Therefore, I think that my hypothesis still holds in that, when writing about "swooners" in "Lolita", Nabokov was mainly setting a playful, good-hearted trap for his translators
Dear Jansy,
Aren't you giving Nabokov rather anachronistic expectations? Lolita's early history was quite dicey, and her very survival was doubtful. Nabokov had no way to foresee Lolita's eventual gale-force success.
Not until after that unexpected phenomenon could he conceive of laying traps for translators, surely?
Carolyn
p.s. I think you are still a little confused about these bloomers - - the word for howler is blooper.