Thread: Literature Talk: Russian & Non -Discuss/Review/Q&As

Originally Posted by sperk

Lolita...anyone read this. I'm abandoning it after 50 pages. His writing style is very annoying and unusual, long sentences, page long paragraphs but with very little content, just a lot of words. Half the time I have no idea what he's talking about plus he goes into long digressions that add nothing to the flow of the story.

I'm surprised to hear that because Nabokov is famous with his brilliant language in his prose (I don't like his poetry though). Probably he was great in prose only when he wrote in Russian. However, I read 'Lolita' (in Russian, of course), and I found the language really brilliant. Actually, it's the main virtue of the novel. I don't mean I didn't find the plot interesting; but the language is what is the best about the novel. I can say the same about his other things, by the way.

Originally Posted by Оля

I'm surprised to hear that because Nabokov is famous with his brilliant language in his prose (I don't like his poetry though). Probably he was great in prose only when he wrote in Russian. However, I read 'Lolita' (in Russian, of course), and I found the language really brilliant. Actually, it's the main virtue of the novel. I don't mean I didn't find the plot interesting; but the language is what is the best about the novel. I can say the same about his other things, by the way.

Nabokov's own description of Lolita was "My Valentine's card to the English language" -- and like a number of his other novels, it was written first in English and then personally translated by Nabokov himself into Russian.