144-440: Lolita is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov that addresses the controversial subject of hebephilia . The protagonist is a French literature professor who moves to New England and writes under the pseudonym Humbert Humbert. He describes his obsession with a 12-year-old " nymphet ", Dolores Haze, whom he kidnaps and sexually abuses after becoming her stepfather. Privately, he calls her "Lolita",
288-562: A " tongue-in-cheek erotic novel". Books focused on the history of erotic literature such as Michael Perkins' The Secret Record: Modern Erotic Literature also so classify Lolita . More cautious classifications have included a "novel with erotic motifs" or one of "a number of works of classical erotic literature and art, and to novels that contain elements of eroticism, such as Ulysses and Lady Chatterley's Lover ." This classification has been disputed. Malcolm Bradbury writes "at first famous as an erotic novel, Lolita soon won its way as
432-483: A 'higher' aesthetic enjoyment should be attained, partly by paying great attention to details of style and structure. He detested what he saw as 'general ideas' in novels, and so when teaching Ulysses , for example, he would insist students keep an eye on where the characters were in Dublin (with the aid of a map) rather than teaching the complex Irish history that many critics see as being essential to an understanding of
576-406: A November 1950 letter to Wilson, Nabokov offers a solid, non-comic appraisal: "Conrad knew how to handle readymade English better than I; but I know better the other kind. He never sinks to the depths of my solecisms , but neither does he scale my verbal peaks." Nabokov translated many of his own early works into English, sometimes in collaboration with his son, Dmitri. His trilingual upbringing had
720-598: A Russian-Jewish woman, at a charity ball in Berlin. They married in April 1925. Their only child, Dmitri , was born in 1934. In the course of 1936, Véra lost her job because of the increasingly antisemitic environment; Sergey Taboritsky was appointed deputy head of Germany's Russian-émigré bureau; and Nabokov began seeking a job in the English-speaking world. In 1937, Nabokov left Germany for France, where he had
864-517: A class of drugs which inhibit action at H 1 receptors. They are clinically used to alleviate allergic reactions including allergic rhinitis , allergic conjunctivitis and urticaria mediated by histamine . First generation antihistamines such as doxylamine and diphenhydramine are accompanied by sedation as the side effect, which can be utilized to treat insomnia. Some of the antihistamines, namely promethazine and doxylamine, are available for purchase over-the-counter (OTC) and can be bought by
1008-402: A cruel mistress, a girl without emotions." In 2015, Joanne Harris wrote for The Independent about the enduring controversy and fascination with Lolita , saying: "This novel, so often condemned as obscene, contains not a single explicit phrase, but instead radiates colour and sensuality throughout, spinning the straw of obscenity into the gold of rapture. Perhaps this is the real reason for
1152-777: A curiously unpleasant country despite her great literature. Unfortunately, Russians today have completely lost their ability to kill tyrants. – Vladimir Nabokov Nabokov was a classical liberal , in the tradition of his father, a liberal statesman who served in the Provisional Government following the February Revolution of 1917 as a member of the Constitutional Democratic Party . In Speak, Memory , Nabokov proudly recounted his father's campaigns against despotism and staunch opposition to capital punishment . Nabokov
1296-602: A damn for public morals, in America or elsewhere. And, anyway, cases of men in their forties marrying girls in their teens or early twenties have no bearing on Lolita whatever. Humbert was fond of "little girls"—not simply "young girls". Nymphets are girl-children, not starlets and "sex kittens". Lolita was twelve, not eighteen, when Humbert met her. You may remember that by the time she is fourteen, he refers to her as his "aging mistress". Nabokov described Humbert as "a vain and cruel wretch who manages to appear 'touching ' " later in
1440-577: A day, seven days a week, until his eyesight was permanently impaired." Though professional lepidopterists did not take Nabokov's work seriously during his life, new genetic research supports Nabokov's hypothesis that a group of butterfly species, called the Polyommatus blues, came to the New World over the Bering Strait in five waves, eventually reaching Chile. Russia has always been
1584-521: A frantic search to find Dolores and her abductor, but initially fails. For the next two years, Humbert barely sustains himself in a moderately functional relationship with a young alcoholic named Rita. Deeply depressed , Humbert unexpectedly receives a letter from a 17-year-old Dolores, telling him that she is married, pregnant, and in desperate need of money. Humbert, armed with a pistol, tracks down her address against her wishes. At Dolores' request, he pretends to be her estranged father and does not mention
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#17327718299321728-780: A friend's estate and in September 1918 moved to Livadiya , at the time under the separatist Crimean Regional Government , in which Nabokov's father became a minister of justice. After the withdrawal of the German Army in November 1918 and the defeat of the White Army in early 1919, the Nabokovs sought exile in western Europe, along with other Russian refugees. They settled briefly in England, where Nabokov gained admittance to
1872-433: A grown man's consuming passion for a 12-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 Ada (1969). He devoted more time to the composition of it than to any other. Nabokov's fiction is characterized by linguistic playfulness. For example, his short story " The Vane Sisters "
2016-431: A literary one—a late modernist distillation of the whole crucial mythology." Samuel Schuman says that Nabokov "is a surrealist , linked to Gogol , Dostoevsky , and Kafka . Lolita is characterized by irony and sarcasm; it is not an erotic novel." Lance Olsen writes: "The first 13 chapters of the text, culminating with the oft-cited scene of Lo unwittingly stretching her legs across Humbert's excited lap ... are
2160-537: A millionaire gold-mine owner. His father was a leader of the pre-Revolutionary liberal Constitutional Democratic Party , and wrote numerous books and articles about criminal law and politics. His cousins included the composer Nicolas Nabokov . His paternal grandfather, Dmitry Nabokov, was Russia's Justice Minister during the reign of Alexander II . His paternal grandmother was the Baltic German Baroness Maria von Korff. Through his father, he
2304-405: A narrator whose ethical norms differ from those of the implied author . While Booth's definition has served as the basis for most subsequent narratological analysis, some commentators have disregarded his definition to classify Humbert as unreliable based on the dishonesty of his character and motives. Booth places Humbert in a literary tradition of unreliable narrators that is "full of traps for
2448-456: A novel he would write "if I only had the time": a man marries a widow only to gain access to her young daughter, who resists all his passes. Shchyogolev says it happened "in reality" to a friend of his; it is made clear to the reader that it concerns himself and his stepdaughter Zina (15 at the time of Shchyogolev's marriage to her mother), who becomes the love of Fyodor's life. In April 1947, Nabokov wrote to Edmund Wilson : "I am writing ...
2592-522: A person, that in effect she has been silenced by not being the book's narrator. Nomi Tamir-Ghez writes: "Not only is Lolita's voice silenced, her point of view, the way she sees the situation and feels about it, is rarely mentioned and can be only surmised by the reader ... since it is Humbert who tells the story ... throughout most of the novel, the reader is absorbed in Humbert's feelings." Similarly Mica Howe and Sarah Appleton Aguiar write that
2736-548: A profound influence on his art. Nabokov himself translated into Russian two books he originally wrote in English, Conclusive Evidence and Lolita . The "translation" of Conclusive Evidence was made because Nabokov felt that the English version was imperfect. Writing the book, he noted that he needed to translate his own memories into English and to spend time explaining things that are well known in Russia; he decided to rewrite
2880-473: A recognised poet and writer in Russian within the émigré community; he published under the nom de plume V. Sirin (a reference to the fabulous bird of Russian folklore). To supplement his scant writing income, he taught languages and gave tennis and boxing lessons. Dieter E. Zimmer has written of Nabokov's 15 Berlin years, "he never became fond of Berlin, and at the end intensely disliked it. He lived within
3024-495: A result of these findings, NICE recommended taking both the patient's preferences and the product price per dose into account when prescribing a somnifacient. Like benzodiazepines, nonbenzodiazepines are contraindicated in the elderly and pregnant due to potential adverse effects. Although it is hypothesized that somnifacients may help treat depression caused by insomnia, data released by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) shows that
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#17327718299323168-572: A short affair with Irina Guadanini, also a Russian émigrée. His family followed him to France, making en route their last visit to Prague , then spent time in Cannes , Menton , Cap d'Antibes , and Fréjus , finally settling in Paris. This city also had a Russian émigré community. In 1939, in Paris, Nabokov wrote the 55-page novella The Enchanter , his final work of Russian fiction. He later called it "the first little throb of Lolita ." In May 1940,
3312-519: A short novel about a man who liked little girls—and it's going to be called The Kingdom by the Sea ." The work expanded into Lolita during the next eight years. Nabokov used the title A Kingdom by the Sea in his 1974 pseudo-autobiographical novel Look at the Harlequins! for a Lolita -like book written by the narrator who, in addition, travels with his teenage daughter Bel from motel to motel after
3456-460: A solipsized vision entirely different from the real Lolita. Riggan sees Humbert as personifying "the spirit of Harlequin or a sottie clown who annihilates reality, turns life into a game and the world upside down, and ends by creating chaos". Some critics point to chronological discrepancies in Lolita as intentional and "centrally relevant" to Humbert's unreliable narration. Christina Tekiner views
3600-682: A student at Cornell in the 1950s, Thomas Pynchon attended several of Nabokov's lectures and alluded to Lolita in chapter six of his novel The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), in which Serge, countertenor in the band the Paranoids, sings: Pynchon's prose style was influenced by Nabokov's preference for actualism over realism. Of the authors who came to prominence during Nabokov's life, John Banville , Don DeLillo , Salman Rushdie , and Edmund White were all influenced by him. The novelist John Hawkes took inspiration from Nabokov and considered himself his follower. Nabokov's story "Signs and Symbols"
3744-466: A theme that runs from his first book, Mary , to later works such as Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle . While the family was nominally Orthodox , it had little religious fervor. Vladimir was not forced to attend church after he lost interest. In 1916, Nabokov inherited the estate Rozhdestveno , next to Vyra, from his uncle Vasily Ivanovich Rukavishnikov ("Uncle Ruka" in Speak, Memory ). He lost it in
3888-521: A vicious center of consciousness presented ... with all of the seductive self-justification of skilful rhetoric ". Literary scholar James Phelan notes that Booth's commentary on Lolita served as a "flashpoint" for resistance from readers of the New Criticism school to Booth's conception of fiction as rhetorical action. Booth acknowledges that Nabokov marks Humbert as unreliable while also complaining about Lolita ' s morality; he considers
4032-512: A wealthy and prominent family of the Russian nobility . His family traced its roots to the 14th-century Tatar prince Nabok Murza , who entered into the service of the Tsars, and from whom the family name is derived. His father was Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov , a liberal lawyer, statesman, and journalist, and his mother was the heiress Yelena Ivanovna née Rukavishnikova, the granddaughter of
4176-452: A week should be given for short-term insomnia. This class includes benzodiazepines and nonbenzodiazepines that have similar mechanisms of action but different chemical structures. They both act on and enhance the actions of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)-A receptors, leading to an inhibitory effect on the brain and thus inducement of sleep. Benzodiazepines are somnifacients for the treatment of short-term insomnia. This class of drugs
4320-686: A woman named Valeria before she leaves him for another man. Before the outbreak of World War II , Humbert emigrates to America. In 1947, he moves to Ramsdale, a small town in New England , where he can calmly continue working on his book. The house that he intends to live in is destroyed in a fire. In his search for a new home, he meets the widow Charlotte Haze, who is looking for a lodger. Humbert visits Charlotte's residence out of politeness and initially intends to decline her offer. However, Charlotte leads Humbert to her garden, where her 12-year-old daughter Dolores (also variably known as Dolly, Lo, and Lola)
4464-408: Is "exquisitely sensitive to everything which affects or provides expression for his own obsession, and entirely incurious about anything that affects anyone else." Nabokov, who famously decried social satire, novels with direct political messages, and those he considered "moralists", avoided providing any overt interpretations to his work. However, when prompted in a 1967 interview with: "Your sense of
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4608-410: Is "watching Humbert almost make a case for himself" as Nabokov gives him "full and unlimited control of the rhetorical resources". Booth trusts that "skilful and mature" readers will repudiate "Humbert's blandishments", picking up on Nabokov's ironies, clues and "dead giveaway" style, but many readers "will identify Humbert with the author more than Nabokov intends", unable to dissociate themselves "from
4752-623: Is also used for sleeping disorders by mimicking the action of melatonin. Examples are tasimelteon and ramelteon . Dual orexin receptor antagonists are drugs that block the orexin receptors OX 1 and OX 2 , hence reducing the wakeful effect of the orexin system and inducing sleep. Daridorexant , lemborexant and suvorexant have been shown in studies to improve sleep onset and sleep quality. Miscellaneous drugs of somnifacients show sedative effects, but they are not first-line use for insomnia or they are prescribed off-label for insomnia. When prescribing these drugs for insomnia, extra care
4896-430: Is an endogenous hormone synthesized in the pineal gland in the brain involved in promoting sleep. It activates both melatonin receptors MT1 and MT2 to produce beneficial effects on sleep, therefore being used exogenously for mild insomnia. A small improvement in sleep onset and total sleep time by using melatonin has been shown in recent systematic reviews. Synthetic melatonin, also known as melatonin receptor agonist,
5040-600: Is because somnifacients lack supportive evidence for sleep aids in chronic insomnia, and chronic use of somnifacients leads to many adverse effects . When somnifacient is used, it should be combined with Cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) and healthy sleeping habits but not solely used due to potential severe adverse effects. Somnifacients are mainly in oral formulations , including tablets , capsules , solution and suspension , with an onset time within an hour. One or two doses of somnifacients should be given for transient insomnia, while doses indicated for
5184-505: Is being followed by someone Dolores is familiar with. Humbert increasingly displays signs of paranoia and mania, perhaps caused by his growing certainty that he and Dolores are being trailed by someone who wants to separate them. In the Colorado mountains, Dolores falls ill. Humbert checks her into a local hospital, from where she is discharged one night by her "uncle". Humbert knows she has no living relatives, and he immediately embarks on
5328-636: Is both of these at the same time and in our culture here today we only associate it with one aspect of that little girl and the crassest interpretation of her." Following Nafisi's comments, the NPR interviewer, Madeleine Brand, lists as embodiments of the latter side of Lolita "the Long Island Lolita , Britney Spears , the Olsen twins , and Sue Lyon in Stanley Kubrick's Lolita ." For Nafisi,
5472-524: Is characterized by double entendres , multilingual puns , anagrams , and coinages such as nymphet , a word that has since had a life of its own and can be found in most dictionaries, and the lesser-used "faunlet". For Richard Rorty , in his interpretation of Lolita in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity , Humbert is a "monster of incuriosity", dramatizing "the particular form of cruelty about which Nabokov worried most – incuriosity" in that he
5616-423: Is characterized by the fusion of a diazepine ring and a benzene ring in the chemical structure. Examples of benzodiazepines are diazepam , nitrazepam , triazolam and chlordiazepoxide . Long-acting benzodiazepines, such as diazepam and chlordiazepoxide, are not recommended due to their residual effects that may precipitate the next day. Withdrawal syndrome is a common drawback of benzodiazepines because of
5760-410: Is considered the first choice for patients with either sleep maintenance or sleep onset complaints. In cases where patients experience waking up at midnight or too early in the morning, zolpidem (extended release) or eszopiclone may be considered due to their longer actions. Zaleplon with the shortest half-life of the nonbenzodiazepines is suitable for patients who experience residual sedating effects in
5904-484: Is disdained and frequently mocked in his works. Nabokov's creative processes involved writing sections of text on hundreds of index cards , which he expanded into paragraphs and chapters and rearranged to form the structure of his novels, a process that many screenwriters later adopted. Nabokov published under the pseudonym Vladimir Sirin in the 1920s to 1940s, occasionally to mask his identity from critics. He also makes cameo appearances in some of his novels, such as
Lolita - Misplaced Pages Continue
6048-409: Is every man who is driven by desire, wanting his Lolita so badly that it never occurs to him to consider her as a human being, or as anything but a dream-figment made flesh." Clegg sees the novel's non-disclosure of Lolita's feelings as directly linked to the fact that her real name is Dolores and only Humbert refers to her as Lolita. Humbert also states he has effectively " solipsized " Lolita early in
6192-409: Is famous in part for its acrostic final paragraph, in which the first letters of each word spell out a message from beyond the grave. Another of his short stories, " Signs and Symbols ", features a character suffering from an imaginary illness called "Referential Mania", in which the affected perceives a world of environmental objects exchanging coded messages. Nabokov's stature as a literary critic
6336-420: Is founded largely on his four-volume translation of and commentary on Alexander Pushkin 's Eugene Onegin published in 1964. The commentary ends with an appendix titled Notes on Prosody , which has developed a reputation of its own. It stemmed from his observation that while Pushkin's iambic tetrameters had been a part of Russian literature for a fairly short two centuries, they were clearly understood by
6480-408: Is interrupted by Annabel's premature death from typhus , which causes Humbert to become sexually obsessed with a specific type of girl, aged 9 to 14, whom he refers to as "nymphets". After graduation, Humbert works as a teacher of French literature and begins editing an academic literary textbook, making passing references to repeated stays in mental institutions at this time. He is briefly married to
6624-490: Is needed due to unexpected outcomes and benefit-risk ratios compared to approved medications for insomnia. All somnifacients have shared risks of worsening depression, central nervous system depressant effects, abnormal thinking and behaviour changes. It is not advisable to prescribe somnifacients for routine insomnia treatment, and they should only be used for short periods in patients who are severely distressed or with transient insomnia. An important drawback of prolonged use
6768-704: Is noted in the book even if the main focus is on Humbert. Many critics describe Humbert as a rapist, notably Azar Nafisi in her best-selling Reading Lolita in Tehran , though in a survey of critics Elizabeth Patnoe notes that other interpreters of the novel have been reluctant to use that term, despite Patnoe's observation that Humbert's actions "can only be interpreted as rape". Patnoe finds that many critics "sympathetically incorporate Humbert's language into their own", or believe Lolita seduces Humbert while emphasizing Humbert's responsibility. Of those who claim that Humbert rapes Lolita, Patnoe finds that many "go on to subvert
6912-510: Is one with which social workers, magistrates and psychiatrists are familiar." In his essay on Stalinism Koba the Dread , Martin Amis proposes that Lolita is an elaborate metaphor for the totalitarianism that destroyed the Russia of Nabokov's childhood (though Nabokov states in his afterword that he "[detests] symbols and allegories "). Amis interprets it as a story of tyranny told from
7056-577: Is presenting a memoir written by a man using the pseudonym "Humbert Humbert", who had recently died of heart disease while in jail awaiting trial for an unspecified crime. The memoir, which addresses the audience as his jury, begins with Humbert's birth in Paris in 1910 to an English mother and Swiss father. He spends his childhood on the French Riviera , where he falls in love with his friend Annabel Leigh. This youthful and physically unfulfilled love
7200-539: Is remembered as the founder of Wellesley's Russian department. The Nabokovs resided in Wellesley, Massachusetts , during the 1941–42 academic year. In September 1942, they moved to nearby Cambridge , where they lived until June 1948. Following a lecture tour through the United States, Nabokov returned to Wellesley for the 1944–45 academic year as a lecturer in Russian. In 1945, he became a naturalized citizen of
7344-505: Is sunbathing. Humbert sees in Dolores, whom he calls Lolita, the perfect nymphet and the embodiment of his first love Annabel, and quickly decides to move in. The impassioned Humbert constantly searches for discreet forms of fulfilling his sexual urges, usually via the smallest physical contact with Dolores. When she is sent to summer camp, Humbert receives a letter from Charlotte, who confesses her love for him and gives him an ultimatum —he
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#17327718299327488-460: Is that it can result in rebound insomnia and withdrawal syndrome upon discontinuation. The elderly especially those with dementia should avoid somnifacients due to potential further impairment of cognitive function according to the clinical guideline, Medication Appropriateness Tool for Comorbid Health Conditions in Dementia . Most somnifacients possess Cytochrome P450 (CYP450) metabolism,
7632-434: Is the same as the hotel in which Humbert met the mysterious man. The day before the premiere of the performance, Dolores runs out of the house following an argument with Humbert. He chases after her and finds her in a nearby drugstore drinking an ice cream soda. She then tells him she wants to leave town for another road trip. Humbert is initially delighted, but as they travel, he becomes increasingly suspicious. He feels that he
7776-962: Is the year that Lolita was published in North America. The unfinished novel The Original of Laura , published posthumously, features the character Hubert H. Hubert, an older man preying upon the then-child protagonist, Flora. Unlike those of Humbert Humbert in Lolita , Hubert's advances are unsuccessful. The novel abounds in allusions to classical and modern literature. Virtually all of them have been noted in The Annotated Lolita , edited and annotated by Alfred Appel Jr. Many are references to Humbert's own favorite poet, Edgar Allan Poe . Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (Russian: Владимир Владимирович Набоков [vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ nɐˈbokəf] ; 22 April [ O.S. 10 April] 1899 – 2 July 1977), also known by
7920-489: Is to either marry her or move out immediately. Initially terrified, Humbert then begins to see the charm in the situation of being Dolores' stepfather, and so marries Charlotte. After the wedding, Humbert experiments with drugging Charlotte with sleeping pills with the intention of later sedating both her and Dolores so that he can sexually assault Dolores. But while Dolores is at summer camp, Charlotte discovers Humbert's diary, in which she learns of his desire for her daughter and
8064-401: Is vigorously disputed by Peter Rabinowitz in his essay "Lolita: Solipsized or Sodomized?". Rabinowitz argues that in seeking metaphorical readings and generalized meaning, academic readers viewing Lolita within the frame of high art are "standing back from the situation — a posture that leads, in this case, to a blame-the-victim reading by turning this victimized child into a femme fatale ,
8208-522: Is with pitfalls, could lend itself to hideous mistranslation. In the hands of a harmful drudge, the Russian version of Lolita would be entirely degraded and botched by vulgar paraphrases or blunders. So I decided to translate it myself." Nabokov was a proponent of individualism , and rejected concepts and ideologies that curtailed individual freedom and expression, such as totalitarianism in its various forms, as well as Sigmund Freud 's psychoanalysis . Poshlost , or as he transcribed it, poshlust ,
8352-548: The East Coast before returning to Europe in 1961, where he settled in Montreux , Switzerland. From 1948 to 1959, Nabokov was a professor of Russian literature at Cornell University . His 1955 novel Lolita ranked fourth on Modern Library 's list of the 100 best 20th-century novels in 2007 and is considered one of the greatest works of 20th-century literature. Nabokov's Pale Fire , published in 1962, ranked 53rd on
8496-759: The Home Office to seize all copies entering the United Kingdom. In December 1956, France followed suit, and the Minister of the Interior banned Lolita ; the ban lasted for two years. Its eventual British publication by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in London in 1959 was controversial enough to contribute to the end of the political career of the Conservative member of parliament Nigel Nicolson , one of
8640-491: The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), inadequate evidence supports the use of Z-drugs for treating insomnia. The review noted that clinical trials inappropriately compared short-acting nonbenzodiazepines with long-acting benzodiazepines, and there is a lack of studies that compare the effects of short-acting nonbenzodiazepines to those of short-acting benzodiazepines at equivalent doses. As
8784-586: The October Revolution one year later; this was the only house he ever owned. Nabokov's adolescence was the period in which he made his first serious literary endeavors. In 1916, he published his first book, Stikhi ( Poems ), a collection of 68 Russian poems. At the time he was attending Tenishev school in Saint Petersburg, where his literature teacher Vladimir Vasilievich Gippius had criticized his literary accomplishments. Some time after
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#17327718299328928-545: The University of Cambridge , one of the world's most prestigious universities, where he attended Trinity College and studied zoology and later Slavic and Romance languages . His examination results on the first part of the Tripos exam, taken at the end of his second year, were a starred first . He took the second part of the exam in his fourth year just after his father's death, and feared he might fail it. But his exam
9072-570: The pen name Vladimir Sirin ( Владимир Сирин ), was a Russian-American novelist , poet, translator, and entomologist . Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian (1926–1938) while living in Berlin , where he met his wife . He achieved international acclaim and prominence after moving to the United States, where he began writing in English. Nabokov became an American citizen in 1945 and lived mostly on
9216-477: The "books that, I thought, changed my life when I read them", and has said, "Nabokov's English combines aching lyricism with dispassionate precision in a way that seems to render every human emotion in all its intensity but never with an ounce of schmaltz or soggy language". T. Coraghessan Boyle has said that "Nabokov's playfulness and the ravishing beauty of his prose are ongoing influences" on his writing. Bilingual author and critic Maxim D. Shrayer , who came to
9360-505: The 100 Best Novels , Le Monde 's 100 Books of the Century , Bokklubben World Library , Modern Library's 100 Best Novels , and The Big Read . The novel has been twice adapted into film: first in 1962 by Stanley Kubrick , and later in 1997 by Adrian Lyne . It has also been adapted several times for the stage. The novel is prefaced by a fictitious foreword by one John Ray Jr., an editor of psychology books. Ray states that he
9504-838: The Nabokovs fled the advancing German troops, reaching the United States via the SS Champlain . Nabokov's brother Sergei did not leave France, and he died at the Neuengamme concentration camp on 9 January 1945. The Nabokovs settled in Manhattan , and Vladimir began volunteer work as an entomologist at the American Museum of Natural History . Nabokov joined the staff of Wellesley College in 1941 as resident lecturer in comparative literature . The position, created specifically for him, provided an income and free time to write creatively and pursue his lepidoptery . Nabokov
9648-489: The Russian prosodists. On the other hand, he viewed the much older English iambic tetrameters as muddled and poorly documented. In his own words: I have been forced to invent a simple little terminology of my own, explain its application to English verse forms, and indulge in certain rather copious details of classification before even tackling the limited object of these notes to my translation of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin , an object that boils down to very little—in comparison to
9792-455: The Spanish diminutive for Dolores . The novel was written in English, but fear of censorship in the U.S. (where Nabokov lived) and Britain led to it being first published in Paris, France, in 1955 by Olympia Press . The book has received critical acclaim regardless of the controversy it caused with the public. It has been included in many lists of best books, such as Time 's List of
9936-481: The U.S. as a refugee from the USSR, described reading Nabokov in 1987 as "my culture shock": "I was reading Nabokov and waiting for America." Boston Globe book critic David Mehegan wrote that Shrayer's Waiting for America "is one of those memoirs, like Nabokov's Speak, Memory , that is more about feeling than narrative." More recently, in connection with the publication of Shrayer's literary memoir Immigrant Baggage ,
10080-589: The United States. He served through the 1947–48 term as Wellesley's one-man Russian department, offering courses in Russian language and literature. His classes were popular, due as much to his unique teaching style as to the wartime interest in all things Russian. At the same time he was the de facto curator of lepidoptery at Harvard University 's Museum of Comparative Zoology . After being encouraged by Morris Bishop , Nabokov left Wellesley in 1948 to teach Russian and European literature at Cornell University , where he taught until 1959. Among his students at Cornell
10224-776: The Wind to sell 100,000 copies in its first three weeks. Orville Prescott , the influential book reviewer of the New York Times , greatly disliked the book, describing it as "dull, dull, dull in a pretentious, florid and archly fatuous fashion". This review failed to influence the book's sales and it is estimated that Lolita had sold 50 million copies by 2005. Lolita was later translated into Russian by Nabokov himself and published in New York City in 1967 by Phaedra Publishers. The novel continues to generate controversy today as modern society has become increasingly aware of
10368-474: The anagrammatic character Vivian Darkbloom would tip off the alert reader). The manuscript was turned down, with more or less regret, by Viking , Simon & Schuster , New Directions , Farrar, Straus , and Doubleday . After these refusals and warnings, he finally resorted to publication in France. Via his translator Doussia Ergaz, it reached Maurice Girodias of Olympia Press , "three-quarters of [whose] list
10512-600: The author stored his collection of male blue butterfly genitalia. "Nabokov was a serious taxonomist," says museum staff writer Nancy Pick, author of The Rarest of the Rare: Stories Behind the Treasures at the Harvard Museum of Natural History . "He actually did quite a good job at distinguishing species that you would not think were different—by looking at their genitalia under a microscope six hours
10656-458: The best-humored woman he had ever known. In June 1953, Nabokov and his family went to Ashland, Oregon . There he finished Lolita and began writing the novel Pnin . He roamed the nearby mountains looking for butterflies, and wrote a poem called Lines Written in Oregon . On 1 October 1953, he and his family returned to Ithaca, where he later taught the young writer Thomas Pynchon . After
10800-401: The book in his native language before making the final version, Speak, Memory (Nabokov first wanted to name it "Speak, Mnemosyne "). Of translating Lolita , Nabokov writes, "I imagined that in some distant future somebody might produce a Russian version of Lolita . I trained my inner telescope upon that particular point in the distant future and I saw that every paragraph, pock-marked as it
10944-624: The character Vivian Darkbloom (an anagram of "Vladimir Nabokov"), who appears in both Lolita and Ada, or Ardor , and the character Blavdak Vinomori (another anagram of Nabokov's name) in King, Queen, Knave . Sirin is referenced as a different émigré author in his memoir and is also referenced in Pnin . Nabokov is noted for his complex plots, clever word play , daring metaphors, and prose style capable of both parody and intense lyricism. He gained both fame and notoriety with Lolita (1955), which recounts
11088-418: The claim by confounding love and rape". Near the end of the novel, Humbert states that had he been his own sentencing judge, he "would have given Humbert at least thirty-five years for rape". Nabokov biographer Brian Boyd denies that it was rape "in any ordinary sense", on the grounds that "it is she who suggests that they try out the naughty trick" which she has already learned at summer camp. This perspective
11232-511: The company's partners. The novel then appeared in Danish and Dutch translations. Two editions of a Swedish translation were withdrawn at the author's request. Despite initial trepidation, there was no official response in the U.S., and the first American edition was issued by G. P. Putnam's Sons in August 1958. The book was into a third printing within days and became the first since Gone with
11376-451: The conversation and returns to the hotel room. There, he discovers that he has been fobbed off with a milder drug, as Dolores is merely drowsy and wakes up frequently, drifting in and out of sleep. He dares not initiate sexual contact with her that night. In the morning, Dolores reveals to Humbert that she engaged in sexual activity with an older boy while at camp that summer. Humbert then advances on Dolores, having sex with her. After leaving
11520-528: The critic and Stanley Kubrick biographer David Mikics wrote, "Shrayer writes like Nabokov's long lost cousin." Nabokov appears in W. G. Sebald 's 1993 novel The Emigrants . A crater on the planet Mercury was named after Nabokov in 2012. The song cycle "Sing, Poetry" on the 2011 contemporary classical album Troika comprises settings of Russian and English versions of three of Nabokov's poems by such composers as Jay Greenberg , Michael Schelle and Lev Zhurbin . Nabokov's interest in entomology
11664-522: The death of her mother; later, his fourth wife is Bel's look-alike and shares her birthday. In Nabokov's 1962 novel Pale Fire , the titular poem by fictional John Shade mentions Hurricane Lolita coming up the American east coast in 1958, and narrator Charles Kinbote (in the commentary later in the book) notes it, questioning why anyone would have chosen an obscure Spanish nickname for a hurricane. There were no hurricanes named Lolita that year , but that
11808-448: The details of their past relationship to her husband, Richard. Dolores reveals to Humbert that her abductor was the famous playwright Clare Quilty, who had crossed paths with Humbert and Dolores several times. She explains that Quilty tracked the pair with her assistance, and took her from the hospital because she was in love with him. However, he later kicked her out when she refused to star in one of his pornographic films. Humbert claims to
11952-449: The development of a physical dependence on them after abrupt withdrawal. It is characterized by sleep disturbance, tremors, increased anxiety and tension, headache, muscular stiffness and pain, which may last 10–14 days. To avoid the problem, withdrawal of benzodiazepines should be carried out at a slow reduction rate, which is determined by the initial dose, duration of use and patient tolerance, but not abruptly. Three basic approaches to
12096-465: The discrepancies as evidence that the last nine chapters of the novel are a product of Humbert's imagination, and Leona Toker believes that the "crafty handling of dates" exposes Humbert's "cognitive unreliability". Other critics, such as Brian Boyd , explain the discrepancies as Nabokov's errors. Nabokov finished Lolita on 6 December 1953, five years after starting it. Because of its subject matter, Nabokov intended to publish it pseudonymously (although
12240-415: The disguised insight of the wise fool and the ironies, variations and ambiguities of the sotie . For Riggan, Humbert's imprisonment in art and solipsism makes his account a parodic burlesque of confessional writing that suspends the possibility of a realistic fiction in which Humbert's point of view is credible. While superficially allied in his artistic aims with Nabokov's "espousal of esthetic bliss as
12384-407: The disgust he feels towards Charlotte. Shocked and humiliated, Charlotte announces her plan to leave, taking Dolores with her, having already written a number of letters to her friends warning them of Humbert. Disbelieving his false assurance that the diary is only a sketch for a future novel, Charlotte runs out of the house to send the letters but is hit and killed by a swerving car. Humbert destroys
12528-415: The distance between narrator and audience – and argues that Nabokov employs both types of unreliability, and "a coding in which he gives the narration many marks of bonding unreliability but ultimately marks it as estranging unreliability". In this way, Nabokov persuades the authorial audience towards Humbert before estranging them from him. Phelan concludes that this process results in two misreadings of
12672-726: The drugs. Barbiturates are a class of sedative drugs that potentiate the action of GABA on GABA-A receptors. Their effects range from moderate sedation to total anesthesia according to the doses indicated. Due to the significant adverse effects (i.e. hallucination , agitation , confusion and hangover) and higher risk of overdose, barbiturates are now mostly replaced by benzodiazepine receptor agonists or other somnifacients in clinical practice for treating insomnia. Barbiturates are commonly used in epilepsy , acute migraines , general anesthesia, and assisted suicide . Examples of barbiturates are phenobarbital , primidone and amobarbital . Antihistamines , also known as H 1 antagonists, are
12816-432: The essence of the novel is Humbert's solipsism and his erasure of Lolita's independent identity . She writes: "Lolita was given to us as Humbert's creature ... To reinvent her, Humbert must take from Lolita her own real history and replace it with his own ... Yet she does have a past. Despite Humbert's attempts to orphan Lolita by robbing her of her history, that past is still given to us in glimpses." One of
12960-406: The first English book his mother read to him was Misunderstood , by Florence Montgomery . Much to his patriotic father's disappointment, Nabokov could read and write in English before he could in Russian. In his memoir Speak, Memory , Nabokov recalls numerous details of his privileged childhood. His ability to recall his past in vivid detail was a boon to him during his permanent exile, providing
13104-782: The first lectures that he had little interest in fraternizing with students, who would be known not by their name but by their seat number. The Russian literary critic Yuly Aykhenvald was an early admirer of Nabokov, citing in particular his ability to imbue objects with life: "he saturates trivial things with life, sense and psychology and gives a mind to objects; his refined senses notice colorations and nuances, smells and sounds, and everything acquires an unexpected meaning and truth under his gaze and through his words." The critic James Wood argues that Nabokov's use of descriptive detail proved an "overpowering, and not always very fruitful, influence on two or three generations after him", including authors such as Martin Amis and John Updike . While
13248-591: The first printing of 5,000 copies sold out, there were no substantial reviews. Eventually, at the very end of 1955, Graham Greene , in the London Sunday Times , called it one of the three best books of 1955. This statement provoked a response from the London Sunday Express , whose editor John Gordon called it "the filthiest book I have ever read" and "sheer unrestrained pornography". British Customs officers were then instructed by
13392-502: The forced preliminaries—namely, to a few things that the non-Russian student of Russian literature must know in regard to Russian prosody in general and to Eugene Onegin in particular. Nabokov's lectures at Cornell University , as collected in Lectures on Literature , reveal his controversial ideas concerning art. He firmly believed that novels should not aim to teach and that readers should not merely empathize with characters but that
13536-463: The foremost criterion in the novel," Humbert separates himself with his contradictory depictions of himself and Lolita as literary constructs. Humbert depicts himself as "alternately monstrous, buffoonish ... witty, brutish, tender, malevolent, and kind". He self-consciously casts himself in the buffoonish role of "a combination of urbane satirist, brutish satyr, and sadly gleeful Harlequin ". He both caricatures Lolita as commonplace and idealizes her into
13680-640: The foreword. Lolita is frequently described as an " erotic novel ", not only by some critics but also in a standard reference work on literature, Facts on File: Companion to the American Short Story . The Great Soviet Encyclopedia called Lolita "an experiment in combining an erotic novel with an instructive novel of manners ." The same description of the novel is found in Desmond Morris 's reference work The Book of Ages . A survey of books for women's studies courses describes it as
13824-674: The great financial success of Lolita , Nabokov returned to Europe and devoted himself to writing. In 1961, he and Véra moved to the Montreux Palace Hotel in Montreux , Switzerland, where he remained until the end of his life. From his sixth-floor quarters, he conducted his business and took tours to the Alps, Corsica, and Sicily to hunt butterflies. Nabokov died of bronchitis on 2 July 1977 in Montreux. His remains were cremated and buried at Clarens cemetery in Montreux. At
13968-459: The hotel, Humbert reveals to Dolores that her mother is dead. In the coming days, the two travel across the country, driving all day and staying in motels, where Dolores often cries at night. Humbert desperately tries to maintain Dolores' interest in travel and himself, increasingly bribing her in exchange for sexual favors. They finally settle in Beardsley, a small New England town. Humbert adopts
14112-514: The immorality of the relationship between Humbert Humbert and Lolita is very strong. In Hollywood and New York, however, relationships are frequent between men of forty and girls very little older than Lolita. They marry—to no particular public outrage; rather, public cooing", he replied: No, it is not my sense of the immorality of the Humbert Humbert–Lolita relationship that is strong; it is Humbert's sense. He cares, I do not. I do not give
14256-417: The lasting damage created by child sexual abuse . In 2008, an entire book, Approaches to teaching Nabokov's Lolita , was published on the best ways to teach the novel in a college classroom given that "its particular mix of narrative strategies, ornate allusive prose, and troublesome subject matter complicates its presentation to students". In this book, one author urges teachers to note that Dolores' suffering
14400-450: The letters and retrieves Dolores from camp, claiming that her mother has fallen seriously ill and has been hospitalized. He then takes her to a high-end hotel that Charlotte had earlier recommended, where he tricks her into taking a sedative by saying it is a vitamin. As he waits for the pill to take effect, he wanders through the hotel and meets a mysterious man who seems to be aware of Humbert's plan for Dolores. Humbert excuses himself from
14544-495: The lively Russian community of Berlin that was more or less self-sufficient, staying on after it had disintegrated because he had nowhere else to go to. He knew little German. He knew few Germans except for landladies, shopkeepers, and immigration officials at the police headquarters." In 1922, Nabokov became engaged to Svetlana Siewert, but she broke the engagement off early in 1923 when her parents worried whether he could provide for her. In May 1923, he met Véra Evseyevna Slonim ,
14688-509: The male protagonist only 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 of hebephilia
14832-521: The memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran about a covert women's reading group. In an NPR interview, Nafisi contrasts the sorrowful and seductive sides of Dolores/Lolita's character. She notes: "Because her name is not Lolita, her real name is Dolores which, as you know, in Latin means dolour, so her real name is associated with sorrow and with anguish and with innocence, while Lolita becomes a sort of light-headed, seductive, and airy name. The Lolita of our novel
14976-581: The morning. However, the exact medication chosen depends on the patient's tolerance, varied efficacy in individuals and drug interactions. Nonbenzodiazepines, theoretically, are associated with greater selectivity for several subtypes of GABA-A receptors than benzodiazepines, potentially leading to a narrower range of side effects and therapeutic outcomes. However, research findings on the comparison between benzodiazepines and nonbenzodiazepines in terms of efficacy and adverse effects are conflicting. The US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality indicates that
15120-447: The novel "delightful" and "profound", while also condemning Humbert's actions in violating Lolita. Phelan addresses this problem of the relation between technique and ethics in Lolita by attempting to account for "two especially notable groups of readers": "those who are taken in by Humbert's artful narration" and those who resist "all of his rhetorical appeals". Phelan theorizes that accounting for these two audiences will also account for
15264-424: The novel as "the engrossing, anguished story of a man, a man of taste and culture, who can love only little girls" and Lolita as "a dreadful little creature, selfish, hard, vulgar, and foul-tempered". In 1959, novelist Robertson Davies wrote that the theme of Lolita is "not the corruption of an innocent child by a cunning adult, but the exploitation of a weak adult by a corrupt child. This is no pretty theme, but it
15408-420: The novel gave rise in the early 1980s to lolicon , a genre of fictional media in which young (or young-looking) girl characters appear in romantic or sexual contexts. Literary critics and commentators almost universally regard Humbert as an unreliable narrator , although the nature of his unreliability is a matter of debate. The literary critic Wayne C. Booth coined the term "unreliable narrator" to describe
15552-586: The novel silences and objectifies Lolita. Christine Clegg notes that this is a recurring theme in criticism of the novel in the 1990s. Actor Brian Cox , who played Humbert in a 2009 one-man stage monologue based on the novel, stated that the novel is "not about Lolita as a flesh and blood entity. It's Lolita as a memory." He concluded that a stage monologue would be truer to the book than any film could possibly be. Elizabeth Janeway, writing in The New York Times Book Review , holds: "Humbert
15696-497: The novel's early champions, Lionel Trilling , warned in 1958 of the moral difficulty in interpreting a book with so eloquent and so self-deceived a narrator: "we find ourselves the more shocked when we realize that, in the course of reading the novel, we have come virtually to condone the violation it presents ... we have been seduced into conniving in the violation, because we have permitted our fantasies to accept what we know to be revolting." In 1958, Dorothy Parker described
15840-514: The novel. In 2010, Kitsch magazine, a student publication at Cornell, published a piece that focused on student reflections on his lectures and also explored Nabokov's long relationship with Playboy . Nabokov also wanted his students to describe the details of the novels rather than a narrative of the story and was very strict when it came to grading. As Edward Jay Epstein described his experience in Nabokov's classes, Nabokov made it clear from
15984-619: The novel. Eric Lemay writes: The human child, the one noticed by non- nymphomaniacs , answers to other names, "Lo", "Lola", "Dolly", and, least alluring of all, "Dolores". "But in my arms," asserts Humbert, "she was always Lolita." And in his arms or out, "Lolita" was always the creation of Humbert's craven self ... The Siren-like Humbert sings a song of himself, to himself, and titles that self and that song "Lolita". ... To transform Dolores into Lolita, to seal this sad adolescent within his musky self, Humbert must deny her her humanity. In 2003, Iranian expatriate Azar Nafisi published
16128-401: The novel: many readers will be taken in by Humbert's narration, missing the marks of estranging unreliability or detecting only some of the narrator's tricks, while other readers, in decoding the estranging unreliability, will conclude that all of Humbert's narration is unreliable. William Riggan places Humbert in a tradition of unreliable narration embodied by the fool or clown, in particular
16272-508: The novels he wrote in English. As a trilingual (also writing in French, see Mademoiselle O ) master, he has been compared to Joseph Conrad , but Nabokov disliked both the comparison and Conrad's work. He lamented to the critic Edmund Wilson , "I am too old to change Conradically"—which John Updike later called "itself a jest of genius". This lament came in 1941, when Nabokov had been an apprentice American for less than one year. Later, in
16416-491: The only chapters suggestive of the erotic." Nabokov himself observes in the novel's afterword that a few readers were "misled [by the opening of the book] ... into assuming this was going to be a lewd book ... [expecting] the rising succession of erotic scenes; when these stopped, the readers stopped, too, and felt bored." The novel is narrated by Humbert, who riddles the narrative with word play and his wry observations of American culture . The novel's flamboyant style
16560-445: The outrage that greeted its publication. Paedophilia is not a subject that should be linked with poetry." In 2020, a podcast hosted by Jamie Loftus set out to examine the cultural legacy of the novel, and argued that depictions and adaptations have "twisted" Nabokov's original intention of condemning Humbert in Lolita . In 1928, Nabokov wrote a poem named "Lilith" (Лилит), depicting a sexually attractive underage girl who seduces
16704-414: The point of view of the tyrant . "Nabokov, in all his fiction, writes with incomparable penetration about delusion and coercion, about cruelty and lies," he says. "Even Lolita , especially Lolita , is a study in tyranny." The term " Lolita " has been assimilated into popular culture as a description of a young girl who is "precociously seductive ... without connotations of victimization". In Japan,
16848-590: The public in some countries for the occasional relief of insomnia. Low-dose doxepin is approved by the FDA for the treatment of insomnia. Second generation of antihistamines such as cetirizine and loratadine have a much less sedating effect than the first ones with a much lower degree of crossing the blood–brain barrier . Common side effects of antihistamines include nausea, constipation and dry mouth. Patients with severe urinary retention or untreated angle-closure glaucoma should avoid antihistamines. Melatonin
16992-614: The publication of Stikhi , Zinaida Gippius , renowned poet and first cousin of his teacher, told Nabokov's father at a social event, "Please tell your son that he will never be a writer." After the 1917 February Revolution , Nabokov's father became a secretary of the Russian Provisional Government in Saint Petersburg . After the October Revolution , the family fled the city for Crimea, at first not expecting to be away for very long. They lived at
17136-538: The rapture of discovering a new organ under the microscope or an undescribed species on a mountainside in Iran or Peru . It is not improbable that had there been no revolution in Russia, I would have devoted myself entirely to lepidopterology and never written any novels at all." The Harvard Museum of Natural History , which now contains the Museum of Comparative Zoology , still possesses Nabokov's "genitalia cabinet", where
17280-626: The reader that at this moment, he realized that he was in love with Dolores all along. Humbert implores her to leave with him, but she refuses. Accepting her decision, Humbert gives her the money she is owed from her inheritance. Humbert then goes to the drug-addled Quilty's mansion and shoots him dead. Shortly afterward, Humbert is arrested, and in his closing thoughts, he reaffirms his love for Dolores and asks for his memoir to be withheld from public release until after her death. The deaths of Humbert (shortly after his imprisonment) and Dolores (in childbirth on Christmas Day 1952) have been already related in
17424-589: The recent loss of his country. It was in this city, in his moments of solitude, accompanied by King Lear , Le Morte d'Arthur , The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or Ulysses , that Nabokov made the firm decision to become a Russian writer." In 1920, Nabokov's family moved to Berlin, where his father set up the émigré newspaper Rul' ("Rudder"). Nabokov followed them to Berlin two years later, after completing his studies at Cambridge. In March 1922, Russian monarchists Pyotr Shabelsky-Bork and Sergey Taboritsky shot and killed Nabokov's father in Berlin as he
17568-471: The relations between two groups often separated by rhetorical theory, the "authorial audience" (the hypothetical readers for whom the author writes and who ground the author's rhetorical choices) and the "flesh and blood readers" (the people actually reading the book). Phelan distinguishes two techniques of unreliable narration – "estranging unreliability", which increases the distance between narrator and audience, and "bonding unreliability", which reduces
17712-594: The relatively unspectacular tribe Polyommatini of the family Lycaenidae , has left this facet of his life little explored by most admirers of his literary works. He described the Karner blue . The genus Nabokovia was named after him in honor of this work, as were a number of butterfly and moth species (e.g., many species in the genera Madeleinea and Pseudolucia bear epithets alluding to Nabokov or names from his novels). In 1967, Nabokov commented: "The pleasures and rewards of literary inspiration are nothing beside
17856-406: The risk of harm from benzodiazepines is about twice as high as that from nonbenzodiazepines. Another study points out that there is no significant difference between the two classes of drugs in terms of adverse effects. Unlike benzodiazepines, nonbenzodiazepines appear to have little or no impact on sleep stages and do not lead to rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep rebound. However, as per a review by
18000-411: The role of Dolores' father and enrolls her in a local private school for girls . Humbert jealously and strictly controls all of Dolores' social gatherings and forbids her from dating and attending parties. It is only at the instigation of the school headmaster, who regards Humbert as a strict and conservative European parent, that he agrees to Dolores' participation in the school play, the title of which
18144-509: The same interview. When asked about coming up with Humbert's doubled name, he described it as "... a hateful name for a hateful person. It is also a kingly name, and I did need a royal vibration for Humbert the Fierce and Humbert the Humble." Critics have further noted that, since the novel is a first person narrative by Humbert, the novel gives very little information about what Lolita is like as
18288-511: The same list. His memoir, Speak, Memory , published in 1951, is considered among the greatest nonfiction works of the 20th century, placing eighth on Random House 's ranking of 20th-century works. Nabokov was a seven-time finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction . He also was an expert lepidopterist and composer of chess problems . Nabokov was born on 22 April 1899 (10 April 1899 Old Style ) in Saint Petersburg to
18432-666: The taper are using the same medication for tapering, adding adjunctive medication for alleviating withdrawal symptoms, and switching to a longer-acting equivalent. One of the recommended benzodiazepine taper is to reduce the dose by 50% in the first 4 weeks, maintain the dose for 1–2 months, and then reduce the dose by 25% every 2 weeks. Other common side effects of benzodiazepines are drowsiness, dizziness, somnolence and increased risk of ataxia. Benzodiazepines should not be taken with other central nervous system depressants , namely anticonvulsants , other types of somnifacients, antihistamines and alcohol , because it may potentially increase
18576-400: The time of his death, he was working on a novel titled The Original of Laura . Véra and Dmitri, who were entrusted with Nabokov's literary executorship , ignored Nabokov's request to burn the incomplete manuscript and published it in 2009. Nabokov is known as one of the leading prose stylists of the 20th century; his first writings were in Russian, but he achieved his greatest fame with
18720-928: The toxic effects of benzodiazepines. Besides, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) added a boxed warning for benzodiazepines regarding the concomitant use of opioid drugs because it may increase the risk of coma, respiratory depression , general anesthesia , and death. The elderly should avoid the use of benzodiazepines due to the increased risk of cognitive impairment , falls and fractures. Benzodiazepines are also contraindicated in pregnancy and breast-feeding women since they may cause floppy infant syndrome in infants, characterized by hypotonia and CNS depression. Nonbenzodiazepines, also known as benzodiazepine-like drugs or Z-drugs , are somnifacients indicated for short-term insomnia. Examples include zolpidem (Ambien, Stilnoct, Stilnox), zopiclone (Imovane, Zimovane), and zaleplon (Sonata). Zolpidem (immediate release)
18864-475: The unsuspecting reader, some of them not particularly harmful but some of them crippling or even fatal". Booth cites Trilling's inability to decide whether or not Humbert's final indictment of his own morality is to be taken seriously, and Trilling's conclusion that "this ambiguity made the novel better, not worse" in its "ability to arouse uneasiness," as evidence of irony's literary triumph over "clarity and simplicity". For Booth, one of Lolita ' s main appeals
19008-414: The use of nonbenzodiazepines including zolpidem, zaleplon and eszopiclone increased the risk of depression by over two times when compared to individuals taking placebo pills. Therefore, patients who suffer from or are at risk of depression may not be suitable for taking nonbenzodiazepines. The dose of nonbenzodiazepines should be reduced in patients with renal dysfunction due to the hepatic metabolism of
19152-553: Was a descendant of the composer Carl Heinrich Graun . Vladimir was the family's eldest and favorite child. He had four younger siblings: Sergey , Olga, Elena, and Kirill. Sergey was killed in a Nazi concentration camp in 1945 after publicly denouncing Hitler's regime. Writer Ayn Rand recalled Olga (her close friend at Stoiunina Gymnasium) as a supporter of constitutional monarchy who first awakened Rand's interest in politics. Elena, who in later years became Vladimir's favorite sibling, published her correspondence with him in 1985. She
19296-648: Was a self-proclaimed " White Russian ", and was, from its inception, a strong opponent of the Soviet government that came to power following the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917. In a poem he wrote as a teenager in 1917, he described Lenin's Bolsheviks as "grey rag-tag people". Throughout his life, Nabokov would remain committed to the classical liberal political philosophy of his father, and equally opposed Tsarist autocracy , communism , and fascism . Nabokov's father, Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov,
19440-691: Was able to escape Hitler's Germany only with the help of Russian Jewish émigrés who still had grateful memories of his family's defense of Jews in Tsarist times. Somnifacient Somnifacient (from Latin somnus , sleep ), also known as sedatives or sleeping pills , is a class of medications that induces sleep. It is mainly used for treatment of insomnia . Examples of somnifacients include benzodiazepines , barbiturates and antihistamines . Around 2-6% of adults with insomnia use somnifacients to aid sleep. However, somnifacients only benefit transient or short-term insomnia but not chronic insomnia. It
19584-518: Was already touched on by Nabokov in his short story " A Nursery Tale ", written in 1926. Also, in the 1932 novel Laughter in the Dark , Margot Peters is 16 and has already had an affair when the 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
19728-400: Was an important source for Nabokov's biographers. Nabokov spent his childhood and youth in Saint Petersburg and at the country estate Vyra near Siverskaya , south of the city. His childhood, which he called "perfect" and "cosmopolitan", was remarkable in several ways. The family spoke Russian, English, and French in their household, and Nabokov was trilingual from an early age. He related that
19872-586: Was future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg , who later identified Nabokov as a major influence on her development as a writer. Nabokov wrote Lolita while traveling on the butterfly-collection trips in the western U.S. that he undertook every summer. Véra acted as "secretary, typist, editor, proofreader, translator and bibliographer; his agent, business manager, legal counsel and chauffeur; his research assistant, teaching assistant and professorial understudy"; when Nabokov attempted to burn unfinished drafts of Lolita , Véra stopped him. He called her
20016-553: Was inspired by books by Maria Sibylla Merian he found in the attic of his family's country home in Vyra. Throughout an extensive career of collecting, he never learned to drive a car, and depended on his wife to take him to collecting sites. During the 1940s, as a research fellow in zoology , he was responsible for organizing the butterfly collection of Harvard University 's Museum of Comparative Zoology . His writings in this area were highly technical. This, combined with his specialty in
20160-412: Was marked second-class . His final examination result also ranked second-class, and his BA was conferred in 1922. Nabokov later drew on his Cambridge experiences to write several works, including the novels Glory and The Real Life of Sebastian Knight . At Cambridge, one journalist wrote in 2014, "the coats-of-arms on the windows of his room protected him from the cold and from the melancholy over
20304-456: Was on the reading list for Hawkes's writing students at Brown University. "A writer who truly and greatly sustains us is Vladimir Nabokov," Hawkes said in a 1964 interview. Several authors who came to prominence in the 1990s and 2000s have also cited Nabokov's work as a literary influence. Aleksandar Hemon has acknowledged the latter's impact on his writing. Pulitzer Prize -winning novelist Michael Chabon listed Lolita and Pale Fire among
20448-529: Was one of the most outspoken defenders of Jewish rights in the Russian Empire , continuing a family tradition that had been led by his own father, Dmitry Nabokov, who as Tsar Alexander II 's justice minister had blocked the interior minister from passing antisemitic measures. That family strain continued in Vladimir Nabokov, who fiercely denounced antisemitism in his writings; in the 1930s, he
20592-464: Was pornographic trash". Underinformed about Olympia, overlooking hints of Girodias's approval of the conduct of a protagonist Girodias presumed was based on the author, and despite warnings from Morris Bishop , his friend at Cornell , Nabokov signed a contract with Olympia Press for publication of the book, to come out under his own name. Lolita was published in September 1955, as a pair of green paperbacks "swarming with typographical errors". Although
20736-432: Was shielding their target, Pavel Milyukov , a leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party -in-exile. Shortly after his father's death, Nabokov's mother and sister moved to Prague. Nabokov drew upon his father's death repeatedly in his fiction. On one interpretation of his novel Pale Fire , an assassin kills the poet John Shade when his target is a fugitive European monarch. Nabokov stayed in Berlin, where he had become
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