Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my
soul.'
Poet and pervert, Humbert Humbert becomes obsessed by
twelve-year-old Lolita and seeks to possess her, first carnally and
then artistically, out of love, 'to fix once for all the perilous
magic of nymphets'. This seduction is one of many dimensions in
Nabokov's dizzying masterpiece, which is suffused with a savage
humour and rich, elaborate verbal textures.
'Lolita is comedy, subversive yet divine... You read Lolita
sprawling limply in your chair, ravished, overcome, nodding
scandalised assent.
Martin Amis, Observer
