I finished Lolita. While I found lots of humorous bits in the first half, the second half was, to me, a bit tedious and depressing. EHH travels around the US with Lolita, nightly availing himself of her pleasures and daily fretting that he is about to be arrested for his behavior.
At some point he begins to worry that she is unfaithful to him. Paranoia ensues. Eventually Lolita does run away, he knows not where or with whom, although his paranoia gives him lots of ideas. He returns to New England (I think; I was reading this part right before I fell asleep one night so I may not have it exactly right) to mourn and brood.
After an interlude during which he obtains a gun, he sets out to find Lolita. He never actually says who it is he intends to shoot. Or both.
He tracks his beloved and her paramour across the US through some rather fantastical means but doesn't find them. Then he receives a letter from her wherein she asks for money. He traces her through the postmark and eventually finds her: barefoot, pregnant, living in a shack, and more or less happily married to a laborer.
He has come to realize how horribly his lust has changed her life. He gives her a bunch of money and implores her to come away with him. She refuses and he realizes how much she despises him.
EHH and gun continue on to find the paramour, whom he has figured out to be the playwright who authored a play Lolita had acted in when she was attending school before her mother died. He finds the man, who is another sexual deviant; he shoots him about a gazillion times and eventually kills him.
The scene where EHH chases the playwright around the house and wrestles with him over the gun once again tickled my funny bone. It was totally and intentionally ludicrous, a couple of middle-aged and decrepit pedophiles parodying the obligatory fight scene in a Western movie. Even EHH describes it so.
The afterword by Nabokov was at least as good as the book. My favorite part was where he talks about how publishers W, X, Y, and Z refused to publish the book:
Their refusal to buy the book was based not on my treatment of the theme but the theme itself, for there are at least three themes which are utterly taboo as far as most American publishers are concerned. The two others are: a Negro-White marriage which is a complete and glorious success resulting in lots of children and grandchildren; and the total atheist who lives a happy and useful life, and dies in his sleep at the age of 106.
