Query: Erica
Jong, addressing Lolita's readership, emphasizes that the
"erection of small dorsal hairs is the issue here and not, as is commonly
assumed, other sorts of tumescence," thereby offering a kind
of feminine endorsement to the physical delights which
must arise through the practice of art and science, independently of
other lachrimal
and pilous reactions. Nevertheless, Nabokov's authoritative assessment remains
a puzzle to me: why is the "little shiver
behind the highest form of emotion that humanity has attained when evolving pure
art and science"? (Cf. LL 54)