Lolita Chapter 5 Summary

Humbert spends the rest of his youth and young adulthood feeling unfulfilled. He attends college in London and Paris, frequently visiting prostitutes to relieve his sexual needs. He studies psychology and then literature, working hard at academics but failing to produce much worthwhile scholarship. He publishes a few essays and poems in unimportant journals, teaches a bit, and eventually begins work on a multivolume textbook of French literature for English-speaking students. This latter job will occupy him until he gets arrested for murder.

During this period, Humbert feels—and mostly resists—a growing sexual desire for certain girls between the ages of nine and fourteen. He has his own name for such girls:...