Pajiba

Well done, sir. Very well done.

I first read Lolita about 6 years ago, and I remember loving the language and enjoying the novel. However, I have had a damn near impossible time re-reading it. I'm still only 2/3 of the way through, and I've been reading it since the day it was announced as the selection. I think the language is lovely, but the plot really DRAAAAAAAAAAAGS once Humbert has his Lolita. It is really a book that must be read slowly and savored.

I had mixed feelings about this book. Addressing your question about what of Nabokov is in this story? I think that is simple enough - the leering and the guilty feelings of seeing a young girl in a certain light. I don't doubt that many a man might have a fleeting glimpse of a girl that brings him unexpected arousal, and I also daresay that's why some of the book covers have the images you mentioned. Perhaps Nabakov was exercising a few demons in the acceptable guise of fiction.

For me, the writing style and flippant humor was the story's saving grace - as a mother to young girls, I found myself putting down the book several times when in the midst of a particularly descriptive few paragraphs. I had to get through those parts in small blocks of time. But one of the best sections - and most comparable to Poe (a favorite) was when Humbert was discovered by his wife, and his frame of mind and feelings as he tells the tale of her fortuitous accident. Those glorious pages were highly reminiscent of The Telltale Heart, and indeed my own heart pounded as the events were related.

Finally, I agree that Humbert never realized love for his prized possession, at least not until the very end of the story - when he appreciates that he has lost her for good.

I'm probably the only person in the camp of "I think it's a love story..." but I might have a different idea of the word "love story." I'm not picturing the "ideal" love where people are fair and good and Corinthian verses to each other. I think what started out as (absolutely) an obsession for Humbert Humbert became something even more during his search for her. I mean, he definitely missed the mark on having the "ideal" love for her (the love that you guys seem to be talking about) but I think that in the end, the fact that he didn't kill her, but offered her money to live wealthy (after she refused to go with him) really says a lot about him. I felt like in the end, he wasn't bent on possessing her the way he was in the middle (when he didn't want her going out with her friends because he was worried she would leave him) and that definitely marked a change in him.

Also, I wrote a review before this came up!!! albeit at 2 am in the morning....

Cindy

Those dramatic pages where Humbert is discovered by his wife and then saved by McFate, that is exactly what I had in mind when I said "Did you catch yourself almost rooting for him at times?"

Now that I am re-reading Lolita, a little older, a little wiser, and parent of a 18 month old daughter it is a lot easier to hold Humbert at arms length as the despicable monster he is. Despite this, I still get carried away by this dramatic sequence and feel something like relief when he slips the noose, even those it dooms poor Lolita and dose away with the relatively innocent if unsympathetic Mrs. Haze.

I was also hoping to discuss how it is that Charlotte could hate her daughter so much. She was just such a terrible mom....

I wasn't rooting for HH when Charlotte found out, I was rooting for her.

One other point of note - when I searched for "Lolita", I got this:

The word "lolita" has been filtered from the search because Google SafeSearch is active.

Just the name, Lolita, is unsafe?

I've said it before, but Lolita is one of my favorite novels of all time. Why? My personal answer is that anyone who can make me forget that HH is a sociopath and pedophile is a first class writer. One of the best aspects of the novel is that HH is this scholarly foreigner of ambiguous descent who is plopped down in Middle America trying to make sense of it all. The way he shows America through the every day suburban life, his road trips, to Lolita herself, who I think could maybe be modern American personified, is really dead-on. Perhaps parts of Humbert Humbert's experiences are taken from Nabokov's own life, as he did live here and teach the youth of America for a good while. Hopefully without kidnapping any of them and taking them as his child bride. Seeing things through Humbert Humbert's eyes is charming, horrifying, disgusting, and sad, all at the same time, and even though HH is a monster, I found myself hoping it would all be ok in the end. Hat's off, Nabokov.

Dene - Now that you mention it, that makes a lot of sense! There are a lot of parts where HH sounds like he's trying to be over the top.

I think a lot of why Charlotte hated Lo is because to her, Lo represented her rapidly disappearing youth. Charlotte was so desperate to have a man in her life that she offered to rent a room to a complete stranger - remember HH was supposed to stay with some other friends of friends. She basically threw herself at HH as soon as he walked in the door. If you watch either of the film adaptations, Charlotte is portrayed as flirtatious and man hungry, and she acts as though Lo stands in the way of her getting a new husband.

Has anyone ever read "Reading Lolita in Tehran"? I read it years ago, so I'm hazy on the specifics, but I remember the author stating that they were like Lolita, held captive by the state. She made a big point about how nothing is ever told from Lolita's perspective. I do remember that it was an excellent book.

It just really unnerved me how in the end, HH said (maybe twice) that Lo did certain things that reminded him of Charlotte. And it was weird, coz I wonder if the girl would be anymore well-adjusted if she had simply lived with Charlotte.

Not that that excuses ANYTHING that HH did.

I actually cracked up in the end when Lo told HH, when he went to see her pregnant with Dick's child, that he was a decent enough father, "I guess..."

dene--rule of thumb: every woman eventually turns into her mother. And quite often marries a man who reminds her of her father. Dang, it came out more pervy than I intended.

Commander Strikeher I JUST got Reading Lolita in Tehran from the library today!!

Lolita is perhaps one of my favourite books in the English language. Of the numerous books I have read in English, I can't think of any that has the same sense of humor, passion, pain and beauty all brought together. It took a Russian to write the English that should be written but instead we are often subjected to a bland, spineless English that veers into sweaty poetics without philosophical grounding. The English are perhaps the least philosophical people on the planet and the American and Canadian literary traditions continue this superficial tradition.

Camus once wrote in his notebooks that Americans, unlike French authors don't have philosophy to create their novels.

For Nabakov, his HH is an existential trickster, a god somewhere between Hermes and Dionysus with a beautiful hint of sin and remorse. We are drawn into his world not because we are demented but we fall in love with his language and theatrics.

No, we don't see Lolita fully, we have glimpses of her character through HH's microscope of language and memory. We fall in love with his falling in love.

In some ways Nabokov has taken a poke at the whole American-abroad-in-Europe and reversed it by the European-in-America.

A brilliant book. I finished reading it for the second time. The Carmen references are wonderful if you think of Bizet/Merrime's Carmen and the Carmen of the radio song. We also get a sense of Baudelaire and how in the poetry of the French decadent a brief glimpse of the women he writes about.

Anybody have favorite lines or passages? Mine was when HH was trying to procure sleeping pills so he could knock out Charlotte and Lo.

"and going to a cabinet, he produced a vial of violet-blue capsules banded with dark purple at one end, which, he said, had just been placed on the market and were intended not for neurotics whom a draft of water could calm if properly administered, but only for great sleepless artists who had to die for a few hours in order to live for centuries."

Hmm... I like the final paragraph a lot.... and I also like it when he turns words around, like "rumor, rumour, roomer..." and a new meaning comes out of those word plays.
unfortunately, im surreptitiously reading this at work so i dont have my Lolita copy with me... but I do have loads of favorites, and my version is all ear-marked.

I was going to put this in my review but wound up deleting it, but just after Lolita's gone, HH says:

"A big W made of white stones on a steep talus in the far vista of a cross street seemed the very initial of woe."

OK, finally finished. Not easy to read or think today as it's a snow day so I have all my boys at home annoying...er...enriching my life.

The book was not what I had expected. My vague ideas I had of Lolita were that it involved an older man and a girl, but I think I was thinking more of a high school girl or something--not yet legal but not that far off. I don't know why I thought that--maybe the associations with the Police song about the teacher and the student. Twelve seems much more deplorable than 16, I guess.

On a sort of tangent, I was curious about the fact that he only liked a certain kind of young girl, the "nymphet" as he called her. I wonder if real-life pedophiles are that picky or if they just take advantage when they get a chance. Ugh, I don't really want to explore that thought too far, but I do know I've had some friends who were "messed with" in some way by more than one grown man, and I wondered if some quality made them more vulnerable. Not that they would be in any way responsible for the behavior of the adults, of course. Am I making sense?

I don't think Nabokov ever got me to identify too much with HH. Obviously the only person Humbert ever really loved was Humbert. Dude was beyond enamored of himself. I suppose he may have loved the long-lost Annabel, but I don't really think he did--I think with both Lolita and Annabel it wasn't the actual person he loved but some ideal they represented.

Yes, the language could be beautiful; he gave lovely lyrical portraits of the vast spaces of America; it was absurdly humorous at times; but I still couldn't "like" HH in any sense. If he'd stepped out of the book into my living room I would have only wanted to step on him like a cockroach.

And did he claim to have a foot-long member at one point? Sounded like that was what he was implying. That was an eye-roller.

It was interesting to me that his most explicit sexual-sounding language was reserved for the violence at the end of the book--specifically his description of the gun. Stuff like "Full Blued. Aching to be discharged." There was more like that but I can't find it to quote it at the moment.

OK, that's enough rambling for now. I do want to quote my favorite phrase of the book: "...with a blue block of ice for heart, a pill on my tongue and solid death in my hip pocket..."

Will now have to finish reading all the other comments and come back later.

My liking of Lolita is very surprising considering how much pedophilia disturbs me. I think HH is a very enganging character and tough I never actually rooted for him it is easy to fall under his trap. He is the quintessencial unrreliable narrator, so we can only see Lolita through his eyes. In the best part of the book she is described as a willing victim, even actively seducing him in their first night at the hotel. But in the end when she is older and he tries to rebuild their "relashionship" , her reaction isn't what you expect from a consenting party, if I remember correctly at one point she says "after all you done to me?". That's why i think is imposible to have a faithful movie version. In movies we believe in what is represented, I discussed the charater Lolita with some people from work and they always see her as just a promiscuous teenager and I believe she has more layers than the ones that HH chooses for us to see.

dene--rule of thumb: every woman eventually turns into her mother. And quite often marries a man who reminds her of her father. Dang, it came out more pervy than I intended.

Posted by: True_Blue at February 25, 2010 3:01 PM

Ooh, I always hate this idea when I hear it. I DO NOT want to be my mom. She's lovely in some ways but right now she's in a situation I really do not want to be when I'm her age. She's nuts (not like literally insane but not just very irrational). I did marry a man who sort of reminds me of my stepfather (but NOT in a pervy way).

Just before Lolita was chosen as the first challenge for the book club I had read Edward Albee's theatre adaptation of the novel, one of which Nabokov himself was quite fond of. This adaptation could be interesting for the discussion because it simultaneously answers Yossarian's question about the author's position and explains McFate's humour by introducing a character called A Certain Gentleman that omnisciently pulls strings and heart chords and is a constant companion to HH, full of compassion but also carrying some disgust. He always stays out of the action but his voice is strong and judging at times. It is clear that he feels possesive of the plot but in some way his resolution seams to be indeed the only solution for the characters in the world described by him. At the same time, reading the adaptation and having been made conscious of the plot so violently by this Nabokov-ACG-Character, I remember being struck for the first time by the very dynamics of the story. I had never given the original enough credit for the actually quite twisty and terrifying ride it offers in terms of plot.
I remember reading "Lolita" as if in a slumber, it stretched and shocked and excited me. It took me (a quick reader) weeks to finish it and the resolution didn't feel surprising at all. It just left me angry at HH and frustrated, while shocked, ever so shocked by the depiction of Lolita.
Anyway I recommend Albee's look at things to all of you as it also really brings out the humour that Nabokov planted everywhere but, as I think, never let fully bloom.

I think that the main theme, for me, was loving the idea of someone much more than the actual person. I've known several people who were in relationships like that, and in a way it can be the most painful, aching, unhealthy love. In Humbert's case, its obsession and all that bad stuff mentioned in other comments. The view in the end, where he almost realizes who Lolita really is, is sad.

Well put Christy.

I just want an excuse to nerdily gush over how exciting this book club is! I've been trying to get a book club started with my friends forever, and just gave up.

I'm sorry if this is repetitive but I'm in a rush and I don't have time to read everyone's posts right now. Can I just say that this is a TERRIFIC IDEA?!?

Here are my thoughts related to some of the great questions posted by Yossarian.

What, then, do you make of the character of Lolita?
To me she is an empty shell, just like she was to Humbert. I certainly wouldn't trust Humbert to give an accurate description of her so I don't think the reader really knows who she is. I had never read this book before and I was a bit surprised. I had understood the term "Lolita" as used commonly to refer to a young sexually advanced female but I don't think that's who Lolita is at all. That's of course what Humbert sees in his "nymphet" but I think she is an innocent child, contorted into something by the relentless abuse of her "father." I mean, Humbert was really the only father she ever knew.

What were your feelings and impressions of Humbert Humbert?
Humbert was witty, which surprised and disturbed me. For example, the phrase "blackmail - no, that is too strong a word - mauvemail." I mean, that's just funny! But then you think about the situation you are laughing about and it isn't so funny anymore. I think Humbert can be summed up in this short passage, "...and her sobs in the night - every night - the moment I feigned sleep." He just laid there, night after night, listening to her pain and felt nothing for her. He is a cold calculating clever bastard.

Where is the author among the novel’s many layers?
I really appreciated the afterward because I think too often literature enthusiasts are overeager in picking a story apart for the hidden meaning and symbolism. Sometimes, a story is just a story; however, I concur with Yossarian that Nabokov's afterward sounds a little cheeky as if he is hoping we will not look to deeply for meaning. I also agree with what Cindy said about "exercising demons."

I have so much to say about this book and nothing I can say about it. All at the same time. This will be disjointed, but let me attempt to get it out. (And this is the rough draft of my review.)

As for the cover, I think a cover featuring only a close up of a really ugly older man would be interesting. What would be the effect of that?

The blurb from Vanity Fair is on my cover and every time I saw it, it seemed so preposterous, I decided they were being sarcastic! That's the only way I could process a statement like that.

The prose is beautiful, lyrical, poetic, magical at times. Hilarious at times. Humble at times. Too clever by half other times.

It's still an ugly as hell story.

I'm interested in the perspective of a woman reading this who was, if not kidnapped by a molester, in some way a victim of sexual abuse or inappropriateness at a young age. I couldn't help but remember the uncle who always wanted me to sit on his lap long after it would have been appropriate, with that ugly sneer on his face. The other uncle who seemed to take joy in telling his neices dirty jokes. The old men who stared too long, at things they shouldn't be staring at. The sense of violation, discomfort, and shame.

I think if you have experiences like that and worse, you obviously see Lolita differently. I wanted to hear from Lolita so badly I could have screamed. When he would report the casual things she said, the way she seemed sometimes to be such a normal kid, I just knew she was compartmentalizing her experiences and they were destroying her bit by bit.

I think Nabakov was intentionally trying to see just how well he could use his words to make a truly despicable character likeable and even sympathetic. I can see it being an experiment to him, a personal challenge.

But as much as I admired his word play, I couldn't ever really forget that HH was a monster, trying to justify what he did. Expressing a desire to marry Lolita and create a daughter Lolita and molest her and so on and so on. Impregnating his own daughter and granddaughter.

In other words, it didn't work on me. I found myself keeping him and the book at arm's length.

One of the reasons I love Lolita, is that the whole novel is just Humbert trying to cast himself in a flattering light. It's easy to get caught up in sympathising with him when he goes on about all he does for Lolita, contrasted with passages about Lolita behaving like a spoiled brat, that you forget that he is essentially a rapist. He sugarcoats cruelty until you start to eat it up, but he can't help slipping up on occassion, to discuss the pleasure he gets from watching her suffer.
I think that one of the greatest things about Lolita is that it does force the reader to take a good long look at themselves.

Confession: I have read neither Yossarian's entry, the comments or the book. It annoys me when people do that, but I have good reason.

I have been away from Pajiba and my own CBR for a while. I was hoping to finish Lolita in time for this discussion. I failed. Knowing today was the day the discussion was to take place I began reading in an effort to finish it before the end of the day. Again, I failed.

I managed to get through the first few chapters on the train as I went to visit friends and drink in their local pub. I was immediately engrossed. In fact, on my way out of the train I stood in the rain, after I'd alighted at my stop, just to finish my chapter. At evenings end, returned to the train, I threw myself back into the book.

Unfortunately, my train stopped in a rather notorious part of town. A group of obviously drunk young men boarded. They began fighting amongst themselves, brandishing glass bottles of alcohol, threatening to attack. I began to feel uncomfortable.

As the sole other passenger on the train they predictably turned their attention - and aggression - on me. I did my best to ignore them and focus on my reading. As the threats of violence increased I couldn't help but wonder, "Is there a less appropriate novel that I could be reading in this situation?". Surrounded by angry, drunken young men looking for any excuse to beat the shit out of a random stranger, I found myself alone, reading a book notoriously known for it's representation of pedophilia.

Fortunately my stop arrived before my beat down. I look forward to finishing the novel tomorrow and contributing to this discussion, provided it continues. But here's a thought: for the next book club reading, how about something that doesn't provide (additional) fodder for random acts of aggression? Maybe The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy or Calvin & Hobbes or fucking Twilight, shit I don't care. Just something that will lengthen my life expectancy. Alternatively, I could just stop reading in public.

Snuggiepants, yeah, remembering my own childhood is probably why his charm didn't work on me either. I was what I call "mildly" molested at age 5 and again at age 10 and had a sister who went through worse more than once (though I didn't know about her various incidents until we were both adults). I kept thinking of those experiences while reading the novel--it's probably where my anger at him comes from (as I said, if he popped out of the book I'd stomp on him). I remember a statistic that 1 in 4 girls (and I think 1 in 6? boys) are sexually molested in some way before age 18. I don't know what all they call molestation in that statistic, but I think I can believe it because of all the stories I've heard from friends.

Hi! I didn't finish, so I can't play along, but I just wanted to say how cool you all are. For serious. I guess the book club is a hit! You all win at life today.

xoxo

Nicole

Big Softie Wow. Yes. Obsession and unraveling self-control. In that sense, it's a fascinating psychological self-portrait. You know, if I had read it with that in mind, I might have seen it a bit differently. Interesting...

@Big Softie
I can't imagine a better statement regarding this book than " the prose is just exquisite, perfect for word geeks like me." The words are beyond fabulous.

Again, Pajiba book club, greatest idea ever.

I don't necessarily think Nabakov had pedophilic tendencies he was trying to exorcise.

I wouldn't exactly classify what I was thinking as tendencies toward pedophilia, but rather just expounding on guilty feelings. It could have just been a sideways glance one day that made him feel odd - and his imagination took off with that feeling.

I'm going to be the discussion's slacker here... late with my entry and still only about halfway through the book. I just wanted to throw in a few thoughts (and I'm going to get through the book by the weekend and put in a more thoughtful analysis, I swear!).

I was surprised at how the name Lolita has changed in culture over time. I have always imagined Lolita (and I think most references I hear or see support this) as a more sexualized girl, you know the one in short shorts sucking on a lollipop, those types of images. It was something of a shock for me to realize that (at least in the first half I've read) Lo seems for the most part to be a normal 12 year old girl.

Also, I was surprised at how little she is really in the first part of the book. This novel really does just seem to be one big need for HH to obsess over a fantasized image of his perfect nymphet, all the while rationlizing his actions and even patting himself on the back. It is a much darker novel than I expected, with a deep vein of violent thought (and to some degree violent actions). I think this will end up being one of those books that I read, appreciate and enjoy, and never, ever read again.

Oh, and @CommanderStrikeher, that passage you mentioned about finding the sleeping pills for Charlotte and Lo would be what I choose as my favorite passage so far as well. I especially love the last line about the great sleepless artists. Nabokov really does have a beautiful way with words, even if they are used to tell a rather ugly story.

Deep, Jim. Very deep. Apparently the spam bots think we're trolling for 12 year olds? Awesome.

Yossarian, interesting to read your last comment here now. I couldn't get on to post yesterday so came back today with my thoughts.

I totally sense that Nabakov is messing with us. I think he set out to write Lolita with the singular goal of using his literary skill to seduce us, the same way a pedophile will groom and seduce a young child. It's nuanced, practiced and can be very, very effective.

Humbert Humbert is described to us as a suave, educated European gentleman of some means. Everything he says is a bit pretentious and very calculated and self-serving. He seems kind but I can hear Nabokov thinking... "Oh, do you not understand French? Of course not, go on, look it up, I'll wait, then we can enjoy my little reposte together." Ha. Ha.

Nabokov's language is easy to digest and the story is straightforward and engaging, beautiful and sometimes even funny. I found myself having to intentionally stop to reexamine passages for their hidden meanings, subtle humor, or telling detail, easily missed. Nabokov gives us everything we need to know about Humbert, but like Humbert himself you have to look with a clear head and not be swayed by the soft looks and gentle touches.

I love this book and found reading it again only reinforced my appreciation. I don't "miss" the character of Lolita, I think it is the saving grace of the book that we aren't made to know her sadness and destruction from her point of view. I think we all know or can imagine how traumatic it would be. Lolita is in Humbert's world, and like all psychologically damaged characters, he can justify his actions and very carefully will avoid thinking about what he does to others as anything other than benevolent. That's what makes him crazy.

Nabokov is brilliant at taking a subject that is vile and using the same strategies Humbert uses on Lolita to lull us into accepting that we will read about it, even enjoy it. He draws us in like a predator and I do think most readers feel that little niggle of discomfort... this just isn't right. Like the pedophile Nabokov keeps us off balance about what we are really feeling and makes us wonder if it is possible to find good, or have sympathy for the really, really bad. Brilliant!

I had to go reread my own review...

Some thoughts: I find that at the end, when Lo has grown up, HH becomes a touch more sympathetic because he does seem to feel a loss and not remorse, exactly, but something because of the childhood he's taken away from her.

Lolita, while of course we don't know for sure, at the beginning of their relationships seems to get off on the power she has over him, albeit in a misguided 12 year old way. She doesn't seem to think about whether or not it's the right thing to do. As I said in my review, she just seems desperate for someone, anyone to love her, especially considering the relationship between her and her mother.

Not that it excuses anything that went on -- it's just the dots all lining up.

I don't know. It's a tough book. No feeling you ever feel by reading it is a concrete one. It's funny, yet horrifying. It's full of longing, yet full of disgust. Drawn in, then pushed away.

Back for Round 2.

Without the benefit of further re/reading and note-taking, it is hard to specify examples of the mental fuckery Nabokov inflicts upon us through Lolita. However, I think the last few sentences of the book state the level of delusion HH is under. Humbert implies that the story he has just told us will stay in its readers' minds as a sublime piece of art, like the story of a man lost after his nymphet muse. But, all its sophisticated language cannot obscure that the narrative is about a man's desire for a teenager, and how this desire threw their lives into a dismal course, ending with their premature deaths. That this adult desire is harshly condemned by the society in which we live guarantees that the sordid affair narrated will cause a stronger impact on its readers than all other aspects of the novel. Time has proven this right in the way the term 'lolita', as adopted into our contemporary language, has mostly sexual connotations (I wonder what Nabokov had to say about that). Excluding Pajibans, who cannot look at any cultural piece superficially, I think most people regard Lolita as a novel about a pedophile and not much else.

Furthermore, I think the ending of the novel is Nabokov's final punchline against Romantic rhetoric: there are some themes that make people uneasy no matter how much you romanticize them with language. It might create some sympathy for HH, but he remains an egotistical pedophile.

Well, I have a slightly different perspective on this book. I remember my father talking about it a very long time when I was young. It is my recollection of his impressions that I now relate. I think it warrants relation, as he was, as I have pieced together later through recollection and discovery, a paedophile.

He saw Lolita as a work depicting tragic love. He saw Humbert as a man, enslaved by his adoration of Lolita, a girl who was a woman at a younger age than is socially acknowledged. He saw the real enemy in Nabokov's book was HH's crushing, though seldom admitted, guilt at the taboo he was violating. It was society that made him this way, that conspired against and corrupted and hopes for a pure love between the two characters.

To my father, the message was similar to that of the dangers of the prohibition of alcohol. When one makes something natural into a sin, it drives it underground and puts it into the realm of other sinful things. His take was that society had made Humbert feel like a monster and in that a monster he sometimes became.

In my father's understanding of the book, the reason for Humbert's attraction to young girls was that mature women just didn't get him. That some men feel more able to identify with women of a certain age. And that Lolita was the woman who got Humbert the most out of anybody he would ever know. It was outside influences that turned that ruined that perfect love they felt for one another. Because society disapproved, both Humbert and Lolita were convinced that what they had was a great evil and they were turned away from one another by that doubt and fear.

Dear old dad compared it to the forbidden love in Romeo and Juliet, a story, he was quick to point out, that revolved around another woman of a similar age to Lolita. With a similarly tragic end, because of society's insane impositions on the individuals.

Quilty, my father saw as a conclusion of what those impositions can eventually make of a man. He was like a drug fiend, made to feel that his desires were perverse and so diving into that perversity and losing his soul to all the things that go along with that which is percieved as perversion.

My father tried to get me to read the book a few times, but I was too young to really find anything to keep my attention long enough.

It was years later when I recalled the pornography and various oddities in my father's attitudes and behaviour.

My father was a very educated man, like Humbert. Perhaps one more reason that he identified with the character.

I guess it really is possible to read the same book as someone else and find a completely different story told within than they did.

This is the first time I've shared this aspect of my experiences with anyone. Not even the psychologists I've seen many times have been privvy to this information. Maybe it's because here, nobody knows who I am and cannot even see my face.

Thankyou, Pajiba.

You are informed well. Lets hear more about this topic. What do you think?