It is satisfying to read a novel and follow the story, live with the character for the length of the book and feel that to a certain degree, you understand something about him, in this case, Humbert Humbert. There are other ways to read this book, but it is enough for me to learn the depths of this character and how he represents a portion of human nature. A nature one awry.
On the back cover is the blurb: The only convincing love story of our century. — Vanity Fair.
I think not. Obsession and love are not one and the same. Love is not necessarily driven by lust, and Humbert’s actions are ones of first and foremost, a lust for young girls–nymphets, as he calls them, preferably nine to thirteen years old. This, not Lolita as a personality, is what forms his initial planned pursuit and seduction of her. If he loves her, and I do not doubt that he does, that is an eventual outcome.
Young girls change drastically in physical and mental form between the ages of twelve and fourteen–Lolita’s stage in life when she is with Humbert. There are hints that he becomes displeased with her "aging"; opposite to the more normal reaction of most people to the blooming of womanhood.
For me, the intensity of the prose, the realism of the character, the writing itself that brought me so in touch with the character of Humbert was the value of the reading. The underlying theme of man versus man was strong in Humbert’s own first person pov arguments in defense of and in denouncement of his character:
Reader! What I heard was but the melody of children at play, nothing but that, ans so limpid was the air that ithin this vapor of blended voices, majestic and minute, remote and magically near, frank and divinely enigmatic–one could hear now and then, as if released, an almost articulate spurt of vivid laughter…and then I knew that the hopelessly poignant thing was not Lolita’s absence from my side, but the absence of her voice from the concord. (p. 308)
Nabokov has shown, in the mentally unstable and troubled mind of Humbert, the danger of allowing passion to rule when that passion is a danger to others. He has heartlessly ruined lives, that of Lolita, her mother Charlotte, and of course, Clare Quilty because he was in an intellectual and financial position to go after what he wanted. Perhaps in giving Lolita a personality that is one of a spoiled and manipulative brat, she is less of a sympathetic character but remains more of a metaphor for that which is an object of desire, whether it be illicit pedophilia or wealth and fame. Would the story have been as intense if our caring for a total innocent were to deflect our focus?
Yes, despite Nabokov’s notes at the end of the book that do not invite deep reading into the story, there is still something to be pulled out of his book above the simple narrative (simple only in the idea of an older man’s seduction of a child). I think that Nabokov’s skills would prohibit his writing a simple narrative whether it was his intent or not.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology