[Nabokov's Synesthesia] an opinion on Vladimir Nabokov's [Lolita]

 Amongst the list of the Modern Library 100 Greatest novels is Vladimir Nabokov's 1955 controversial novel [Lolita.] The narrator, Humbert Humbert, a middle-aged literature professor becomes obsessed with the daughter of a woman he is renting a room from, 12 year old Dolores Haze. Set in 1947, while Humbert is working on a novel, he gradually is pulled into what he believes is no ordinary child due to her temerity and incendiary flirtatiousness. Many aware of Nabokov's remarkable works, have found pure obscenity in the subject matter of [Lolita] but there are many facts overlooked.

1: The character Humbert Humbert came of age in Europe and his creator, Nabokov, in Russia. The eras circa 1920's well into the 1960's children weren't considered merely children, but aware of life and life's facts. It was not uncommon for an older man to court a young girl or an older woman to court a young boy. Both the author and the character in his image were victims of their times, not aggressors.

2: Though Delores Haze "Lo," as Humbert Humbert endeared her, was 12 years old, the courting or sexual entanglement with her doesn't make Humbert a pedophile but more so an Ephebophile, or in latin, "a lover of adolescents."

3: In the opening of [Lolita] Humbert Humbert describes his upbringing and speaks of his first love, Annabelle. At 14, they fell in love and 4 months after, Annabelle died of Typhus. Humbert expressed that if  he had not fallen in love with Annabelle, he wouldn't have fallen in love with "Lo." Humbert even married once he became an adult but still sought out women who appeared young. This behavior may seem predatory to readers of today but with vision, we can translate the lingering, longing and yearning for his "paper womb" or a love equivalent to his most content time of his life. In theory, the day Annabelle died, so did Humbert and his aging and growth were all stunted; he as a man still trapped in a great adolescent love, forever destined to burn for it.

4: After he met and deceptively courted "Lo," during and even after he lost her, Humbert never sought out any other adolescents. Pedophiles tend to fall out of obsession with their victims when they grow older; Humbert wasn't affected in the least of her aging. He yearned for her and continued to love her, even took revenge against the man who stole her away from him during a cross-country roadtrip, Claire Cleary, the true pedophile, who recruited kids and filmed them during sexual acts.

If the reader of [Lolita] can identify with the facts of the life of Humpert Humpert and the times, they can take the time to read the most popular yet underrated novel due to "obscenity."