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

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He is equally inaccurate in what he says about
the law, which, he pretends, still tacitly allows a
girl of twelve, or fifteen at the most, to get married
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(134), so that there is again a suggestion of dis-
honesty about his statements. So, all of Humbert's
early supposedly moral innuendoes against himself be-
long into the same category of parody as his mocking
psychoanalytical explanation of his own "case".
Anyone whom this does not discourage from applying
ordinary moral standards to Humbert's memoir must grad-
ually be discouraged as he reads on, for there is much
in this memoir which makes this approach appear hypo-
critical, and ironically casts doubt on the moral
standards and integrity of the very society which con-
demns
Humbert.
One critic has complained about. Humbert's attitude
towards the world around him:
He is indeed anything but attractive...
His characteristic mode of thought is
contemptuous and satirical, but we do not
know what makes his standard of judgment,
for it is never clear what, besides female
beauty of a certain kind, has won his admiration.
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Humbert does _.
indeed. not paint a beautiful picture of
society. There is nothing to admire in what he
shows us of it. One could argue that he uses all its
negative aspects to excuse his own guilt, but this
does not argue them out of existence. Thejact remains
that society ignores and tolerates a lot that is not
in keeping with its outward show of respectability.
Alfred Appel points out that in a strange, unsett-
N
ling and grotesque way the entire physical world of