Most of the book is the confession of Humbert, a death-row prisoner, recounting the love story between a middle-aged man and an underage girl. The novel was initially rejected for publication in the United States and was first published in 1955 by Olympia in Paris. Finally published in the US in 1958, the book rocketed to the top of the New York Times best-seller list. Lolita has been adapted into a film.

In the novel, Humbert Humbert, a middle-aged French immigrant to the United States, had a first love affair with a 14-year-old girl Annabel when he was a teenager. In The end, Annabel died early from typhoid fever, which led to Humbert’s transformation to a pedophile. He defined “goblin” as “nine to fourteen years old”. First abandoned by a wealthy widow, Humbert later falls for Lolita, the 12-year-old daughter of landlady Charlotte Haze, calling her a goblin. Unable to break away from Lolita due to the shadow of his childhood, Humbert marries his landlady and becomes Lolita’s stepfather in order to get close to the precocious and passionate little girl. The girl in the novel is Dolores Haze, or Lolita or Lo, as the Spanish-sounding nickname for the book’s title.

The landlady in her husband’s diary later found out his secret and was very angry that he cheated on her. Humbert later picks Lolita up from camp and travels with her, thinking that by drugging her in her drink he can unknowingly molest her. The drug had no effect on Lolita (because it wasn’t really a powerful sleeping pill), and instead, the next morning, Lolita flirted with Humbert and had an incestuous relationship. Humbert then informs Lolita that her mother is dead, and with no choice, Lolita accepts that she must live with her stepfather. Humbert takes Lolita on a father and daughter tour of The United States, using pocket money, beautiful clothes, and delicious food to control Lolita and continues to satisfy his desire for her. As Lolita grows up, she begins to dislike her stepfather and starts dating boys of her own age. She takes the opportunity of a trip to break away from her stepfather. Humbert searched frantically at first, but eventually gave up.

Three years later, Humbert receives a letter from Lolita. It says that she is married, pregnant, and needs financial help from her stepfather. Humbert gave her $400 in cash, a check for $3,600, and a $10,000 deed to the house that he had sold. He asked Lolita who is the man who took her away from, and Lolita told him that the man is Quilty who is a professor of performance at her school. She told him that she ran away from Quilty because she rejected Quilty’s request to her and the other boys for making pornographic films. Humbert begged Lolita to leave her husband and go with him, but she refused, and Humbert was heartbroken. He tracked down and shot Quilty. Humbert died in prison of a blood clot, and Lolita died in childbirth on Christmas Day 1950 at the age of 17.

-Coreen C.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library. It is also available to download from Overdrive.