The Kindle obligingly says I am 38% way though the book now, the concept of page numbers not quite so reliable in this ear of digitally resized text. Although, should I wish to find that information is obligingly supplied by the Kindle app on my PC - page 122 of 352.
HH, in his fantasy - I'm pretty sure it is just his fantasy, has had his newly married wife run over by a car (OK it is a spoiler, but as Nabakov says, somewhere, if you're reading his novels just to know what comes next, you're not reading it right), and has taken Dolores off, and left her drugged in their hotel room, while he ruminates on his planned ravishment and rape of her. Let's make no bones about it, this is child rape he is planning. So back to that question that keeps running through my mind -is this book justifiable (going beyond it seems to always make the top 100 books of the world in most surveys of that kind)? Of course it's beautifully written and constructed. And it also tackles the issues of sexual desire, forbidden fruit, adult responsibility, what is legal and what is not. Just as HH fades between outright fantasy and supposed justification (after all he says 12 year olds were fair game in other cultures at other times). I think what Nabakov manages to do is suggest all these intertwined themes, to describe and delight in sexuality as pure sensuality, but still to keep us aware that HH is a thoroughly unpleasant and evil man who has put his gratifications at the centre of his solipsistic world. So there's your central moral standpoint - loud and clear. With that said, says this novel, we still have a world of desire, fantasy, in adults and in children, which we are all uncomfortable with and possessed by in equal measure. Put simply, the sex and sexuality exists, it is fine, the abuse of power and influence exists, and that is what is most definitely not fine.
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