Arnie Perlstein (arnieperstein@gmail.com) writes:

I just read earlier today in another online forum that Humbert Humbert is 42 when he dies, but I can't find the reference in the novel--what I do see near the end of the novel is this:

"[Rita] was twice Lolita's age and three quarters of mine."

If I've understood the chronology of the novel correctly, at that moment, Lolita was 15, so Rita would have been 30, and Humbert 40--and since he dies 2 years later, that seems to corroborate his age at death at 42.

Also, does the number 42 have any other meaning in Lolita?

Cheers, ARNIE
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