„Every line should enchant“

Á vef Gurdian er að finna lista yfir þær tíu bækur sem Hallgrímur Helgason metur mest. Í fimmta sæti er Lolita eftir Nabokov. Það sem Hallgrímur segir um bókina get ég svo vel tekið undir og þó sérstaklega það sem hann segir um stíl:

„I'm the kind of writer who thinks style is just as important as the story being told. I believe in Martin Amis's beautiful phrase that "every line should enchant". (Well... except that time has taught me that every sixteenth line is quite enough.) Nabokov can be almost too delicate at times, but in Lolita he puts his aristocratic sensitivity to use in such a dark tale that it creates this great tension between the story being told and the style that it's written in. And it's just amazing that one of the best novels in English was written by a Russian. Here every word is enchanting, like a beautiful butterfly fluttering at the scene of the most horrendous act.“