This seems to shadow (sorry!) in many ways the Augustnian/Pelagian argument that has bedeviled many novels, especially Burgess's A Clockwork Orange. Does Humbert ultimately receive some moment of Grace? I like to think he has, as he sits overlooking and overhearing the children near the end of the novel. It does move in a mysterious way, its wonders to perform. Perhaps the foul Alex does as well, who is even more reprehensible than Humbert (12 year olds vs. a pair of 10 year olds), or perhaps he realizes, on his own, that the means of his own personal exculpation are totally withing his own hands (I'm speaking of the whole, 21-chapter novel). It's a fascinating question: does H. H. find his own redemption (or is it given to him)? I like think that somehow he has managed to find it through the former, not the latter.

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