There is not much of a plot to this novel of 1955. Humbert Humbert, European emigree literature professor, develops an obsession with 12 year old Dolores Haze, the daughter of his landlady. They take a road trip together after landlady Charlotte (and briefly Humbert’s wife) is killed by passing traffic.
In gorgeous, lyrical and seductive prose (over which it is astounding to think a Russian native speaker could have gained command) Nabokov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Nabokov) weaves this tale of Humbert’s nympholepsy against the crassness of American life. Full of irony and double think – the narrative meanders forward towards the inevitable catastrophe. Look out for the ingeniously inventive wordplay and multi-layered effects. Critics have argued endlessly around the many possible interpretations of this work. It is certainly a lot more than an instance of 1950s eroticism, if even that.
Two films have attempted to do justice to the complexities of Lolita – the 1962 offering (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056193/?ref_=sr_2) from Stanley Kubrick with James Mason as Humbert and Sue Lyon as Lolita, and the 1997 offering (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119558/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1) from Adrian Lyne with Jeremy Irons as Humbert and Dominique Swain as Lolita. The former is available on DVD at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lolita-DVD-James-Mason/dp/B00005MHNN/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1373821138&sr=1-1&keywords=lolita and the latter at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lolita-Jeremy-Dominique-Melanie-Griffith/dp/B008NZ6YCM/ref=sr_1_5?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1373821138&sr=1-5&keywords=lolita
Vladimir Nabokov
336 pages in Penguin Classics paperback edition.
ISBN 978-0141182537