Awe and exhilaration--along with heartbreak and mordant wit--abound in Lolita, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsession for the nymph Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America.

Most of all, it is a meditation on love--love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.