— Overview
The notes stay with that difficulty, and they stop before a later definition table.
— Contents and key concepts
Beauty that is hard to explain
Nabokov, the notes begin, is an aesthete who believes that beauty alone can move a reader. Why his sentences are beautiful is not easy to explain. Only after one has finished does an impression remain: yes, they were beautiful.
Thin ice, and a love whose object is a child
A translator of Lolita, they write, said it felt throughout like walking on thin ice, so careful was the work, as if any force would crack it. The reason, they think, is that one must tell of Humbert’s sincere love while walking a path whose object is a child.
The notes write his name as Humbert — and once in a slightly different Korean spelling, read here as the same man. Sexual feeling, they add, differs from person to person, in style and in how one relates; between those differences there is an aesthetic value, and a conflict, that they think worth dwelling on.
An analogy, and where the notes stop
Humbert, they write, is caught in a memory of love from childhood, idealises it, and projects it onto a young girl. From his side, they say, it is frank: a feeling from early years has only come back when its time arrived. They offer an analogy, with a caution that it may not be exact: to call raw meat or sliced raw fish “appetising” can, to someone else (a vegan, they write), seem barbarous. A private idea cannot be set down as if it were the truth.
The notes leave the book there, before a later definition table. The same Korean report, written out more fully, is on CampusDown.
Sources
- The notes, a student reading of Nabokov’s Lolita that stays with a translator’s thin ice and with Humbert.
Last updated: 15 November 2026
Frequently asked questions
How do the notes read Nabokov’s sentences?
As those of an aesthete who believes beauty alone can move a reader. Why the sentences are beautiful is hard to explain; only after finishing does a sense remain that they were, in fact, beautiful.
What do they record from a translator, and about Humbert?
A translator of Lolita, they write, said it felt like walking on thin ice the whole way, afraid that any pressure would crack it. They think the reason is that one must speak of Humbert’s sincere love while walking a path whose object is a child. The notes write the name as Humbert (once in a variant spelling, read here as the same man).
Where do they stop?
After that difficulty, and after an analogy with tastes in food that not everyone shares. They leave a later table unused, including an unanswered question about why she did not return to him.
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