But Nabokov is clearly saying something different—Humbert is, in reality, ordinary as dirt. He’s the dirty old man who walks by you every day, disguised in this case by a fancy prose style. Humbert is not special. Humbert is not extraordinary. He’s Frank Lasalle. He’s everywhere. If Humbert is ordinary, then Lolita is too. She too is everywhere. She’s all around us—the girl whose life has been destroyed. The ubiquitous victim of the ubiquitous monster. And it’s her ubiquity that ultimately concerns Nabokov. The clue is in the title. The book is actually about what it says it’s about: a mere
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