On my quest to read fifty books this year (probably not going to happen) I decided to finally finish Lolita.
A few people recommended Nabokov to me in the past, not Lolita per se, but I figured it was one of those scandalous classics you have to read before you die.
We all know Lolita's about an old man's love for a very young girl. The protagonist tries so hard to seduce her that I always put it down because I didn't want to see it happen.
And then I did. Which is awful. And brilliant!
I thoroughly detested Humbert Humbert. Despicable: the guy dreamed about impregnating Lolita so that he could have the young girls (his daughters) when Lolita would be be too old. Or thought him too old. Horrible.
Luckily this didn't comprise the whole book or I doubt I would have finished it. No spoilers.
Although it makes me consider creating a character so terrible all I want to do is torture him.
The writing finds many moments of extreme sentimentality wrought with exclamation points and long drawn out sentences. But Nabokov's word play highlights especially well. You can find some gems like "He broke my heart. You merely broke my life."
I gave it 3/5 stars on GoodReads. Good, not amazing nor painful.
"And the rest is rust and stardust."
— (Lolita)