Good moms teach their daughters what to be—independent, ambitious, judicious with the mascara—but just as instructive are those who teach their daughters what not to be. I’ll be polite (a lesson learned from my own mother) and stick to the fictional. Charlotte Haze might not be the most memorable character in Vladimir Nabokov’s lusty classic, “Lolita“—that accolade clearly falls to the nymphet Dolores, fire of some loins. But, as far as moms go, Charlotte is a pretty bad one. Her attempts to woo Humbert Humbert, whom she at first sees as an exemplar of European sophistication, are deflating, embarrassing, and, ultimately, fatal. Nabokov kills Charlotte, ignobly and in an instant, and very near the start of the book.
Most people read the almost-contraband at an age near Dolores’s, while their moms are near Charlotte’s. “Lolita” in real time. So, if the lesson from Dolores is to never let a swarthy European scholar pick you up from summer camp, what did Charlotte impart to impressionable readers? Women who strive to get under men end up under cars. Got it.