I. Controversy surrounding publication of Lolita.
I. Humbert HumbertÆs passion for Annabel Leigh as motivation.
II. Characterization: Humbert as art aesthetic; Quilty as sensible desire.
III. HumbertÆs recognition of what is lost in Lolita by his seduction of her.
V. HumbertÆs demonization of Lolita to assuage his guilt and complicity in her seduction.
VI. NabokovÆs views of the novel with respect to charges of pornography.
VII. HumbertÆs resentment of LolitaÆs maturation.
IX. NabokovÆs description of characters in his novels.
ôI discovered in nature the non-utilitarian delights I sought in art. Both were a form of magic, both were a game of intricate enchantment and deception.ö
Vladimir NabokovÆs Lolita created a maelstrom of controversy upon its publication. That is in those countries that permitted its publication. The novel about the middle-aged Humbert HumbertÆs complete fixation on teenage nymphet. The book was banned in the U.S. despite many critics, scholars and others finding the work a masterpiece of tragicomedy, not the pornographic, titillating read those opposed to its publication purported it to be. As critic Charles Rolo maintained in the September, 1958, Atlantic Monthly, ôThe novelÆs scandal-tainted history and its subject-the affair between a middle-aged sexual pervert and a twelve-year-old girl-inevitably conjure up expectations of pornography. But there is not a single obscene term in Lolita, and aficionados of erotica are likely to find it a dudö (78). Despite this perspective, Lolita continues to be a source of controversy and conflict between those who view it as a work of art with valid redeeming qualities and those who view it as one step above a pornographic tale of sexual perversion and pedophilia.
From a review of critical perception and reading the novel, those who argue that Lolita is pornography are reviled by the subject matter but fail to see the art ...