Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 masterpiece “Lolita” — a staple of the American Library Association’s Banned and Challenged Books list — has only grown more infamous with age. Dazzling as it may be, “Lolita” is an especially hard sell in this age of trigger warnings and the #MeToo movement. After all, Humbert Humbert is not only the most unreliable narrator ever to slither his way through the pages of a novel, he’s also a middle-aged sexual predator who’s fantasizing about defiling 12-year-old Dolores Haze, a.k.a., “Lolita.” For those of us who admire Nabokov’s gifts, talking about “Lolita” can feel like being on a perpetual critical cartwheel of exaltation and apology: celebrating the novel’s artistry while decrying the corruption that artistry captures.
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