The problem with Humbert Humbert

Sanctimonious America had two basic problems with Nabokov’s Lolita, one obvious one was the fact that he was Russian and the other was the subject material – pedophilia. In 1956 Nabokov published a response to the controversy, defending his work and the attack that he was anti-American. Nabokov stated that, “Their refusal to buy the book was based not my treatment of the theme but on the theme itself…”, however, I have to disagree with Nabokov’s assumption. The American family became central to fighting against the invisible communist threat. The American people were bombarded with propaganda with the threat of the invisible enemy. The problem with Humbert Humbert was that he was intelligent and witty and very charming monster. Humbert is perfectly willing say that he is a monster, but a reader can not help find themselves less and less eager to agree with him. Because he is likable, he is perfect archetype for the invisible Cold War enemy.

In describing his attraction to the nymphet, he admits that he is a monster, but Nabokov's lyrical style is just as seductive as Lolita herself:

"You have to an artist and a madman, a creature of infinite melancholy, with a bubble of hot poison in your loins and a super-voluptuous flame permanently aglow in your subtle spine (oh, how you have to cringe and hide!), in order to discern at once, by ineffable signs-the slightly feline outline of a cheekbone, the slenderness of a downy limb, and other indices which despair and shame and tears of tenderness forbid me to tabulate-the little deadly demon among the wholesome children; she stand unrecognized by them and unconscious herself of her fantastic power."

Also, the reader finds themselves laughing at very inappropriate passages in the book (especially when he refers to Charlotte Haze, Lolita's mother); one can not help but find humor in some of Humbert Humbert's language:

"Thursday. Last night we sat on the piazza, the Haze woman, Lolita and I. Warm dusk had deepened into amorous darkness. The old girl had finished relating in great detail the plot of a movie she and L. had seen sometime in the winter. . . We sat on cushions heaped on the floor, and L. was between the old girl and me (she had squeezed herself in the pet)."