Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov · 1955
Nabokov gave his monstrous narrator the most gorgeous prose in the English language, and that was deliberate. The beauty of the writing is the trap. No novel has made readers more aware of being seduced by language itself. Modern Library placed it fourth; the controversy has never settled.
The case against
Humbert's voice is the whole novel, which means Dolores, the actual child, exists only as glimpses through her abuser's rhapsodies; that is the design, and it still costs the book a person. The second half sags into motel inventory and the Quilty chess game, pages of cleverness while you wait for the trap to spring.
Literary Fiction · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
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