Lolita, Light of My Life, Fire of My Loins

As has been mentioned elsewhere, Nabokov’s Lolita turns fifty this week. NPR’s Day to Day had a special segment about it and the program’s page has several worthwhile features. You can listen to Vladimir Nabokov reading the poem from the book to a live audience in 1964. (I am particularly fond of the rolling r‘s in his otherwise perfect French on a couple of the lines.) You can watch the scene in which Humbert Humbert first meets Lolita in Kubrick’s film version. And, lastly, prepare yourself to be devastated by the voice of Jeremy Irons as he reads the novel’s incredible opening.