Lolita

By: Vladimir Nabokov, Claire Messud - introduction

Narrated by: Jeremy Irons, Cassandra Campbell

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. • With a new introduction by Claire Messud

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

One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years

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.

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 conjunction of a sense of humor with a sense of horror [results in] satire of a very special kind, in which vice or folly is regarded not so much with scorn as with profound dismay and a measure of tragic sympathy…The reciprocal flow of irony gives to both the characters and their surroundings the peculiar intensity of significance that attends the highest art." —The New Yorker

"A revealing and indispensable comedy of horrors." —San Francisco Chronicle

An Absolutely Gorgeous Audible Experience

I have tried to read LOLITA on several occassions, but for whatever reason--probably the dull, midwest monotony of my internal reading voice--have put the book down. I purchased LOLITA (read by Jeremy Irons) with a sense of trepidation (had I just bought something I would never finish?) The book is as impressive as the critics will tell you. Nabokov's language, his ability to fully render a scene, his mind-boggling vocabularly, and his characters--those desperate and beautiful and horrible creatures--are like nothing else in the canon of fiction. Add to this the luxurious experience of Jeremy Irons' voice and you end up with a book--a reading--that will make you shake your head in awe.

Nabokov Narrated with Subtlety

This audiobook is completely sustained by the superb and finely attuned narration of Jeremy Irons. While Lolita is and remains a classic of 20th Century literature, this production will allow you to see [hear] a completely new perspective. Irons takes you completely inside the mind of Humbert Humbert, and with skill and subtlety makes you loathe him and sympathize with him at the same time. His tremulous and unspeakable desire mixed with his engulfing shame, his cowardice and his bravery standing side by side, his disregard of social norms tempered by his utter need for secrecy -- all of these conflicts are roiling beneath the surface of the story as it unfolds. This is a performance that only the finest of actors could pull off.

The reading was really good!

Really good performance of the narrator. The book was beautifully written but it's still kind of disturbing if you think of it on a general term: a child molesting middle aged man. Ugh! But I think it's a good book. Not sure I'll recommend it to my friends to read though.

luxurous and immersive elegant story telling

holy carp. this is a major classic for very good reasons. even though the protagonist is the villain and absolutely deplorable, Nabakov puts you in the mind of the predator with unaplogetic and eloquent abandon.

Hmm... It is about a Pedophile.

It is so beautifully written but it was at times hard to hear him talk about a child that way. Even though he didn't get overly graphic.