''Vladimir Nabokov's Comic Quest for Reality' - Nottingham eTheses

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himself admits that "mentally I found her to be a
disgustingly conventional little girl", and her "list
of beloved things" goes a good way towards explaining
what he means: "Sweet hot jazz, square dancing, gooey
fudge sundaes, musicals, movie magazines and so forth -
...
" (146). She consumes comic-books insatiably and
uncritically, she believes their advertisements and
advice, she piously follows road signs directing her
to gift shops, ads are directed to her, she is "the
ideal consumer, the subject and object of every foul
poster" (146). Clare Quilty is her idol. She is "just
another one of the 'wholesome children' who, even
before adolescence, think and feel only in terms of
outwardly inspired stereotypes. " 38
Humbert's culture need not be proved; it speaks
from every line he writes. The discrepancy between
their minds is comically underscored at one point
when Humbert loses himself in the contemplation of
the scenery through which they travel and finds himself
reminded of Claude Lorrain and El Greco paintings,
whereas Lolita "not only had... no eye for scenery"
but-resents having it pointed out to her, and is more
charmed by toilet signs (149-150).
Altogether it is hard to see eye to-eye with Humbert
who calls her "a gaspingly adorable pubescent pet"
(168), and the idea of him literally craKling on his
knees to her chair (188) verges on the grotesque. By
the time he has been reduced to this, their relation-
ship has become grotesque altogether. One hardly knows
what to call it unless one talks in terms of parody.