Lolita

By: Vladimir Nabokov

Narrated by: Jeremy Irons

Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

The most famous and controversial novel from one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century tells the story of Humbert Humbert’s obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze.

"The conjunction of a sense of humor with a sense of horror [results in] satire of a very special kind." —The New Yorker

Awe and exhilaration—along with heartbreak and mordant wit—abound in Lolita, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsession for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America.

Most of all, it is a meditation on love—love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.

(P)2005 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

One of TIME Magazine's All-Time 100 Novels

"Lolita blazes with a perversity of a most original kind. For Mr. Nabokov has distilled from his shocking material hundred-proof intellectual farce…Lolita seems an assertion of the power of the comic spirit to wrest delight and truth from the most outlandish materials. It is one of the funniest serious novels I have ever read; and the vision of its abominable hero, who never deludes or excuses himself, brings into grotesque relief the cant, the vulgarity, and the hypocritical conventions that pervade the human comedy." —The Atlantic Monthly

"Intensely lyrical and wildly funny." —Time

"The only convincing love story of our century." —Vanity Fair

Wonderful!

What made the experience of listening to Lolita the most enjoyable?

Jeremy Irons was delightful. Perfect fit for the story. (Could help that he played this role before!)

Any additional comments?

The story itself is often atrocious but the writing and characterization are too compelling to stop listening.
There's humor and heart even in the midst of all the awful things happening. (and it's never explicit, very tastefully written.)

Phenomenal!

A beautifully written, disturbing, thought provoking, provocative, poetic story. Jeremy Irons reading is languid, liqueur for the ears. Hated for it to end.

Great!

Loved the story, the storyteller and the language in this book. However, it was some times hard to follow the story as an audio-book, especially if there were many things happening around me. I had to focus to get the most out of it. Inn all other ways it was a wonderful book!

I loved to hate it

Ok, obviously it's a disgusting topic, but I loved to hate it. Just like if you see Jack Gleeson ( plays Joffrey Baratheon in GOT ) on the streets you would feel like punching him in the face, not because he is a bad actor but because he is a good actor and plays a whiny asshole brilliantly.
I felt curiosity, repulsion, compassion, indignation and sadness for every character of this book; Navokov portraits them with many layers, that makes it feel more real.
The narrator is really good.
English is not my 1st language, but in my opinion I think it's advanced. For me it was a bit hard for me to follow, I had to re listen several times, although I have to say that it was beautifully written almost poetic.

Terrifying, Disgusting, and Sad.

A delicate but forceful piece of literature that confronts the audience with the dark and difficult humanity of an unfortunate and dangerous person.

I would prefer to be able to read and then look up the many French phrases used throughout. But otherwise the audio format does nothing to detract from the work. And Jeremy Irons' performance, disturbingly pleasant to hear, is a good compliment to the tasteful (if slightly purple) prose style supposedly written by such an otherwise unsavory character.

Great book

Where does Lolita rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

At the top.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Lolita and her character development from prey to the predator.

What about Jeremy Irons’s performance did you like?

Jeremy was excellent. His accent and inflection perfectly reflected my imaginings of the character.

Poignant and earth sweet.

Very tragic, and difficult to reconcile with the morality of today. Sensual and classy. Lola, I have known your cousin, and she is just as well.

A Disturbing Classic

Published in 1955 and considered scandalous. I had absolutely no connection or empathy with the main character, who spends the entire book attempting to justify himself and his actions. I searched online to find out that there have been quite a few film adaptations (one with Jeremy Irons). After watching a few trailers and parts of entire films on Youtube, it appears that the theme seems to be "young attractive educated man being attracted to a young saucy teenage girl." The films imply that the girl has a teenage crush on him, flirts and even seduces the gentleman. NOT my interpretation of the book. My experience was through a mother's eyes, so my opinion is tainted.

Wow

I think I would be happy to hear Jeremy Irons read me a cereal box. What fantastic narration. So incredible is the combination of narration and writing that you actually empathize with a character you would normally be happy to lock up and throw away the key! A must listen.

excellent narrator

Listening to this again, I found I had many questions again about the aptness of this subject with regards to the normalization (or even aesthetic anointment) of sexual assault. The narrator does an excellent job getting across the wretchedness of protagonist, so it's not an easy topic to sort out. As far as the writing, it's really one of the most carefully and tightly crafted novels, with a voice that is so finely tuned to the speaker's pedophilic psyche (of which there are certainly, and understandably, few representations), that it's amazing how caught up one might get in a very sick person's mind.