Book Review: Lolita-Introduction by Martin Amis (Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series)

 

Lolita is a book written by Vladimir Nabokov and published in 1955. The book is considered a modern classic (likely because of the film adaptation by Stanley Kubrick), but really it is just very creepy. It is a book that would never be made today, and honestly, given the subject matter, it is a bit amazing that it was ever published back in the 1950s.

The story is presented as a memoir of a middle-aged man using the pseudonym Humbert Humbert (being edited by an editor of psychology books). Humbert lusts after the 12-year-old daughter of a woman he is renting a room from (and eventually marries to be close to the daughter, Delores, whom he calls Lo, short for Lolita). If it just stopped there it would be creepy enough, but of course, it does not. While Nabokov does not explicitly describe the sex scenes and does not use obscene language, he is clear that Humbert repeatedly molests her. The crux of the story is about how both of their lives spiral down over the course of time.

The book is relatively short, at just over 330 pages and it reads fairly quickly. Personally, I would not put it in the ranks of a classic novel, but it is a tragic story with a very dark plotline.