Why is this regarded so highly? While expertly crafted, it often

>>8692040
it's because there is a HumHum in all of us

Lolita was my introduction to Nabokov what do I read next

>>8692040
because the language is as seductive as Lolita and I cry at the end.

srs

Bump, I guess.

>>8692040
Because it sucks the reader into the characters and especially when humbert is sexually attracted to a little 12 year old nymph. The reader decides whether humbert's are "aww sweet" or "yuck im gonna go kms im done with this book" something to that effect.

>>8692209
Humbert's actions* sorry

>>8692209
I felt that, especially given the first-person narration, none of the characters except Humbert got any sort of development. They're kind of like rough sketches of people.

>>8692040
Vivian Darkbllom is an anagram of Vladimir Nabkov.

Really changes the way you read the novel.

>>8692040
I find most people who read this book are used to works where the point is expressed within the novel. Books where dialogue or symbols or events pop up that lead one to understanding what the book is meant to do. Because they are only used to those sorts of novels they are bewildered by this novel's point being made through the construction of the novel itself rather than through its constituent parts.

This novel is a grand statement as to the purpose of all good literature, not only for the reader but also the writer. The book shows by example that literature is to be a meditation on the purely aesthetic, that it is to delight in its craft and to entice the reader into carefully directed intellectual exercise.

>>8692050
I read "Despair" and "Invitation to an execution". Reading "Pale Fire" now. It's all really good, though it seems like each book he wrote has an unreliable narrator. It's fun, but it gets repetitive after a few books.

>>8693285
OP here, your explanation is spot on, thank you for that. I've also read Nabokov's afterword to Lolita, but somehow you managed to describe it pretty well while the man himself came off to me as an obnoxious faggot denouncing all fiction not exclusively preoccupied with aesthetics.

>>8692040
People identify with Humbert more than they would like to admit. Also, Nabokov prose is always a pleasure to read.

>>8692040
it's not that good. it's a book about nothing.

>>8693288
Cool, thanks