Lolita
by V.E. on February 22nd, 2010
I’ve never read Lolita, but even I know the basic story:
the protagonist and unreliable narrator, middle-aged Humbert Humbert, becomes obsessed and sexually involved with a twelve-year-old girl named Dolores Haze.
Apparently, in 2007, John Bertram issued a challenge: design a cover for Nabokov’s Lolita. Here are the results, via Flickr. It’s a pretty interesting set, actually, and has everything from innocence to pedophilia—sometimes both in the same cover. The one to the right is my favorite (I have a thing for striking eyes), but I also like this one, this one, this one, this one, and this one. Seeing some of the covers… does not make me want to read the book. (I don’t really want to read it anyway, but I’m just saying. It’s supposed to be a classic and controversial and all that.) Some of them are just… creepy. I mean… ugh.
And what the hell is up with the quotation in this one? Did Vanity Fair really publish a review of Lolita (of all things) including the phrase “The only convincing love story of our century”? Really? Really?
(hat tip Jezebel)
