Annotations to Lolita

Reading through chapters 10 & 11, I began to realize that Nabokov plays and preys on our ideas of feminine beauty in his descriptions of Lolita. Page 39: Humbert describes her (Lolita's? Annabel's? always the reader is left unsure of what vision H.H. is really seeing) "indrawn abdomen", and "puerile (meaning juvenile or not fully mature) hips". Page 41: "[m]arvelous skin...tender and tanned, not the least blemish" and her walk, "[a] faint suggestion of turned in toes" and "[a] kind of wiggly looseness below the knee". Page 42: "swelling of her tense narrow nates...and the seaside of her schoolgirl thighs." Page 43: "a stippled armpit". Page 44: "her lips as read as licked candy, the lower one prettily plump". Page 45: "the gooseberry fuzz of her shin". Page 49: "her neat calf".

Taken together; tight abdomen, small hips, smooth tanned skin, a suggestion of hips swinging, tight buttocks, clean/hairless armpits and legs, red plump lips; these form the basis of our idea of feminine beauty today. Nabokov brings into question what we regard as beauty and how it differs from the pedophile's view of the perfect girl child. Can we condemn H.H.'s attraction, if, in fact, we are striving to attain just such an image ourselves? Women spends millions every year on make-up, depilatories, gym memberships, blemish removal, plastic surgery for lips, hips, stomach, etc., and tanning salons. I think that the joke is on us for condemning the character of H.H. all the while making ourselves in the image of the perfect pubescent girl.

An interesting article on Wikipedia about shaving of leg hair (men and women): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leg_shaving. Interesting, if true, although the lack of citation makes some of it doubtful. The idea that the appearance of juvenility is actually preferred seems to be a common theme, not only in this article, but in beauty standards in general.

(This may also serve as another response to Amanda; see previous post)