins
Audience:
General
Format:
Paperback
Language:
English
Number Of Pages: 372
Published: 1st September 2008
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Country of Publication: GB
Dimensions (cm): 18.1 x 11.4
x 2.4
Weight (kg): 0.2
Edition Number: 1