My new word is "Nymphet"
Everyone seems to be doing it, so I'll pop in with my own new word. As you can probably tell by the title of the post, I've just finished reading Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.
This book is often called the greatest novel of the twentieth century, and one can immediately see why. The brilliant interweaving of colloquial usage and higher-end vocabulary gives the prose a texture that you won't see every day. I usually turn off the inner writer when reading someone else's work, but this book managed to draw out the author inside time and again. I'd find myself shaking my head and hating Nabokov's guts for managing the tightrope act so well.
The story itself, however, probably loses it the title of "greatest" in my mind. While it is certainly an entirely realistic - and brilliantly achieved - character study, the grim, grubby depths of obsession were always going to be a tough sell in my case. Lolita is a book which simply doesn't quite resonate with me. I've never been the sick jealous / obsessive type so I found myself wanting to beat old Humbert Humbert over the head with something nice and heavy. If you add in the fact that I never really did go for younger girls, it made it hard to get into the character's mind. For a well-written book about doomed and slightly unhealthy love, I'll always prefer Breakfast at Tiffany's. I guess Holly Golighty hits (a lot!) closer to home than Dolores Haze.
So, for me, the twentieth century currently has The Great Gatsby and Breakfast at Tiffany's up ahead, with things like Lolita and Catcher in the Rye a few lengths behind. To Kill a Mockingbird (to take a typical list-topping example) is something I found much too heavy-handed, more akin a 20th century version of Gulliver's Travels without the fun stuff: pure social awareness. Faulkner did the South much better, but he was too clever for his own good.
So, what's your take? Does Lolita hold the crown? Or is the greatest something I haven't even mentioned - and possibly haven't even read? Looking forward to your opinions!
Writing: 1100 words yesterday (yay!). 500 into the suspense novel and 600 into a story about a large zombie monster...
This book is often called the greatest novel of the twentieth century, and one can immediately see why. The brilliant interweaving of colloquial usage and higher-end vocabulary gives the prose a texture that you won't see every day. I usually turn off the inner writer when reading someone else's work, but this book managed to draw out the author inside time and again. I'd find myself shaking my head and hating Nabokov's guts for managing the tightrope act so well.
The story itself, however, probably loses it the title of "greatest" in my mind. While it is certainly an entirely realistic - and brilliantly achieved - character study, the grim, grubby depths of obsession were always going to be a tough sell in my case. Lolita is a book which simply doesn't quite resonate with me. I've never been the sick jealous / obsessive type so I found myself wanting to beat old Humbert Humbert over the head with something nice and heavy. If you add in the fact that I never really did go for younger girls, it made it hard to get into the character's mind. For a well-written book about doomed and slightly unhealthy love, I'll always prefer Breakfast at Tiffany's. I guess Holly Golighty hits (a lot!) closer to home than Dolores Haze.
So, for me, the twentieth century currently has The Great Gatsby and Breakfast at Tiffany's up ahead, with things like Lolita and Catcher in the Rye a few lengths behind. To Kill a Mockingbird (to take a typical list-topping example) is something I found much too heavy-handed, more akin a 20th century version of Gulliver's Travels without the fun stuff: pure social awareness. Faulkner did the South much better, but he was too clever for his own good.
So, what's your take? Does Lolita hold the crown? Or is the greatest something I haven't even mentioned - and possibly haven't even read? Looking forward to your opinions!
Writing: 1100 words yesterday (yay!). 500 into the suspense novel and 600 into a story about a large zombie monster...