I agree with you, Andrew, about Humbert's tendency to see swoons and
swooning everywhere he looks.  He uses forms of the word elsewhere in
LOLITA, too; for example, Humbert watches Dolores gamboling in a motel
pool while he "revise[s his] recent matitudinal swoon" and "devise[s]
the late afternoon one," which has the orgasmic connotations you
mentioned (161).  Such usage is often arch, too, as Jansy suggests.

SES

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