I just finished reading Lolita last night. The movie confused me when I saw it a few months ago, so I thought the book would clear up my questioini, but it didn’t. My main one is: who the hell is Quilty?! I know that he is some playwrite guy Lolita had an affair with at the camp, but I’m pretty fuzzy with that afterwards. Did he take her out of the hospital? And if so, why? To me it seems Quilty’s name was only in passing and then, of all a sudden, Humbert HATES Quilty.
The answer is probably so freaking obvious. It was a good book, but I am unclear about Quilty’s character.
Lolita didn’t have an affair with Quilty at camp; that was with the camp director’s teenage son. He was a playwright she had had crush on for some time (remember the cigarette ad she hung up in her bedroom?) and originally was attracted to Humbert because he resembled Quilty. She’d also met him as a child, because his cousin Ivor had a dentistry practice in Ramsdale.
The whole business is a bit confusing, but it adds a clever bit of dime-store detective novel flavor to the book, don’t you think?
Yes, Quilty is who took Lolita out of the hospital. He’s also the guy in the convertible she’s talking to–the one who’s stalking them across the country. Also the one who leaves all the anagrams and hints and taunts in the motel record books Humbert looks through.
Why? We find out that Quilty is impotent himself, but likes to watch–and film–various acts including bestiality, which is why Lolita leaves.
And in true Nabokovian form, Quilty is Humbert’s doppleganger, his double who resembles him in nearly every way, causing Humbert to, in effect, kill himself.