Has anyone read Lolita?

[dalek]

Has anyone read this? The narrator is really annoying me - finding it difficult to motivate myself to finish it.

Tell me it's worth persevering

I read Lolita at school. It's a book for teenagers, IMO: "let this be a warning to you about the dangers out there". I read and reread Christiane F: Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo around the same time. And the Diary of Anne Frank.

thurlow yes indeed.

Most writers I know, even if they don't like a book like Lolita will recognise the significant challenge of creating the voice. Structuring a book entirely in that voice and never slipping and never compromising, even though the writer knows the voice is unpalatable.

The content of such books are by the by of course. They're not about anything per se, just the inner world of the other...

leBearPolar I have challenged sometimes but it isn't a club which enjoys heated debate,which is fair enough. I have opened my big gob in the past and it has not been well received...

Probably best that I don't drink any more.

Actually,this thread makes me want to go back to college and study lit again. Thank you

Just finished. It dragged a bit in the middle but I really enjoyed this on the whole. It’s been years since I read writing so beautifully written on a technical level - I even re-read some sentences, incredulous that someone was capable of writing that well. I enjoyed questioning what was real and what only went on in Humbert’s abhorrent mind - this ‘unreliable narrator’ device Nabakov deploys reminded me of Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller. I also agree with Remus who recently commented on the third '50 books in 2014' thread that she liked that there was no lengthy preamble into his sick vision - you're in there from the start and there's no let-up. I don’t feel I caught everything in the book, though, and plan to read this a few more times in the future. I’m glad I read it and glad it was never banned. The film adaptations are fab, too.

I thought it was awful; there was nothing "beautiful" about it at all imo. Disliked the plot, the characters and the style it was written in.
Had to read it for bookclub, otherwise I'd have stopped - life is too short to waste it reading books you don't get something from; and I don't mean they have to be cheery, happy, isn't-this-fun books, just that you have to feel that you're somehow better off having read it rather than not.

southeast I think its a perennial problem for a book that's all about the voice, that it will drag at some point. Very difficult to add texture and pace without the voice slipping IYSWIM. This is one of the reasons Ikve never yet tackled writing a 'voice' book. I often include scenes that are just about the technical craft of voice, but no more... Not yet anyway!

No very happy to read challenging books with challenging narrators. Just find this one unenlightning. As someone said upthread, my learning is that paedophiles are delusional and narcissistic Not enough of an insight for me to carry on exploring this world. And Nabokov is a good stylist - yes but that in itself is not enough. Clever but actually not telling me enough that's new or interesting to tempt me to reread it.

And then there's the issue that, once again it's a female victim being used by a male novelist to showcase his pyrotechnics.

Just had to post again because of the patronising tone of some of the earlier posts. No need for this kind of sneering in what is effectively a discussion of how we each experienced this book.