Lolita

By: Vladimir Nabokov

Narrated by: Jeremy Irons

Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.'

LOLITA is the story of Humbert Humbert, poet and pervert, and his obsession with twelve-year-old Dolores Haze. Determined to possess his 'Lolita' both carnally and artistically, Humbert embarks on a disastrous courtship that can only end in tragedy.

Initially, Nabokov was unable to find an American publisher willing to take the book on. It was finally published in Paris in 1954 but its notoriety spread quickly. Graham Green, in an interview in THE TIMES later that year, called it 'one of the best books of 1954'. When G.P. Putnam's Sons published in the US in 1958, it was a bestseller; the first book since Gone with the Wind to sell 100,000 copies in the first three weeks of publication.

©1955 Vladimir Nabokov (P)2005 Random House Audio

Lolita

An enthralling and tragic tale about the dangers of imagination. Masterfully read by Jeremy Irons.

Best audiobook I have heard

This audiobook is so amazing. Jeremy Irons is an incredible narrator! He really brought this story to life.

Captivating performance.

Jeremy Irons brings this book to life. Amazing performance that had me totally emersed in the story.

weird and interesting

I loved the concept of the road tripping and discovering different locations across the United States but I cant seem to understand his relationship with the girls in his lives or why he even keeps going on with being a creep

Disturbingly Wonderful

Dear reader, listening to this audiobook version of Lolita was a fascinating experience: beautiful and poisonous, loving and loathing, sad and funny, sublime and debased, pure and rotten, refined and vulgar, European and American. The premise, a middle-aged man who is a connoisseur of "nymphets" (pre-pubescent girls with a seemingly "demoniac" and "soul-shattering charm") becomes the step-father of one, may shock or repulse. But Nabokov is unsettlingly effective at making us sympathize with his first-person narrator, Humbert Humbert. The novel is also interesting for being comprised of skewed pieces of various genres: buddy-road-adventure, romance, erotic, metafiction, tragedy, and European critique of America.

There is some French in the novel, but usually the context implies what Humbert is saying.

Jeremy Irons expresses his thorough understanding of Nabokov's novel throughout his reading of it. From the opening foreword by the outrageously pedantic American Dr. John Ray, Jr., followed immediately by the creepy sensual beauty of the opening lines of Humbert's story ("Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta" etc.), Irons' voice helps to seduce the reader more and more into Humbert's head and heart and world than the text does alone. He really becomes Humbert in his various moods, including poetic ecstasy, peevish anger, guilty despair, surreal delirium, and philosophic acceptance. It was a pleasure to hear him speaking in Lolita's vulgar American pre-teen voice one moment and in Humbert's world-weary European aesthete's the next. He also does a fine job with the other supporting characters, like Clare Quilty the amoral and successful playwright who speaks a debauched and effeminate American English that simulates by turns movie gangsters, British upper crusts, or French intellectuals.

Well worth listening to.

Brilliant book and narration

Would you listen to Lolita again? Why?

Yes, although the story is disgusting, the writing is beautiful.

What about Jeremy Irons’s performance did you like?

Jeremy Iron's provided a masterful performance - his narration was artful and gripping.

Disturbing

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

I wouldn't exactly call this an enjoyable read. It is, however extremely well written and thought provoking, and wonderfully performed by Mr. Irons.

If you could take any character from Lolita out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Lolita, because I'd want to hear the story from her point of view.

Masterful, compelling and disturbing story of obsession

I don't know why I have never read Nabokov but somehow I only came to read him now. The combination of Nabokov and Jeremy Iron's is a very powerful and toxic, in the most pleasurable kind of toxicity, concoction. I was spellbound and horrified by the compelling sentiment that I found myself entertaining towards the paedophile main character. It is a shocking story at one level of a man's attraction and obsession with young girl-children, but it is also hilarious and Nabokov's rich and vivid, floral use of the English language is breathtaking and captivating. I will read this book again and again. Jeremy Iron's performance is masterful/ how his tongue trips so eloquently across the words is miraculous. I will remember this listening experience for a long time to come!

Fascinating

A very interesting storyline and well worth a listen. I did enjoy it and I adore Jeremy Irons being the narrator BUT I found he was talking a bit to fast for my liking so I felt I missed some bits and had to rewind and listen closely.

Still I would recommend it

Consumate performance of this wonderful book

Jeremy Irons gives a perfect performance as Humbert Humbert (the narrator & fictional author of the story). His tone creates exactly the right amount of compulsion to listen while remaining a repellent character. If you know you want to read Lolita then this is the version you want.

As for the story, the way Nabokov brings the reader in as co-conspirator is both attractive & repellent. If we do not read Humbert's book, his crimes are not witnessed - possibly never committed. As reader we are complicit in every aspect of his crimes.

It's an incredible tale & we are invited right into Humbert's mind, where we are manipulated much the same way he manipulates everyone else around him.

The prose is remarkable. It is possible that Humbert is the most detested fictional character in the world while his story of "Lolita" is one of the finest stories ever written.