Lolita: Nabako -- November 6, 2020

As usual, the notes will be updated as we go along; generally updates not dated. The first date for this post: November 6, 2020.

The page numbers will vary by edition and publisher. Once you get the first page number correct, the rest will flow.

Narrator: born in 1910
Narrator's mother died when narrator was three years old; he was raised by an Aunt Sybil, one of his mother's sisters
Age 13 when he had affair with Annabel
Annabel's parents, close friends of his aunt (who raised him); they had rented a villa near Hotel Mirana where the narrator grew up (chapter 3, page 14); Hotel Mirana on the French Riviera;
mentions 1923 at the end of chapter 2, and Annabel at the beginning of chapter 3, suggesting he met Annabel in 1923, when he was thirteen years old;
end of chapter 3: Annabel dies four months after their unconsummated affair, of typhus

Chapter 3: Annabel Leigh.

Chapter 5: college student in London and Paris; paid for sex with prostitutes;

manqué: a failure

Deux Magots: coffee house in Paris frequented by literary types;

Mentions "Proustian theme, letter from Keats to Benjamin Bailey

Definition of a nymphet: age nine to fourteen; nymphic, demniac (sic); he uses the term, nymphets." Discusses the definition for some paragraphs. Important.

The age of the men: there must be a gap of several years, never less than ten I should say, generally thirty or forty, and as many as ninety in a few known cases, between maiden and man to enable the latter to come under a nymphet's spell.

By that definition, Annabel was NOT a nymphet for the narrator. He was her equal.

We learn he is writing his confession in 1952, while waiting in prison for his trial; murder;

He would be 42 years old.

Introduces his name on page 21: Humbert Humbert. 

Talks about the "innocence" of children. page 21. Bottom of page 21: "Humbert was perfectly capable of intercourse with Eve, but it was Lilith he longed for." Discusses the sexual development of women, still in chapter 5.

Discusses the two "female" sexes at length on page 20, chapter 5.

Chapter 7: Monique. Marie.

Chapter 8: animated merkin, beginning of chapter,