Book a Week: Weeks 23-24, Book 18
I finally went to me new library, and the first book I took out was Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov. I've been wanting to read this for some time, but it was never available in my paperback swap. This was my best option. I have to admit I was surprised that a book about pedophilia would be in such high demand. Having read it, I can't say I loved it. It's verbose, which I suppose is supposed to reflect our unreliable narrator's intelligence. I believe I had to stop and check more words for this book than any other in a long while. It also has a fair dose of French and Latin woven in it. I won't say it's without merit. It's a character study for sure. It also tells a story and brings up a topic without ever being obscene. It's not very long, so maybe give it a read.
“Lolita, the 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.”
“I sat with arms folded, one hip on the window sill, dying of hate and boredom.”
“But instead I am lanky, big-boned, wooly-chested Humbert Humbert, with thick black eyebrows and a queer accent, and a cesspoolful of rotting monsters behind a slow boyish smile.”
“No doubt, I was a little delirious - and on the following day I was still a vibration rather than a solid . . .”
Bonus points for the usage of perambulate, solecism, cognomen, etiolated, apotheosis, expiatory, uranist, nympholept, poltroon, inveigle, meretricious, favonian, phocine, nates, nacreous, nictating, incondite, delectation, verisimilitude, alembic, pavonine, leporine, crepitate, wimble, logodaedaly, recondite, and valetudinarian.
“Lolita, the 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.”
“I sat with arms folded, one hip on the window sill, dying of hate and boredom.”
“But instead I am lanky, big-boned, wooly-chested Humbert Humbert, with thick black eyebrows and a queer accent, and a cesspoolful of rotting monsters behind a slow boyish smile.”
“No doubt, I was a little delirious - and on the following day I was still a vibration rather than a solid . . .”
Bonus points for the usage of perambulate, solecism, cognomen, etiolated, apotheosis, expiatory, uranist, nympholept, poltroon, inveigle, meretricious, favonian, phocine, nates, nacreous, nictating, incondite, delectation, verisimilitude, alembic, pavonine, leporine, crepitate, wimble, logodaedaly, recondite, and valetudinarian.