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I think that to any reasonable person Humbert clearly raped Dolores, over and over again. She was well below the age of consent (except maybe in some weird parts of the world). Girls of that age do practise flirting with men - uncles for example - whom they know and who should be safe. No decent man would see the flirting of a child as an invitation or justification to do what Humbert did.
I think her mother would have protected Dolores if she had lived, given her reaction to Humbert's journal once she found it. Mothers and daughters often battle with each other - I know I did with mine at times! - but that is really just on the surface. And of course again we are seeing that relationship, and whether Dolores was sad about her mother's death or not, through Humbert's warped view of relationships.
The awful thing is that abused children do still slip through the system and it seems a pretty grim comment on our society that it was necessary here in Australia, and no doubt elsewhere, to make reporting of suspected abuse mandatory for people such as doctors and teachers. People are so afraid of making false accusations I suppose, that they ignore their own suspicions rather than report them to an appropriate authority.
I agree: it is certainly literature, and it is certainly not in praise of paedophilia. I think it is a measure of the power of the book that so many interesting comments have been posted already, and no doubt there will be many more.
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