Color me crazy, and 101 in 1001 updates

As part of my goal to read 50 pieces of reputable fiction, I picked up Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, prepared to be scandalized. Lolita did not disappoint me there. Sometimes the cultural air seems filled with the smoke of the expectation that society is degrading. That in the old days, people looked out for each other, took responsibility for their actions, were tougher, were kinder, had a better work ethic; that we raised children as a village. It seems to me that every generation says these same things; that every generation despairs of the pleasure-seeking laziness and carelessness of their children. And if this is so, then was the first generation the most selfless, the most diligent, the most disciplined? And are we then doomed to be slowly eroded away to nothing? Or is it just that young people, generally speaking, cannot see the future and they make their own mistakes, just as their parents did? I don't think that values have a half-life. I think that there are just as many hard-working and kind people today as there ever were, and we - that is to say, as we become the older generation - are awfully prone to believing that our own experiences are unique. In any event, I am heartened to see that there were just as many pedophiles in the 1950's as there are today. Happily for our children, and sadly for Dolores Haze, there are now laws to protect children from sexual predation.
I don't buy it, by the way. That "Lolita" describes a sexually precocious girl. That Lolita is about love, which is what Lionel Trilling is quoted to have said on the inside of my copy. Neither am I especially interested in carving up this novel with a Freudian knife. This is what interests me about Lolita:
The separation between erotic experience and the act of sex. Every:single:page contains erotic language, but there is seldom a syllable said about sex itself. Intercourse is not described, because this is not a romance novel. Perhaps this is what Trilling was talking about, but just as erotic experience is not sex, and sex is not love, erotic experience is not love. They are related and connected, but not the same.
I liked the language very much. It was lyrical, ardent and flowery, almost to the extent that those maple leaf-shaped maple sugar candies are sweet. And just as I cannot eat an entire maple sugar candy, I did not read all of Lolita. I read up until Rita, and then read the dedication at the end. I was expecting language along the lines of Like Water for Chocolate; very elegant, but with some metaphors not quite reaching me. I'm sure they were lovely metaphors in Spanish, but they translated with something missing. But that was not the case. Instead, when Nabokov found that a French idiom was superior to an English one, he used it and left it in French. So there were expressions that I did not understand and did not look up, but understood from their context and lyrical quality.
I wondered why Lolita is considered such a necessary read, not because I think it lacks something, but I just wondered about the thought processes and motivations. It seems to me that Lolita is included in top novel lists because it contextualizes what is often treated as a strange kind of sexual deviation. Sexual deviancy is not new. I am happy that there are laws to protect children, and I do not believe that Lolita "asked for it." To come away from Lolita believing that Lolita was willing and consensual is to miss a material point. Humbert Humbert does not live in this reality. His retelling is not factual but sensual. It is his experience, and the reader can "hear" him "spin" the story to cast himself admirably. I don't think Nabokov wanted us to admire H.H., and I certainly don't think Nabokov admired the man himself. He made this character cringing and creeping and pathetic, abusive of others and temperamental; he crafted this manipulative sexual predator who time and time again rationalized his actions and reassigned blame for his failures. I wonder if Nabokov knew someone who relayed the germinal experiences and character traits, or if he found these impulses in himself first.

That is my experience with Lolita.
As for the rest of my list, I have made good progress with #008, and I have revised #009 at my mother's urging. #012 is also underway; I went to Boston Sunday with my future roommates and we did see a place, and have further revised our criteria. #013 is underway and will require tenacity.

#090 is in evidence on the back porch with some very cheerful tomatoes, peppers and basil.