Some people read this story and feel it is a love story. Others read it and feel it is a story about a monster rationalizing his sexual abuse of a twelve year old girl. The mastery of this novel is that it is both. While I would never say this is one of my favorite works, it is unique, it shows us something we do not often see, and the prose is amazingly lyrical.

In the end, the author is able to do something amazing with Humbert. He has charmed many people in the book, and in the end he works the same charisma on the reader. That’s what makes this book a classic, and why it will remain so.

One thing I found interesting outside of the book is the idea of Lolita. What is Humbert’s idea of Lolita? She is not yet a twelve year old girl; she’s also spilling over with a sexual “newness” that he feels teased by. And what do most people thing of the idea of Lolita? The same thing. Although the story, largely, is about a man victimzing a child, most people adopt the pedophile’s perspective. There is a sense of blame in the term Lolita—when found in popular culture—not toward the man, but toward the girl.