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

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outrageous, and the incompatible reactions evoked
thereby, which give the grotesque quality to the re-
lation. And, one must add, Humbert's comic and ironic
and wholly'inappropriate style heightens this peculiar
effect.
One of the comic aspects of the relation is the
fact that Lolita does not strike one as the sort of
girl to cause the irresistable sexual attraction and
the passionate admiration and love that Humbert pro-
fesses to feel for her, and that therefore his emo-
tions seem quite incongruous. Recent critics have
been rather uncharitable in their comments on her.
They have accused her of indifference
28,
brainless-
ness29, conventionality30, a horrifying "lack of
imagination" (proved for this particular critic by
her inability to imagine Humbert's state of mind and
her inability to see Humbert's superiority to Quilty)31ý
of vulgarity and shallowness32, and of having no soul
and no identity.
33
She does indeed emerge from some of Humbert's de-
scriptions as a very ordinary little girl; even in,
her appearance and manners there is at first sight
very little to justify Humbert's reactions to her,
in fact, there are moments when he seems puzzled him-
self:
Why does the way she walk; s-a child, mind you,
a mere child! - excite me so abominably? Analyse
it. A faint suggestion of turned-in toes. A kind
of wiggly looseness below the knee prolonged to
the end of each footfall. The
(42-43).
ghost of a drag
She likes to dress in faded jeans and boys' shirts,
and sneakers, she has rows with her mother, she has