Recently I had occasion to read out a piece of writing that I admired for its usage of language. I made a long long-list of extracts from both prose and verse, followed by several shortlists before deciding at the last moment to read the opening paragraph of Lolita.

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.”
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

I shared how I had stayed away from the book for many years due to the disturbing nature of its premise. As an empath, I am easily disturbed by references of cruelty to animals or children, indeed reading about any form of hurt to the safety, dignity or respect of any vulnerable being affects me. Hence I stayed away from Lolita throughout my otherwise precocious reading life in my childhood and teens. But when I finally read the book, I was filled with regret on not having read it earlier. So enthralled was I by Nabokov’s rich prose, so mesmerised by the word play and use of language that I carried the book physically with me everywhere for the next few weeks, loathe to part with it.

A scholarly essay on the writerly techniques of Nabokov suggests that he matched the voice and tone of each of his books to its theme and as Lolita is about seduction, he styled the narrative in flowery, alluring language that would captivate his readers as they turned the pages. And how splendidly he does it. With these opening lines, he had me on the very first page.