I don't quite see Humbert as much Lolita's hapless puppet, as much as I view him as a delusional narcissist who at last finds himself with the perfect catalyst for acting out his fantasies -- a damaged twelve year old girl who has already been poisoned by the venom of sexual abuse, and is therefore fair game, as it were. Humbert fails to detect her dynamics because he is blind to his own. The irony here is that Lolita's mother set her up for exploitation years before Humbert ever arrived on the scene.

Yes, it does sound like you got more involved with The Reader than you realized. ;)