Lolita
I thought I was going to be sick a time or two while reading this...so, well done to you Nabokov, well done indeed!When the reader gets so wrapped up in the story and believes so strongly in the characters and their actions that it moves the reader to illness, that is good writing. Almost too good. I had to remind myself that it wasn't real, that Nabokov wasn't writing a memoir in which he seduces and rapes an adolescent. His style, the language he uses and the way he employs it are all of the highest ability.
A comparison to Thomas Mann's Death in Venice must be made, paralleling as similarly as they do. The ever declining degradation, an aging man clinging desperately to youth, a madness of possessiveness, and perhaps more. Both describe pitiable main characters, but where they differ is that while Mann's is just pathetic, Nabokov's is dangerous. It is that danger that keeps the suspense taunt, the narrative edgy. We never quite know when Humbert Humbert might totally lose his shit, which we know by his own admission that he must eventually do.
For all that danger there is a surprising amount of humor, not only within the story itself, but also in the language. Certain passages gain near Wodehousian levels of hilarity. "Near" I say. It's very hard to successfully marry funny material to subject matter such as this. Still, to carry it off to any degree further shows the ability Nabokov displayed in crafting this fine, if despicably abhorrent, novel.