"play, daring metaphors, and prose style capable of both parody and intense lyricism. He gained both fame and notoriety with his novel ""Lolita"" (1955), which tells of a grown man's devouring passion for a twelve-year-old girl. This and his other novels, particularly ""Pale Fire"" (1962), won him a place among the greatest novelists of the 20th century. His longest novel, which met with a mixed response, is """" (1969). He devoted more time to the composition of this novel than any of his others. Nabokov's fiction is characterized by linguistic playfulness. For example, his short story ""The Vane Sisters"" is"
"hotel stay. This perspective is vigorously disputed by Peter Rabinowitz in his essay ""Lolita: Solipsized or Sodomized?"". In 1928 Nabokov wrote a poem named ""Lilith"" (Лилит), depicting a sexually attractive underage girl who seduces the male protagonist just to leave him humiliated in public. In 1939 he wrote a novella, ""Volshebnik"" (Волшебник), that was published only posthumously in 1986 in English translation as ""The Enchanter"". It bears many similarities to ""Lolita"", but also has significant differences: it takes place in Central Europe, and the protagonist is unable to consummate his passion with his stepdaughter, leading to his suicide. The theme"
"became famous in the nineteenth century as an actress, Spanish dancer, courtesan and mistress of King Ludwig I of Bavaria. Lolita is a Spanish diminutive form of Lola. The name is sometimes used as a term to indicate a sexually precocious girl, due to its association with the title character of Vladimir Nabokov's 1955 novel ""Lolita"" and its film adaptations in 1962 and 1997. The name's sexually charged image in certain countries is also due to associations with ""Lola"", a 1970 song by The Kinks about a young man's encounter with a transvestite named Lola. The title character in the"
"content. The phrase is a reference to Vladimir Nabokov's book ""Lolita"", in which a middle-age man becomes sexually obsessed with a twelve-year-old girl. The term ""Lolita complex"" was first used in the early 1970s with the translation of Russell Trainer's ""The Lolita Complex"" and may have entered Japanese nomenclature at that time. Shinji Wada used the word in his , an ""Alice in Wonderland"" manga parody in 1974. The shortening of the term to ""lolicon"" came later. Early ""lolicon"" idols were Clarisse from """" (1979) and the shōjo heroine Minky Momo (1982) as female characters in ""shōnen"" series at that"
"mother in this case), and a hotel named the “Enchanted Hunters”. ""Lolita"" originated in English. Nabokov referred to ""Lolita"" as his love affair with the English language. This comment is ironic in itself, because the conclusion of ""Lolita"" is an argument by the imprisoned hebephile and murderer that his corrupt history is a love affair. The language of ""Lolita"" achieves a level of irony and humor considerably more developed than that of the more prosaic ""The Enchanter"". In Chapter Two of ""The Gift"", Nabokov lets Shchyogolev outline the thematic premise of ""The Enchanter"", namely the stratagem of an hebephile to"
"of hebephilia was already touched on by Nabokov in his short story ""A Nursery Tale"", written in 1926. Also, in the 1932 ""Laughter in the Dark"", Margot Peters is 16 and already had an affair when middle-aged Albinus becomes attracted to her. In chapter three of the novel ""The Gift"" (written in Russian in 1935–37) the similar gist of ""Lolita""s first chapter is outlined to the protagonist, Fyodor Cherdyntsev, by his landlord Shchyogolev as an idea of a novel he would write ""if I only had the time"": a man marries a widow only to gain access to her young"
"of the book, yet in fact it was based on very personal breakthroughs in his life. The book deals with the affection of a middle-aged man for a very young woman, resulting in a mutually parasitic relationship. In 1955, Nabokov used this theme again with ""Lolita"" to a much differently developed effect. The characters were given different names in the English translation. In the following list the names of the main characters of the English translation are given first with the original names in parentheses. Some minor characters include (from the English version): Albinus is a respected, reasonably happy married"
"acted out by the narrator of ""Look at the Harlequins!"" through his fondling of the nymphet, Dolly von Borg. The attribution of a string of wives to the narrator may be understood in the context of Nabokov's strictly monogamous life. After the publication of ""Lolita"" the wider public and many critics thought that its author must be a ""sexual daredevil"". With the serial polygamy related in ""Look At The Harlequins!"", Nabokov can be seen to be poking fun at these perceptions. V.V.'s final wife is simply addressed as ""You"", which parallels Nabokov’s addressing his wife, Véra, simply as ""you"" in"
"legitimate authorities, who were liberally quoted and referenced from their work. Trainer, however, had no credentials at all as a psychologist, and many authorities saw the work as a sham and the author as a charlatan. The title is a reference to Vladimir Nabokov's book, ""Lolita"", in which a middle-aged man becomes sexually obsessed with a 12-year-old girl. When Trainer's book was translated into Japanese, it triggered a movement known as lolicon, the Japanese form of the title of the translated book. Lolicon is a Japanese portmanteau of the phrase ""Lolita complex"". In Japan, the term describes an attraction to"
"tells him he can have all the women he can “collect” before midnight provided their number is uneven. Erwin tries to do so but ultimately fails. The story makes reference to a teenage girl as one of the women Erwin tries to make part of his collection, an early reference to the theme of hebephilia that is later spun out in ""Lolita"". This may be the earliest reference in Nabokov’s work to the attraction of pubescent girls. A Nursery Tale ""A Nursery Tale"" () is a short story by Vladimir Nabokov first published in the expatriate Russian newspaper ""Rul"" on"
"own monstrosity, he runs out on the street and jumps in front of a fast truck. The protagonist is conflicted throughout the story and tries to rationalize his behavior whilst simultaneously being disgusted by it. “How can I come to terms with myself?” is the opening sentence. He makes his moves like a chess player. But once he seems to have reached his goal, he is horrified at the girl's reaction, and the only way to reconcile his monstrosity is to destroy himself. Nabokov himself called ""The Enchanter"" his ""pre-""Lolita"""". In common is the theme of hebephilia and the basic"
"her community. Vladimir Nabokov's controversial book ""Lolita"" (1955) is about a doomed relationship between a 12-year-old girl and an adult scholar as they travel across the United States. ""Zazie dans le métro"" (""Zazie in the Metro"") (1959) by Raymond Queneau is a popular French novel that humorously celebrates the innocence and precocity of Zazie, who ventures off on her own to explore Paris, escaping from her uncle (a professional female impersonator) and her mother (who is preoccupied by a meeting with her lover). Zazie was also made into a popular movie in 1960 (""Zazie dans le Métro"") by French director"
"role. Baker was mentioned by Rich in only one line. ""In the title role, here a minor figure, the 24-year-old Miss Baker does a clever job of impersonating the downy nymphet; she deserves a more substantial stage vehicle soon."" Lolita (play) Lolita is a play adapted by Edward Albee from Vladimir Nabokov's novel of the same name. The troubled production opened on Broadway on March 19, 1981 after 31 previews and closed after only 12 performances. Frank Rich in his ""New York Times"" review wondered why the play even opened after ""weeks of delays"" as it was ""the kind of"
"enthralled by the unbalanced actress and discovers that she is under the power of a villainous doctor who keeps her addicted to opiates in order to steal her wealth. Despite his best attempts, he is unable to save her from a terrible end. The original German title, , translates as ""The longing of Veronika Voss"". ""Lola"" (1981) is loosely based on Josef von Sternberg’s ""The Blue Angel"" and its source novel ""Professor Unrat"" by Heinrich Mann. It tells the story of an upright new building commissioner named Von Bohm who comes to a small town. He falls in love with"
"Nabokov interrupted his work on ""The Gift"" in order to write ""Invitation to a Beheading"", describing the creation of the first draft as ""one fortnight of wonderful excitement and sustained inspiration."" Some scholars have argued that the central plot of ""Invitation to a Beheading"" has its roots in Chernyshevski, a character from ""The Gift"". Another view is that the novel functions as a ""roman à clef"" with the Platonic Socrates as its target. While Nabokov stated in an interview that of all his novels, he held the greatest affection for ""Lolita"", it was ""Invitation to a Beheading"" that he held"
"his autobiography ""Speak, Memory"". The fact that the final object of V.V.'s love is a perfect image of V.V.'s daughter, ""Bel,"" parallels the search by Humbert Humbert, the main character of ""Lolita"", for a girl-child just like ""Anna""bel"""", his first love when he himself was aged 12. If V.V. is afflicted by feelings of being the double of another Nabokovian persona, this is because he bears in fact significant resemblances to the main character of the novel ""The Real Life of Sebastian Knight"" from 1941. Herbert Grabes is among the critics who believe that Vadim is Nabokov’s “parodic double” (151)."
"As opposed to the nonobsessed and second-rate poet John Shade, they are as artistically gifted as Nabokov, selectively curious and cruel. ""This particular son of genius-monster - the monster of incuriosity - is Nabokov's contribution to our knowledge of human possibilities."" The title of the chapter refers to a crucial part of ""Lolita"", Humbert’s reminiscence about his late realisation that the son the barber was telling him about was actually dead, which Rorty sees as a pointer to the nature of Humbert's relation to Lolita. Likewise, there are the few subtle hints to the importance of Lolita’s brother’s death, that"
"a substantial amount of money. Lo also reveals to Humbert how Quilty actually tracked young girls and took them to Pavor Manor, his home in Parkington, to exploit them for child pornography. Quilty abandoned her after she refused to be in one of his films. After his visit with Lo, Humbert tracks down Quilty and murders him. After being chased by the police, Humbert is arrested and sent to prison. He dies in November 1950, and Lo dies the next month on Christmas Day from childbirth complications. The first screen adaptation of the book, 1962's ""Lolita"", was written by Nabokov"
"Novala Takemoto Known as the ""Lolitas' Bard"", he is a heterosexual man self-described as having the charisma of a young maiden. He has been one of the most active promoters of the Lolita lifestyle. He once designed a line of clothing featuring his own logo for BABY, THE STARS SHINE BRIGHT and is consistently featured in the magazine Gothic & Lolita Bible. A few of his favorite things are Alice and the Pirates, Vivienne Westwood, MILK, rockinghorse shoes, Christian Dior perfume, robots, science fiction, taxidermy, dolls, and Philip Glass. He also has a fascination with the Rococo era, and sometimes"
"pen name V. Sirin, and shares with them a preoccupation with the problems of living in exile and of adaptation. This, Nabokov’s first novel under his own name, was published by New Directions Publishers in 1941 and sold slowly. After the success of ""Lolita"" it was republished in 1959, this time to wide critical acclaim. The narrator, V., is absorbed in the composition of his first literary work, a biography of his half-brother, the Russian-born English novelist, Sebastian Knight (1899–1936). In the course of his quest he tracks down Sebastian's contemporaries at Cambridge and interviews other friends and acquaintances. In"
"papers, thanks only to his handwriting, ""half printing, half script"".) The year before Pynchon graduated, Nabokov's novel ""Lolita"" was published in the United States. ""Lolita"" introduced the word ""nymphet"" to describe a girl between the ages of nine and fourteen, sexually attractive to the pedophile main character, Humbert Humbert and it was also used in the novel's adaptation to cinema in 1962 by Stanley Kubrick. In the following years, mainstream usage altered the word's meaning to apply to older girls. Perhaps appropriately, Pynchon provides an early example of the modern ""nymphet"" usage entering the literary canon. Serge, The Paranoids' teenage"
"4, Rowling revealed a deep love of Vladimir Nabokov's controversial book ""Lolita"", saying, ""There just isn't enough time to discuss how a plot that could have been the most worthless pornography becomes, in Nabokov's hands, a great and tragic love story, and I could exhaust my reservoir of superlatives trying to describe the quality of the writing."" In an interview with """", Rowling described Irish author Roddy Doyle as her favourite living writer, saying, ""I love all his books. I often talk about him and Jane Austen in the same breath. I think people are slightly mystified by that because"
"his book on Gogol, where he romanized it as ""poshlust"" (punningly: ""posh"" + ""lust""). Poshlust, Nabokov explained, ""is not only the obviously trashy but mainly the falsely important, the falsely beautiful, the falsely clever, the falsely attractive. A list of literary characters personifying ""poshlust"" will include... Polonius and the royal pair in ""Hamlet"", Rodolphe and Homais from ""Madame Bovary"", Laevsky in Chekhov's 'The Duel', Joyce's Marion [Molly] Bloom, young Bloch in ""Search of Lost Time"", Maupassant's 'Bel Ami', Anna Karenina's husband, and Berg in ""War and Peace"""". also listed Azar Nafisi mentions it and quotes the ""falsely"" definition in ""Reading"
"the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste. His 2005 book ""The Two Lolitas"", as well as two articles in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and The Times Literary Supplement the previous year, argued that Vladimir Nabokov's 1955 novel ""Lolita"" was most likely based on an until-then little known 1916 short story by German author Heinz von Lichberg, also titled ""Lolita"" and featuring an identical theme. The discovery received strong attention by literary critics and the world press. Maar did not himself accuse Nabokov of plagiarism, but suggested it was a case of cryptomnesia, arguing that Nabokov and Lichberg lived in the same"
"falls to inexperienced 20-year-old detective Erast Fandorin. He interviews Elizaveta, and immediately falls in love with her. Further investigation reveals that Kokorin was playing Russian roulette (called ""American roulette"" in the novel) with another university student, Akhtyrtsev. Fandorin tails Akhtyrtsev, who leads him to a sensuous dark-haired woman, Amalia Bezhetskaya, whom Fandorin recognizes from a picture in Kokorin's room. He follows Bezhetskaya to her home, where she spends her time toying with the many men who come to visit. At Bezhetskaya's home, Fandorin meets Count Zurov, an Army officer that Amalia seems fond of, and sees Akhtyrtsev again. Akhtyrtsev and"
"instead and Humbert visits her residence out of politeness. He initially plans to decline Charlotte's offer but agrees to rent when he sees her 12-year-old daughter, Dolores, whom Charlotte calls ""Lo"". Humbert is instantly smitten, and fantasizes constantly about Lo. Charlotte and Dolores have a poisonous relationship and frequently argue, while Humbert finds himself growing infatuated with Dolores and privately nicknames her ""Lolita"". Over the course of a single month Humbert's entire life comes to revolve around masturbating to Lolita. He starts a diary in which he records his obsessive fantasies about Dolores, while also expressing his loathing for Charlotte"
"it can be drawn from its namesake the novel ‘Lolita’ by Vladimir Nabokov. The lolita subculture emphasizes modesty and youthfulness and is not considered overtly sexual by its followers. Some Lolitas choose this fashion or lifestyle, as some see it, because they are still expected in some ways to follow the traditional role of a Japanese woman when they would rather live on their own and spend their money on lolita attire. It is true that Japanese women of today have more societal roles than those of their mothers. However they are still expected to enter employment only until marriage"
"the genre. The term is a reference to Vladimir Nabokov's book ""Lolita"", in which a middle-aged man becomes sexually obsessed with a twelve-year-old girl. It was first used in Japan in the 1970s and quickly became used to describe erotic dojinshi (amateur comics) portrayals of young girls. Laws have been enacted in various countries, including in Japan, which regulate explicit content featuring children or childlike characters. Some countries, such as the United Kingdom, have made it illegal to possess lolicon. Parent and citizens groups in Japan have organized to work toward stronger controls and stricter laws governing ""lolicon"" manga and"
"began reading ""Lolita"" by Vladimir Nabokov, a book about a man who enters a sexual relationship with an underage girl, believing the book's main character, Humbert, paralleled himself. Asratyan graduated from the university in 1980, and began work as a psychologist at a school for children suffering from cerebral palsy and polio. In 1981, Asratyan married a woman from Moscow, the Soviet capital, and moved to the city with her the same year. Shortly after his relocation to Moscow, he began committing his first sexual crimes when he started raping young girls in the city, but was caught and sent"
"his final love. VV is an unreliable narrator who gives conflicting information (e.g., on the death of his father) and seems to suffer from some psychological affliction. When making a full turn while walking—mentally, that is—and tracing his steps back, he is unable to execute the reversion of the surrounding vista in his imagination. He also has the notion that he is a double of another Nabokovian persona. Literary criticism has weighed in on both sides of this debate, some even claiming that Vadim is both a parody ""and"" a double or Doppelgänger of Nabokov. For example, Nabokov’s ""Lolita"" is"
"Paris, but fails to do so. Reappears briefly in ""The Gift"". Mary Alfyorov – The eponymous character and Ganin's first love. Mary never appears in the present of the novel, but only in Ganin's memories. ""Mary"" was first written and published in the mid-1920s during Nabokov's stay in Berlin. Nabokov's (or ""Sirin's"", as he was known at the time) first novel contains, as many of his works do, key autobiographical elements. According to Brian Boyd, the character Mary Alfyorov is based on Nabokov's first love, Valentina (Lyussya) Evgenievna Shulgin, a fifteen-year-old Russian girl he met in 1915 at a pavilion"
"The Enchanter The Enchanter is a novella written by Vladimir Nabokov in Paris in 1939. As ""Волшебник (Volshebnik)"" it was his last work of fiction written in Russian. Nabokov never published it during his lifetime. After his death, his son Dmitri translated the novella into English in 1986 and it was published the following year. Its original Russian version became available in 1991. The story deals with the hebephilia of the protagonist and thus is linked to and presages the ""Lolita"" theme. Nabokov showed it to just a few people, and then lost the manuscript in the process of coming"
"curly hair and swarthy complexion, an irregular but expressive and intelligent face.[…] His clothes were not new, and were somewhat small, as though he had outgrown them.” In the course of the novel he lives at Dar’ya Mikhailovna's estate and falls in love with her daughter, Natalya. This love is the main conflict of the novel. His eloquence earns him the respect of the estate's inhabitants, but several other characters display a strong dislike of him, and during the course of the novel it becomes apparent that he is “almost a Titan in word and a pigmy in deed” —"