Nabokov gives us a Humbert that we’re never quite sure of, and Humbert himself seems to straddle the fence as to who or what he is. Egotistical, blunt, intelligent, and focused, yes; but he seems unsure of whether to apply his own or society’s rules on his instincts and his behavior:
I have all the characteristics which, according to writers on the sex interests of children, start the responses stirring in a little girl: clean-cut jaw, muscular hand, deep sonorous voice, broad shoulder. Moreover, I am said to resemble some crooner or actor chap on whom Lo has a crush. (p. 43)
(…) oh, that I were a lady writer who could have her pose naked in a naked light! But instead I am lanky, big-boned, wooly-chested Humbert Humbert, with thick black eyebrows and a queer accent, and a cesspoolful of rotting monsters behind his slow boyish smile. (p. 44)
He is confident and yet tremulous, unsure because he is aware that his particular lust is considered lascivious and illegal. He draws lines between fact and fantasy, between his opinions of the two sides of his self, and, of the fact and fiction of Lolita. He waxes poetic in the old style of romance of a poor sot in love, and yet points out that he wishes she would more often wash her hair. He compartmentalizes features, real and unreal. Then he proceeds to cross the borders.
If he appears vulnerable even in his sureness, don’t we question him as well as ourselves?
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology