Lolita

Lolita is a true romantic novel.  The obvious questions arise about age of consent and of course morality versus immorality but the most interesting and important question to be asked of Nobakovs work is if this is in fact love.  Humbert’s displays of affection and lyrical description could be read as lust and it is often times still confusing to pinpoint whether or not this is in fact just lust.  This lust displayed is a product of Humbert’s fetish.  Young prepubescent girls specifically enchant him, and nothing more.  He tries marrying off with woman nearer his age but the marriages undoubtedly fall apart.  I recently read an article about a now infamous ex Penn State football coach named Jerry Sandusky now charged in prison for molesting numerous numbers of boys.  The doctor being interviewed makes the point that he believes after studying pedophiles, that pedophilia it self is a sexual orientation and is not decided upon at some point in life.  Lolita is certainly to young for Humbert, no matter how smart, perceptive or seemingly willing she could ever be towards him, Humbert’s love is tragically wrong.  Morally wrong.  The impressive thing is that Nobakov took something so disgusting and off putting and created a love story. 

“I would be a knave to say, and the reader a fool to believe, that the shock of losing Lolita cured me of pederosis. My accursed nature could not change, no matter how my love for her did. On playgrounds and beaches, my sullen and stealthy eye, against my will, still sought out the flash of a nymphet's limbs, the sly tokens of Lolita's handmaids and rosegirls. But one essential vision in me had withered: never did I dwell now on possibilities of bliss with a little maiden, specific or synthetic, in some out-of-the-way place; never did my fancy sink its fangs into Lolita's sisters, far far away, in the coves of evoked islands.”

In this passage Humbert very interestingly outright addresses his pedophilia, and inability to change.  This passage in particular makes me sympathize with the narrator who is just simply unable to deal with his circumstances.  With Lolita gone he still finds like he has his entire life himself completely consumed with lust over young girls.  This is not far off the way most males minds behave regularly the sole problem of course is the target age of the girls he happens to be attracted too.  It is simply just not right.  I think Humbert knows this.  The viewer in this passage can understand the sickness that Humbert possesses and hopefully his helplessness.  Humbert’s love can never be accepted, appreciated, moral and so it seems reciprocated.  In reference to the article I read and sexual orientations of heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bi-sexuality, Humbert’s orientation seems to fall under pedophia-lity and he is forever trapped in his position.