Lolita

Lolita by Nabokov, Vladimir. audioCD edition. ISBN: 9780739322062.

When it was published in 1955, Lolita immediately became a cause célèbre because of the freedom and sophistication with which it handled the unusual erotic predilections of its protagonist. But Vladimir Nabokovs wise, ironic, elegant masterpiece owes its stature as one of the twentieth centurys novels of record not to the controversy its material aroused but to its authors use of that material to tell a love story almost shocking in its beauty and tenderness. Awe and exhilaration–along with heartbreak and mordant wit–abound in this account of the aging Humbert Humberts obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America, but most of all, it is a meditation on love–love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation. With an introduction by Martin Amis. (Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) From the Hardcover edition.