Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Top ten unreliable narrators

Henry Sutton's novels include the critically acclaimed Gorleston and The Housesitter, and the newly released Get Me Out of Here. For the Guardian, he named a top ten list of novels with unreliable narrators.

One book on the list:
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955)

Never straight with himself, let alone the ladies and gentlemen of the jury to whom he is ultimately addressing his words, Humbert Humbert arrived halfway through the 20th century, intent on justifying his appalling crime. Nabokov's syntactical genius is the one true triumph.
Read about the other novels on Sutton's list.

Lolita also appears among Adam Leith Gollner's top ten fruit scenes in literature, Laura Hird's literary top 10 list, Monica Ali's ten favorite books, Laura Lippman's 5 most important books, Mohsin Hamid's 10 favorite books, and Dani Shapiro's 10 favorite books.

--Marshal Zeringue