Humbert and Lolita hit the road again

After getting Lolita settled into a somewhat stable home life, Humbert almost immediately begins to feel discomfort about the situation. He is always wary of what the neighbors are thinking about his relationship with Lolita. He says, "I often felt we lived in a lighted house of glass and that any moment some thin-lipped parchment face would peer through...to obtain a free glimpse of things that the most jaded voyeur would have paid a small fortune to watch" (page 180). This sets the mood that Humbert keeps for his entire stay at the house, that of paranoia.

Humbert also becomes perturbed by what Lolita is learning from others. For instance, their neighbor Gaston more than likely told her how to get her allowance raised. Humbert is not prepared to deal with Lolita learning more and more from others, including her being more vocal in her objections of Humbert's behavior.

After describing this, Humbert goes on to talk about a conversation he has with the headmistress at the school. Nabokov once again makes it a sure point to satirize what some people find important in education these days. The headmistress wishes for Lolita to become more ladylike and refined, but mentions minimally anything on actual studies.

I thought one interesting point in the reading came when Lolita actually brought up the action of pedophilia. She asks Humbert if he can remember "the hotel where you raped me?" (page 202). This seemed important because it was the first time she actually talks of the action of rape, showing perhaps more disdain for Humbert than previously. She slowly becomes more rebellious, and mentioning this is another sign of that.

Another interesting development arises when Humbert realizes that Lolita is becoming too old for him. "The fog of all lust had been swept away leaving nothing but this dreadful lucidity. Oh, she had changed! Her complexion was now that of any vulgar untidy highschool girl who applies shared cosmetics with grubby fingers..." (page 204). This, along with Humbert mentioning a gun he now owns on page 216, foreshadow perhaps violence in the future. Humbert already admits to being a killer, so is it possible that he would kill Lolita to preserve her in her nymphet state? I guess time will tell the story there.

Humbert as an unreliable narrator comes up again in this section of reading. He describes himself as having an "incomplete and unorthodox memory" on page 217, making the reader only have to guess on what actually happened. On page 227, Humbert describes a supposed detective following him. He talks about the detective swapping cars out a lot, following in different cars. This makes me wonder if there is an actual detective, or if Humbert in his stressed out state, is just seeing things.