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“Sex as an institution, sex as a general notion, sex as a problem, sex as a platitude - all this is something I find too tedious for words… A greater endeavor lures me on: to fix once for all the perilous magic of nymphets.”
-- Vladimir Nabokov
The part of the quote following the ellipse is actually channeled through Humbert Humbert, but it seems like a fair fit, though I don’t doubt that Nabokov, himself, did not find preteen girls to be particularly possessed of any perilous lure. As one of the college coeds with whom he had an affair put it, he liked young girls but he didn’t like little girls.
Although “Lolita” is not pornography, neither is it devoid of sexual fire and can sometimes border on the outright prurient. I’m not complaining, as I imagine this is one of the novel’s big selling points for me. As I was rereading “Lolita”, I kept in mind Graham Vickers and what he called his favorite passage, which was one of the sexually provocative bits. In it, Humbert has come to Lo’s school, and he takes a seat with her in her class, and a cute blonde girl is seated in front of them, and he has Lo give him a handjob under the desk as he gazes lustfully at the blonde. I decided to share my own favorite scene, which comes after Lo has escaped from him to be with Clare Quilty, and Hum is feeling sorrowful and guilty:
-- Vladimir Nabokov
The part of the quote following the ellipse is actually channeled through Humbert Humbert, but it seems like a fair fit, though I don’t doubt that Nabokov, himself, did not find preteen girls to be particularly possessed of any perilous lure. As one of the college coeds with whom he had an affair put it, he liked young girls but he didn’t like little girls.
Although “Lolita” is not pornography, neither is it devoid of sexual fire and can sometimes border on the outright prurient. I’m not complaining, as I imagine this is one of the novel’s big selling points for me. As I was rereading “Lolita”, I kept in mind Graham Vickers and what he called his favorite passage, which was one of the sexually provocative bits. In it, Humbert has come to Lo’s school, and he takes a seat with her in her class, and a cute blonde girl is seated in front of them, and he has Lo give him a handjob under the desk as he gazes lustfully at the blonde. I decided to share my own favorite scene, which comes after Lo has escaped from him to be with Clare Quilty, and Hum is feeling sorrowful and guilty:
I recall certain moments, let us call them icebergs in paradise, when after having had my fill of her - after fabulous, insane exertions that left me limp and azure-barred - I would gather her in my arms with, at last, a mute moan of human tenderness (her skin glistening in the neon light coming from the paved court through the slits in the blind, her soot-black lashes matted, her gray eyes more vacant than ever - for all the world a little patient still in the confusion of a drug after a major operation) - and the tenderness would deepen to shame and despair, and I would lull and rock my lone light Lolita in my marble arms, and moan in her warm hair, and caress her at random and mutely ask her blessing, and at the peak of this human agonized selfless tenderness (with my soul actually hanging around her naked body and ready to repent), all at once, ironically, horribly, lust would swell again - and “oh, no,” Lolita would say with a sigh to heaven, and the next moment the tenderness and the azure - all would be shattered.This is the first time I have read the novel using Alfred Appel’s annotated edition. Previously, I did not care to be slowed down, constantly flipping back and forth between story and notes, but after around a half-dozen readings, I found the patience to take it easy and dig deeper into the riches offered, and it made all the difference.
