Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0000696, Thu, 31 Aug 1995 08:28:43 -0700

Subject
"Lolita" and Hot Books (fwd)
Date
Body
From: Julian W. Connolly <jwc4w@virginia.edu>

In The Washington Post Book World (Sun., Aug. 20, 1995), Michael
Dirda lists 12 "hot" books which he recommends reading in an effort to
survive the "blast furnace" of late summer in Washington, DC. As he puts
it, the characters in these books "have it a lot steamier, stickier and
hotter than we do." Number one on the list is "Dune" by Frank Herbert, and
number two is "The White Nile" by Alan Moorehead. "Lolita" is number 11.
He describes the book as follows:

Murderers, as Humbert Humbert tells us, always have fancy prose
styles. Passions never burned so feverishly as in this, the great and
perverse love story of our times. Bedazzled by the nymphet daughter of his
landlady, the middle-aged professor succumbs to the summertime world of
America--overnight camps, the beach at the local lake, the motels along the
western roadways. "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins, My sin,
soul." [sic]

Julian W. Connolly