190 of 190 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Annotated version helps a lot, May 8, 2000
It is actually possible to read the story and make sense out of it without reference to any of the annotations, but almost any reader will be keenly aware of having missed a lot in the process. That is, you don't really miss any of the story without the annotations, but much of what makes Lolita famous is what's going on between the lines, and, unless you speak both English and French and have an encyclopedic knowledge of literature in both languages, you probably won't get more than 10% of this "extra" material without a good set of annotations.
As the name implies, "The Annotated Lolita" is superbly annotated, translating foreign phrases, explaining literary references, and pointing out connections between characters in different parts of the story. Unfortunately, this has the effect of sacrificing some of the surprise in the surface story, not to mention giving you neck pain from constantly flipping back and forth while you read.
But if you don't mind taking the time, you can get the best of both worlds from this edition. You begin by reading the text of the novel straight through one time without reference to either the introduction or the annotations. Having done that, you next read the introduction (which is excellent in its own right, but which really does depend on you already having read the story) and finally, skim the text again, checking out each annotation as you go. It will take more time, but you'll get to enjoy the surface story without distractions and you'll have the pleasure of watching all the mysteries clear up on the second pass.
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59 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Second Time Through, December 13, 2001
This is my suggestion about reading 'Lolita' - the first time, delve into it without the benefit of annotations. Read an edition other than Appel's, or - if you're a stronger person than I am - simply ignore the numbers in the margin. Digest it for what it is, explore the story, create opinions and thoughts in your own mind. Even the most learned scholar will feel ignorant at times - Nabokov is, unquestionably, a genius of language and allusions - but I cannot stress enough how vital it is to read this book as an outsider. Allow a few months to go by. And then delve heartily into this annotated edition. The insights provided by Appel are gems, and makes an entirely new experience of the story. He's a passionate scholar and that is reflected in his careful detail, his concern with Nabokov's input, and his personal voice coming though the notes. Some of the notes hit you over the head, a few things seem glossed over, and his obsession with Nabokov's other works get slightly tedious to someone who isn't as dedicated to the author as Appel is. However, on the whole, the notes are absolutely precious and give a depth to the book that is continually lurking behind the surface during a first-time "ignorant" reading. I would have been horribly disappointed at the plot disclosures, as well as terribly confused at times, if I had read this version when I first read the book. But to the reader "in-the-know," Nabokov's genius shines through, as does his humor and sly cleverness that don't neccessarily pop out at first. The notes range from the purely practical (translations of the interspersed French phrases) to the explanatory (literary history is invoked at the most unlikelist of places) to the anecdotal (Nabokov's own musings, his expertise in entemology, etc). But take my advice - read it first without the notes, and then go back. You'll thank me!
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133 of 145 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best for a second reading, June 26, 2003
When I was a young man and first encountered Lolita I was pleasantly taken with the audacity of the good Professor Vladimir Nabokov's intent. Like most undergraduates it was clear to me that "shocking the bourgeoisie" was always good sport. Now that some decades have passed and I have had the opportunity to re-read the novel and then to read it a third time with the insights provided by Professor Alfred Appel's annotations, I can only say, it is a singular pleasure and a troubling experience.
Lolita is everything a great novel should be, challenging us intellectually, disturbing us emotionally, leading us to fascination and revulsion, making us question our values and our preconceptions while compelling us to turn the pages. A close and sober reading leaves one feeling a kind of tristesse, as the French say, that cannot be easily dismissed. On the one hand, the conception and development of the novel is brilliant. The language is Joycean, the ironies delicious, the plot twists delightful, the theme compelling, the characters indelible, the milieu veracious.
On the other hand, the "unreliable narrator"--I never liked that term: he's reliable; he just isn't admirable--who is the novel's central character, Humbert Humbert, the Old World dirty middle-aged man taking sexual advantage of a child whom he has trapped, is without doubt a vile creature. And yet--and this is part of the genius of the novel--one cannot help but identify with his tainted love, his hopeless, doomed passion. And indeed one even identifies with the task he has perversely inherited, that of looking after a teenaged girl and keeping her out of harm's way, a formidable task with which almost any parent can identify. (Part of the dramatic irony throughout the novel stems from Humbert's dual role as lover and parent. Something to think about.) What one cannot abide, of course, is Humbert's obsessive jealousy and his overbearing attempts at psychological dominance.
Why is it that "normal" men do not fall in love with young girls (to say nothing of pre-adolescent "nymphets")? Why is it that one loves them without falling in love with them? Is it not "wise" in an evolutionary sense to be there first, so to speak? No doubt the evolutionary mechanism demands that drive in some of us, but at what cost, and in the modern society, to what end?
Normal men do not chase after pre-adolescent girls partly because it is against the law, and partly because society condemns those that do, and partly because older girls are more interesting, but most often simply because such a relationship would never work. The intense, masochistic, obsessive love that Hum feels for little Lo is all there is of permanence in such a relationship. When that is gone, there is nothing left. "Dollie" must go her own way, make her own life, and Humbert must go back to his books and his lurking by school yards. Lolita at twelve is not capable of loving Humbert. By the time she is sixteen she is bored with him. And by the time she is an adult he is an embarrassment, a skeleton in the closet of her former life.
So we know as we begin Nabokov's mid-century masterpiece that Humbert's love is doomed. We also fear that something terrible is going to happen to Lolita because she is being robbed of her adolescence and forced into a kind of physical and emotional servitude. Note well the entrance of Claire Quilty, the libertine, who is part foil to Humbert and part the embodiment of the moral abyss that one may fall into. Indeed Quilty is the horror that Humbert Humbert himself might very well become, which is why his hatred for Quilty is so intense, accentuating as Quilty does the extent of Humbert's perversion. Note that Quilty fulfills (offstage and after the fact, as it were) our worst fears for Lolita. Humbert addresses Quilty as one addresses the hated parts of one's very soul.
But enough. The word limit here prevents a full critical treatment of Lolita. For those interested there is Harold Bloom's collection of critical essays, Interpretations of Lolita (1987), to read. You might also want to look at my reviews of the non-annotated edition of the novel and at my reviews of the two very interesting films based on Nabokov's work, Stanley Kubrick's Lolita (1962) and Adrian Lyne's Lolita (1997). My intention here is to recommend this edition because of the light shed on the text by Professor Appel's gloss, especially his translations of the many French phrases that Humbert (who is a professor of European literature, as was Nabokov, one notes in passing) sprinkles throughout the story. I would also like to correct an error in a review below in which it is asserted that Professor Appel is actually Professor Nabokov in camouflage (perhaps like a butterfly). While annotating his own novel in pseudonym is something that Nabokov might very well do and do with delight, I must point out that Appel does indeed exist (at least he has a Website) and of course Professor Nabokov is dead, and so the reviewer is mistaken.
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