Monday, February 24, 2014

Was Nabokov a Hebephile\Ephebophile?


Readers of this blog are most likely familiar with Nabokov's Lolita, but they may not be familiar with his six other books that share a similar theme of hebephilia\ephebophilia with Lolita:

Laughter in the Dark 
Ada or Ador: A Family Chronicle
Transparent Things
Look at the Harlequins!
The Original of Laura

And some of Nabokov's published poetry contains the theme of hebephilia\ephebophilia. In “Lilith”, which can be found in his Selected Poems (2012), he wrote:
                           
I died. The sycamores and shutters
along the dusty street were teased
by torrid Aeolus.

I walked,
and fauns walked, and in every faun
god Pan I seemed to recognize:
Good. I must be in Paradise.

Shielding her face and to the sparkling sun
showing a russet armpit, in a doorway
there stood a naked little girl.
She had a water-lily in her curls
and was as graceful as a woman. Tenderly
her nipples bloomed, and I recalled
the springtime of my life on earth,
when through the alders on the river brink
so very closely I could watch
the miller’s youngest daughter as she stepped
out of the water, and she was all golden,
with a wet fleece between her legs.

And now, still wearing the same dress coat
that I had on when killed last night,
with a rake’s predatory twinkle,
toward my Lilith I advanced.
She turned upon me a green eye
over her shoulder, and my clothes
were set on fire and in a trice
dispersed like ashes.

In the room behind
one glimpsed a shaggy Greek divan,
on a small table wine, pomegranates,
and some lewd frescoes covering the wall.
With two cold fingers childishly
she took me by my emberhead [пламя – i.e., erect penis]:
“now come along with me,” she said.

Without inducement, without effort,
Just with the slowest of pert glee,
like wings she gradually opened
her pretty knees in front of me.
And how enticing, and how merry,
her upturned face! And with a wild
lunge of my loins I penetrated
into an unforgotten child.
Snake within snake, vessel in vessel,
smooth-fitting part, I moved in her,
through the ascending itch forefeeling
unutterable pleasure [восторг – i.e., approaching orgasm] stir.
But suddenly she lightly flinched,
retreated, drew her legs together,
and grasped a veil and twisted it
around herself up to the hips,
and full of strength, at half the distance
to rapture [блаженству - i.e., orgasm], I was left with nothing.
I hurtled forward. A strange wind
caused me to stagger. “Let me in!”
I shouted, noticing with horror
that I stood again outside in the dust
and that obscenely bleating youngsters
were staring at my pommeled lust [булаву – mace i.e., erect penis].
“Let me come in!” And the goat-hoofed,
copper-curled crowd increased. “Oh, let me in,”
I pleaded, “otherwise I shall go mad!”
The door stayed silent, and for all to see
writhing in agony I spilled my seed
and knew abruptly that I was in Hell.
(The words in the brackets are from Maxim D. Shrayer's Russian Literature journal article "Nabokov's Sexography".)


Nabokov shared in Poems and Problems that “Lilith” was composed “to amuse a friend.” In Pniniad, Marc Szeftel, whom many claim was the model for Nabokov's Pnin, shared an anecdote that was related to him by Gleb Struve, an associate of Nabokov:

“Struve tells about a private evening devoted to Nabokov's erotical (or even pornographical) poetry, read by him. Of these poems only “Lilith” has been published in N.'s 'Poems and Problems'[...] This reading happened when N. was not yet married [...] What was on young Nabokov's mind before he married Vera, I do not know. Probably, quite a few frivolous things, to expect from a very handsome, young Russian.”

Maurice Couturier revealed in Nabokov's Eros and the Poetics of Desire that different versions of last six lines of “Lilith” were used "[...] throughout Nabokov's novels which may suggest that he, as an author, was probably reenacting an event belonging to his own past or a fantasy he had nursed."

Brian Boyd shared in Vladimir Nabokov,The American Years that when Nabokov taught at Stanford his evenings were often spent attending formal parties and playing chess with Henry Lanz, the head of the Slavic department. Nabokov found Lanz "[...] delicate, cultured and talented." In addition, Nabokov found that Lanz was a nympholept (i.e., a person seized with a frenzy of erotic emotion) who would "[...] drive off on the weekends, neat and dapper in his blazer, to orgiastic parties with nymphets." Now the question is, did Nabokov ever attend any of those parties with Lanz?

And who was one of Nabokov's favorite painters? Based on my leading question, you may have been able to guess none other than Balthus. Nabokov shared in in Strong Opinions, "The aspects of Picasso that I emphatically dislike are the sloppy products of his old age. I also loathe old Matisse. A contemporary artist I do admire very much, though not only because he paints Lolita-like creatures, is Balthus." Furthermore, Eric Naiman wrote in Nabokov, Perversely that a painting in Pnin, "Hoecker's 'Girl with a Cat'", may have been a reference to Balthus' "Jeune Fille au Chat".



Balthus' "Jeune Fille au Chat"

Nabokov was asked in a 1964 Playboy interview, "Are there any contemporary authors you do enjoy reading?" Nabokov replied, "I do have a few favorites—for example, Robbe-Grillet and Borges. How freely and gratefully one breathes in their marvelous labyrinths! I love their lucidity of thought, the purity and poetry, the mirage in the mirror."

Unsurprisingly, Robbe-Grillet writes about nymphets too. Here's an exemplary excerpt from his Recollections of the Golden Triangle [French: Souvenirs du Triangle d'Or]:

To celebrate her 17th birthday, Caroline's father took a whole box at the Opera House. Caroline was commanded to face the stage while straddling two armless red-velvet chairs before her father "[...] pressed himself shamelessly against her buttocks in order to caress her in greater comfort [...] The insidious fingers are no longer satisfied with stroking [...] They pass back and forth in wave after wave, tirelessly, over the bivalvular lips [...] One tiny, fragile rock resists and stiffens [...]"

And what about Aleksandr Pushkin, who was one Nabokov's favorites poets. The Paris Review revealed that Nabokov spent two months in Cambridge working on the English translation and commentary of Eugene Onegin for over 17 hours per day. In the novel in verse, the poet Lensky invited 26-year-old dandy Eugene Onegin to dinner with his fiancée, the nymphet Olga, and her family. During the dinner Tatyana, Olga's 13-year-old older sister, became very infatuated with Onegin but her innocent love for the older man was (initially) unrequited.

Wait. Let's not forget about Nabokov's short stories. According to Naiman, Nabokov wrote “Skazka” in 1926 before it was published in Rul', a Berlin emigre newspaper that was founded by his father. In the story, on his ride to work, Erwin habitually gazes through the tram's window and picks girls for his imaginary harem. However, the young man gains the opportunity for his dreams to come true after he meets Frau Monde, a female Devil who promises Erwin that he can have all the girls he wants upon “cushions and rugs” in “a villa with a walled garden” but that it's “essential and final” that he selects an odd number of girls between noon to midnight.

The next day Erwin starts collecting slave girls. Here's a partial list:

A maiden in a white dress with chestnut hair and palish lips who was playing with her “fat shaggy pup”

“[T]wo young ladies-sisters, or even twins...Both were small and slim...with saucy eyes and painted lips.” Erwin referred to the Twins as “Gay, painted, young things.”

A lady who “...was lovely, hatless, bobhaired, with a fringe on her forehead that made her look like a boy actor in the part of a damsel.

A “beautiful in a drab, freckled way” wench who worked at a cheap restaurant that Erwin frequented on Sundays.

A girl with gray eyes with a slight slant and a thin aquiline nose that wrinkled when she laughed

A girl at a small amusement park who wore a scarlet blouse with a bright-green skirt

Four girls in jerseys and shorts, “...magnificent legs, naked nearly up to the groin...” inside the amusement park's arcade.

“A child of fourteen or so in a low-cut black party dress .” She was walking with a tall elderly man who was a “...famous poet, a senile swan, living all alone in a distant suburb”

I won't reveal who last girl was, but I will share her response to Erwin which was, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself [...] Leave me alone.” Her response was due to “[...] that which changes a man's life (i.e., genital) with one divine stroke [...]”

When Nabokov translated the story before it was published in Playboy (1974) and Details of a Sunset (1976), he aggressively titled it “A Nursery Tale” and noted in Tyrants Destroyed and Other Stories that when he was translating the story he was “[...] eerily startled to meet a somewhat decrepit but unmistakable Humbert escorting his nymphet in the story I wrote almost half a century ago.”

Andrew Field wrote in Nabokov, His Life in Art that there is a narrow distance between Nabokov and his stories and novels. When asked about this Nabokov replied that "yes, the stories were perhaps one tenth autobiographical" but like Field wrote, "that leaves one with the problem of deciding which tenth."

Lastly, Joyce Milton shared in her book,Tramp: The Life of Charlie Chaplin, that Chaplin acknowledged, “I had a violent crush on a girl only ten or twelve. I have always been in love with young girls [...]”  Interestingly, Barbara Wyllie wrote in "'My Age of Innocence Girl' - Humbert, Chaplin, Lita and Lo" that Nabokov was influence by Chaplin. For example, there's a reference to Chaplin's toothbrush mustache in Lolita.

Thus, was Nabokov a hebephile\ephebophile? Clearly, he was and according to Matt Ridley's New York Time's Notable Book The Red Queen all men are. But did Nabokov ever have an age-discrepant relationship? We may never know.

For more information on this topic peruse the blog Nabokov's Nympholepsy and/or read Nymphalis carmen: Nympholepsy in Nabokov’s Oeuvre .

Was Nabokov a Hebephile\Ephebophile?


Readers of this blog are most likely familiar with Nabokov's Lolita, but they may not be familiar with his six other books that share a similar theme of hebephilia\ephebophilia with Lolita:

Laughter in the Dark 
Ada or Ador: A Family Chronicle
Transparent Things
Look at the Harlequins!
The Original of Laura

And some of Nabokov's published poetry contains the theme of hebephilia\ephebophilia. In “Lilith”, which can be found in his Selected Poems (2012), he wrote:
                           
I died. The sycamores and shutters
along the dusty street were teased
by torrid Aeolus.

I walked,
and fauns walked, and in every faun
god Pan I seemed to recognize:
Good. I must be in Paradise.

Shielding her face and to the sparkling sun
showing a russet armpit, in a doorway
there stood a naked little girl.
She had a water-lily in her curls
and was as graceful as a woman. Tenderly
her nipples bloomed, and I recalled
the springtime of my life on earth,
when through the alders on the river brink
so very closely I could watch
the miller’s youngest daughter as she stepped
out of the water, and she was all golden,
with a wet fleece between her legs.And now, still wearing the same dress coat
that I had on when killed last night,
with a rake’s predatory twinkle,
toward my Lilith I advanced.
She turned upon me a green eye
over her shoulder, and my clothes
were set on fire and in a trice
dispersed like ashes.

In the room behind
one glimpsed a shaggy Greek divan,
on a small table wine, pomegranates,
and some lewd frescoes covering the wall.
With two cold fingers childishly
she took me by my emberhead [пламя – i.e., erect penis]:
“now come along with me,” she said.

Without inducement, without effort,
Just with the slowest of pert glee,
like wings she gradually opened
her pretty knees in front of me.
And how enticing, and how merry,
her upturned face! And with a wild
lunge of my loins I penetrated
into an unforgotten child.
Snake within snake, vessel in vessel,
smooth-fitting part, I moved in her,
through the ascending itch forefeeling
unutterable pleasure [восторг – i.e., approaching orgasm] stir.
But suddenly she lightly flinched,
retreated, drew her legs together,
and grasped a veil and twisted it
around herself up to the hips,
and full of strength, at half the distance
to rapture [блаженству - i.e., orgasm], I was left with nothing.
I hurtled forward. A strange wind
caused me to stagger. “Let me in!”
I shouted, noticing with horror
that I stood again outside in the dust
and that obscenely bleating youngsters
were staring at my pommeled lust [булаву – mace i.e., erect penis].
“Let me come in!” And the goat-hoofed,
copper-curled crowd increased. “Oh, let me in,”
I pleaded, “otherwise I shall go mad!”
The door stayed silent, and for all to see
writhing in agony I spilled my seed
and knew abruptly that I was in Hell.
(The words in the brackets are from Maxim D. Shrayer's Russian Literature journal article "Nabokov's Sexography".)

Nabokov shared in Poems and Problems that “Lilith” was composed “to amuse a friend.” In Pniniad, Marc Szeftel, whom many claim was the model for Nabokov's Pnin, shared an anecdote that was related to him by Gleb Struve, an associate of Nabokov:

“Struve tells about a private evening devoted to Nabokov's erotical (or even pornographical) poetry, read by him. Of these poems only “Lilith” has been published in N.'s 'Poems and Problems'[...] This reading happened when N. was not yet married [...] What was on young Nabokov's mind before he married Vera, I do not know. Probably, quite a few frivolous things, to expect from a very handsome, young Russian.”

Maurice Couturier revealed in Nabokov's Eros and the Poetics of Desire that different versions of last six lines of “Lilith” were used "[...] throughout Nabokov's novels which may suggest that he, as an author, was probably reenacting an event belonging to his own past or a fantasy he had nursed."

Brian Boyd shared in Vladimir Nabokov,The American Years that when Nabokov taught at Stanford his evenings were often spent attending formal parties and playing chess with Henry Lanz, the head of the Slavic department. Nabokov found Lanz "[...] delicate, cultured and talented." In addition, Nabokov found that Lanz was a nympholept (i.e., a person seized with a frenzy of erotic emotion) who would "[...] drive off on the weekends, neat and dapper in his blazer, to orgiastic parties with nymphets." Now the question is, did Nabokov ever attend any of those parties with Lanz?

And who was one of Nabokov's favorite painters? Based on my leading question, you may have been able to guess none other than Balthus. Nabokov shared in In Strong Opinions, "The aspects of Picasso that I emphatically dislike are the sloppy products of his old age. I also loathe old Matisse. A contemporary artist I do admire very much, though not only because he paints Lolita-like creatures, is Balthus." Furthermore, Eric Naiman wrote in Nabokov, Perversely that a painting in Pnin, "Hoecker's 'Girl with a Cat'", may have been a reference to Balthus' "Jeune Fille au Chat".

Balthus' "Jeune Fille au Chat"
Nabokov was asked in a 1964 Playboy interview, "Are there any contemporary authors you do enjoy reading?" Nabokov replied, "I do have a few favorites—for example, Robbe-Grillet and Borges. How freely and gratefully one breathes in their marvelous labyrinths! I love their lucidity of thought, the purity and poetry, the mirage in the mirror."

Unsurprisingly, Robbe-Grillet writes about nymphets too. Here's an exemplary excerpt from his Recollections of the Golden Triangle [French: Souvenirs du Triangle d'Or]:

To celebrate her 17th birthday, Caroline's father took a whole box at the Opera House. Caroline was commanded to face the stage while straddling two armless red-velvet chairs before her father "[...] pressed himself shamelessly against her buttocks in order to caress her in greater comfort [...] The insidious fingers are no longer satisfied with stroking [...] They pass back and forth in wave after wave, tirelessly, over the bivalvular lips [...] One tiny, fragile rock resists and stiffens [...]"

And what about Aleksandr Pushkin, who was one Nabokov's favorites poets. The Paris Review revealed that Nabokov spent two months in Cambridge working on the English translation and commentary of Eugene Onegin for over 17 hours per day. In the novel in verse, the poet Lensky invited 26-year-old dandy Eugene Onegin to dinner with his fiancée, the nymphet Olga, and her family. During the dinner Tatyana, Olga's 13-year-old older sister, became very infatuated with Onegin but her innocent love for the older man was (initially) unrequited. 


Wait. Let's not forget about Nabokov's short stories. According to Naiman, Nabokov wrote “Skazka” in 1926 before it was published in Rul', a Berlin emigre newspaper that was founded by his father. In the story, on his ride to work, Erwin habitually gazes through the tram's window and picks girls for his imaginary harem. However, the young man gains the opportunity for his dreams to come true after he meets Frau Monde, a female Devil who promises Erwin that he can have all the girls he wants upon “cushions and rugs” in “a villa with a walled garden” but that it's “essential and final” that he selects an odd number of girls between noon to midnight. 



The next day Erwin starts collecting slave girls. Here's a partial list:



A maiden in a white dress with chestnut hair and palish lips who was playing with her “fat shaggy pup”



“[T]wo young ladies-sisters, or even twins...Both were small and slim...with saucy eyes and painted lips.” Erwin referred to the Twins as “Gay, painted, young things.”



A lady who “...was lovely, hatless, bobhaired, with a fringe on her forehead that made her look like a boy actor in the part of a damsel.



A “beautiful in a drab, freckled way” wench who worked at a cheap restaurant that Erwin frequented on Sundays. 



A girl with gray eyes with a slight slant and a thin aquiline nose that wrinkled when she laughed



A girl at a small amusement park who wore a scarlet blouse with a bright-green skirt



Four girls in jerseys and shorts, “...magnificent legs, naked nearly up to the groin...” inside the amusement park's arcade. 



“A child of fourteen or so in a low-cut black party dress .” She was walking with a tall elderly man who was a “...famous poet, a senile swan, living all alone in a distant suburb”



I won't reveal who last girl was, but I will share her response to Erwin which was, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself [...] Leave me alone.” Her response was due to “[...] that which changes a man's life (i.e., genital) with one divine stroke [...]”

When Nabokov translated the story before it was published in Playboy (1974) and Details of a Sunset (1976), he aggressively titled it “A Nursery Tale” and noted in Tyrants Destroyed and Other Stories that when he was translating the story he was “[...] eerily startled to meet a somewhat decrepit but unmistakable Humbert escorting his nymphet in the story I wrote almost half a century ago.”

Andrew Field wrote in Nabokov, His Life in Art that there is a narrow distance between Nabokov and his stories and novels. When asked about this Nabokov replied that "yes, the stories were perhaps one tenth autobiographical" but like Field wrote, "that leaves one with the problem of deciding which tenth."

Lastly, Joyce Milton shared in her book,Tramp: The Life of Charlie Chaplin, that Chaplin acknowledged, “I had a violent crush on a girl only ten or twelve. I have always been in love with young girls [...]”  Interestingly, Barbara Wyllie wrote in "'My Age of Innocence Girl' - Humbert, Chaplin, Lita and Lo" that Nabokov was influence by Chaplin. For example, there's a reference to Chaplin's toothbrush mustache in Lolita.

Thus, was Nabokov a hebephile\ephebophile? Clearly, he was and according to Matt Ridley's New York Time's Notable Book The Red Queen all men are. But did Nabokov ever have an age-discrepant relationship? We may never know.

A number of Nabokov's other works are peppered lightly and liberally with references to nymphets. I would refer the reader to Naiman's Nabokov, Perversely and Couturier's Nabokov's Eros and the Poetics of Desire.

And If you want to read even more about this topic, peruse the blog Nabokov's Nympholepsy and/or read the book Nymphalis carmen: Nympholepsy in Nabokov’s Oeuvre.

Saturday, February 22, 2014

YOUNG & BEAUTIFUL (2013): French Teen Prostitute Enjoys the "Game"


We've previously written about American, French, British, Swedish and Japanese teen prostitutes and here's yet another example of the allure of nymphet prostitutes.

In the French film Young & Beautiful (2013) [French: Jeune & Jolie] 17-year-old stunningly beautiful Isabelle and her very pretty friend were approached in front of their high school by an ephebophile who offered them money in exchange for sex. Isabelle refused his offer, but remembered his mobile number. She called him a week later after she learned that her classmate got a Prada bag out of the quid pro quo.


Subsequently, Isabelle had sex with a number of middle-aged men; however, when she was asked by her psychiatrist if she did it for the money she replied, "No." She did it, because she liked arranging the appointments, chatting online and on the phone with men. In addition, she enjoyed listening to their voices, imaging things, discovering the luxurious hotels and not knowing whom she would find. She especially liked the johns who were friendly, un-needy, and caressing. "It was like a game,"  the nymphet said.

Interestingly, Young & Beautiful (2013) [French: Jeune & Jolie] was nominated for the highest honor, the Palme d'Or, at the Cannes Film Festival.






Friday, February 21, 2014

Nabokov's LAUGHTER IN THE DARK: A Nymphet's Agenda



The author of the 60 Years of Challenge warns men that they should avoid seeking affection from the opposite sex and that female affection is rarely sincere. The only exception would be when the affection comes from one's mother, which is why Royal advises men to let the phrase, "I love you," go into one ear and out of the other. According to an article in Vanity Fair, when Barack Obama was a graduate student at Columbia University, after his [white] love interest warmly said, "I love you," he coldly replied, "Thank you." The reason for this behavior is that (some) women have an agenda (i.e. specific reason) for being with men. In addition, Alain De Botton relates in How Proust Can Change Your Life that Proust advised men to generally avoid having friends, both male and female. Royal and Robert Beck agrees with Proust.

And Albert Albinus, the protagonist, in Nabokov's Laughter in the Dark would probably agree with these principles as well. Albinus, a "well groomed" middle-aged Berlin based art critic with "his pleasant smile and mild blue eyes", made the mistake of falling in love with 16-year-old (nude) model Margot Peters. Margot had a lovely baby face, a slim figure, and hazel eyes. Albinus, who had dreamed of finding a very young mistress, was naive and assumed that the nymphet's affection was sincere, when she really wanted to use him to help her advance her acting career. She wanted him to leave Elisabeth, his dear wife who "[...] as a small girl, had been secretly in love with an old actor who used to visit her father [...]". Margot didn't want Albinus to leave his wife, because she wanted him exclusively, but because she wanted exclusive access to his wealth. ("[H]e had been left a soundly invested fortune by his father.")

To make matters worse, Margot had an affair with 30-year-old Axel Rex, a New York City based painter, who took the teen's virginity before she met Albinus. Rex's behavior towards Margot was the antithesis of Albinus'. Rex, who was "ugly" and had "longish lusterless black hair, protruding cheekbones, and twinkling eyes", abandoned Margot after he took her virginity and he never told her that he loved her, yet she was madly in love with him.

Interestingly, Albinus and Rex gave good examples of how to seduce a nymphet. I wrote in The Allure of Nymphets that there are a variety of ways to seduce a nymphet, but arguably the preferred methods are Open (i.e. seduce the nymphet into opening or approaching you.) and Arranged (i.e. a family member or "friend" introduces you to a nymphet). Royal wrote that a man looses his power when he approaches a woman. He wrote "The King of Spain is all powerful in Spain. He directs and enforces his powers from his castle. If he goes to France, he's powerless. He must let the French people come to Spain in order to rule and govern them."

What Albinus did to meet Margot was the method that Robert Beck recommended, which is stalking. He said in Whitaker's Iceberg Slim The Lost Interviews, "I would advise not to pursue but to stalk, first of all. Or, I say not to chase, but to stalk." And that is exactly what Albinus did to Margot. For example, one evening, as a past-time, he strolled into "the velvety darkness" of a small cinema and noticed the "painfully beautiful face" of Margot. "After three days he could not ignore the memory of her no longer." And he returned to the cinema, but failed "to catch her eye". "He went there a third time firmly resolved to smile at her." Eventually, Margot approached Albinus.

Rex used a combination of the Arranged and Open methods. For example, he met Margot through Frau Levandovsky (After leaving her parent's home, and with good riddance, Margot moved into a small servant's room in Levandovsky's flat.) and after the arranged introduction, he stalked the nymphet i.e., "[H]e came [the] next day, and then again and again." Subsequently, Rex didn't ask Margot to move into a flat that "[...] he had rented for her the day before [...]" He commanded her to, "Pack up your things quick and come along." And she "[...] yielded with pleasure and zest [...]" after they "[...] crossed the threshold [...]" 

Furthermore, Rex was very charming (e.g. "He did not speak to her much [...]") and he was mysterious (e.g., "She could not guess what he was doing in Berlin or who he really was."). Royal wrote that "A pimp's main source of power is his anonymity [...] A pimp does and says only what needs to be said and done." Wisely, Rex left Margot "[...] only because he was afraid of becoming too fond of her." Coincidentally, the author of The October Man Sequence advises men to avoid being "[...] inferior in a relationship - you should at the least be equal."

In contrast, Margot was able to almost immediately find out everything about Albinus - his address, phone number, and how much wealth he possessed. Albinus even went out of his way to "[...] interest her in his past, telling her of his childhood, his mother whom he remembered but vaguely, and his father [...]"

Margot was so distressed after Rex abandoned her that she spent the night with two Japanese men. They gave her 350 marks for her services. (The nymphet only asked for 200.) Subsequently, she met "[...] a fat old man with a nose like an overripe pear [...]" After he paid for her room until November and gave her enough money to purchase a fur coat, "[...] she allowed him to stay for the night." He died shortly after they met. And then she met Albinus, eventually was re-introduced to Rex at one of Albinus' parties, where the chit and Rex reunited to the ultimate dismay of Albinus.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Nabokov's THE ORIGINAL OF LAURA: Nabokov's Last Lolita\Nymphet

The Original of Laura
From Publishers Weekly via Amazon:

Before Nabokov's death in 1977, he instructed his wife to burn the unfinished first draft—handwritten on 138 index cards—of what would be his final novel. She did not, and now Nabokov's son, Dmitri, is releasing them to the world [...] It would be a mistake for readers to come to this expecting anything resembling a novel, though the few actual scenes here are unmistakably Nabokovian — a character named Hubert H. Hubert molesting a girl, a decaying old man's strained attempt at perfunctory sex with his younger wife.

The story appears to be about a woman named Flora (spelled, once, as FLaura), who has Lolita-like moments in her childhood and is later the subject of a scandalous novel, Laura, written by a former lover. Mostly, this amounts to a peek inside the author's process and mindset as he neared death. Indeed, mortality, suicide, impotence, a disgust with the male human body — and an appreciation of the fit, young female body—figure prominently.

The "book" was difficult to read, but some of the hebephilia themes were clear. For example, Adam Lind, a photographer and the son of the painter Lev Linde, married Lanskaya, a ballerina. After Adam committed suicide, Lanskaya found an "elderly but still vigorous" lover in Hubert H. Hubert, who was deeply attracted to Flora, Lanskaya's "lovely" 12-year-old daughter.

The nymphet was "[...] alone in the house with Mr. Hubert, who constantly "prowled" around her [...] she did not dare to let her arms hang aimlessly lest her knuckles came into contact with some horrible part of that kindly but smelly and "pushing" old male."

In one scene, while Flora, who was described as having "[...] darker than the dark blue of the iris [...] blondish or rather palomino, and so silky [hair] [...]" was in bed "[...] with a chest cold," Hubert "[...] brought his pet a thoughtful present: a miniature chess set [...]" The game didn't last long. "After a few minutes of play Flora grew tired of it, put a rook in her mouth, ejected it [...] Then, with a father's sudden concern, he said, "I'm afraid you are chilly my love," and plunging a hand under the bedclothes from his vantage point at the footboard, he felt her shins."

But just like in a number of molestation cases, the mother sided with the fiance\boyfriend\husband. Lanskaya "[...] soothed the absolutely furious, deeply insulted Mr Hubert before scolding her daughter," for kicking Hubert "[...] in the crotch."

Hubert never got his wish to be with Flora, but she "[...] was barely fourteen when she lost her virginity to a coeval, a handsome ballboy at the Carlton Courts in Cannes."

By the time Flora was 24, she was "extravagantly slender," had "cup-sized breasts," due to her beauty she "seemed a dozen years younger," and she was in an age-discrepant relationship. She was married to "Philip Wild, a wealthy and grossly fat neurologist."