Humbert attributes his pedophilia (or “nympholepsy”) to his tragically aborted childhood romance with Annabel Leigh. How far can we trust this explanation? How do we reconcile Humbert’s reliance on the Freudian theory of psychic trauma with his corrosive disdain for psychiatrists?
Humbert asserted that his pedophilia developed because of Annabelle, but it seems to me that his narcissism, his perfectionism, his obsession merely inserted Annabelle into his predisposition to focus on pre-pubescent girls. He was much more disturbed than he admitted.
Humbert did not only disdain psychiatrists but just about everyone and everything he observed. He was so pleased at fooling the psychiatrists who worked with him into classifying him as possibly a homosexual instead of a specific type of pedophile.
He was extraordinarily secretive and creative with the truth. Truth frequently appears with very brief comment from Humbert. As an example, we find out that Lolita cried every night only as an aside in a solitary sentence. So no, we can’t rely on the truthfulness of Humbert’s account except as his own interpretation of his experience.
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Humbert’s Annabel story is less a trustworthy psychological account than a self-serving myth. His reliance on Freudian theory is opportunistic, not consistent. He disdains psychiatrists because they represent judgment and simple explanations, while he craves the authority to narrate his own learning and explanations as destiny and art.
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