Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita

[Peder]

'Sok, I found something!



So I'm guessing the Annabel Lee is HH's Annabel Leigh, and he takes the poem as his own words... something along those lines. And HH must assume that he and Annabel will be reunited one day? Therefore, evidence that Nabokov, or HH at least, does believe in some kind of an afterlife.

Interesting!

Steffee,
that will take some reading and absorbing to get back to you on that. But ere the cock crows again, maybe.
Peder

 

[pontalba]

Steffee
The last page #309.....

And do not pity C.Q. One had to choose between him and H.H., and one wanted H.H. to exist at least a couple of months longer, so as to have him make you live in the minds of later generations. I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita.

As far as I can tell, VN was saying that HH at least believed that the only (long-term) future either he or Lolita had was on the written page. Durable pigments=ink, art and prophetic sonnets = the written word. And maybe what the angels remembered.

As to VN's beliefs, I am not sure, I remember seeing some small reference somewhere, , but what it was, I am not sure. It didn't sink in at the time.

 

[steffee]

Steffee
The last page #309.....

As far as I can tell, VN was saying that HH at least believed that the only (long-term) future either he or Lolita had was on the written page. Durable pigments=ink, art and prophetic sonnets = the written word. And maybe what the angels remembered.

As to VN's beliefs, I am not sure, I remember seeing some small reference somewhere, , but what it was, I am not sure. It didn't sink in at the time.

Hmmm.

 

[Peder]

'Sok, I found something!



So I'm guessing the Annabel Lee is HH's Annabel Leigh, and he takes the poem as his own words... something along those lines. And HH must assume that he and Annabel will be reunited one day? Therefore, evidence that Nabokov, or HH at least, does believe in some kind of an afterlife.

Interesting!

Steffee,
I have a date with destiny over at Borders ths afternoon to pick up the Cambridge Companion to Nabokov. Perhaps it will say something organized on the topic.
Peder

 

[steffee]

Steffee,
I have a date with destiny over at Borders ths afternoon to pick up the Cambridge Companion to Nabokov. Perhaps it will say something organized on the topic.
Peder

Awww, great Peder!!

Thank you!

And have a good day

 

[pontalba]

That seems to me to be the main drive behind HH getting this whole story on paper. He is not telling it as a cautionary tale as far as I can see.

When I started, fifty-six days ago, to write Lolita, first in the psychopathic ward for observation, and then in this well-heated, albeit tombal, secluson, I thought I would use these notes in toto at my trial, to save not my head, of course, but my soul. In mid-composition, however, I realized that I could not parade living Lolita. I still may use parts of this memoir in hermetic sessions, but publication is to be deferred.

He had to write it get it out of his system first of all. But mostly I believe to memorialize the fact that both he and Lo existed. Sort of a....look at me/us, we were here on the planet......

 

[Peder]

He had to write it get it out of his system first of all. But mostly I believe to memorialize the fact that both he and Lo existed. Sort of a....look at me/us, we were here on the planet......

Pontalba,
Yes indeed (I will say as if I know the answer, which I don't)! But what greater thing does a person want out of his stay here on earth?
Very nicely put,
Peder

 

[Peder]

'Sok, I found something!

So I'm guessing the Annabel Lee is HH's Annabel Leigh, and he takes the poem as his own words... something along those lines. And HH must assume that he and Annabel will be reunited one day? Therefore, evidence that Nabokov, or HH at least, does believe in some kind of an afterlife.

Interesting!

Steffee,
With respect to the afterlife part of your thought, I have rapidly read through the essay by Leona Toker, "Nabokov's Worldview" in the Cambridge Companion to Nabokov. That is a very condensed treatment of the topic at what at what I would call a quite sophisticated philosphical level. It ncludes sections on Aesthetics, Ethics, Metaphysics and Politics.
Under Metaphysics, some of the clearer statements are

"states of being" are an ontological issue whereas "ecstasy" can be understood as being both a transcendant mysitcal state, or a state of heiightened aesthetic attention...As is now widely recognized, one of the concerns traceable throughout Nabokov's work is with the mystery of the relationship of matter and spirit and of life (before birth ) and after death. Nabokov's views of the darkness on both sides of the cradle underwent modifications. In his younger days he was ready to confront the possibility of the extinction of individual consciousness after death.

A discussion follows of the evolution of his views as evidenced in Invitation to a Beheading and in Speak Memory. In the latter work, Nabokov descibes his sudden realization of the concept of "time" at the age of four as a "second baptism." The culminating statement by Toker is

The second baptism does not bring the fear of nonexistence, of not having existed, because it entails the intuition of one's having existed without knowing it, in the mobile medium where consciousness becomes reflexive only after it separates out and only when it has realized its own discreteness. The darkness before the rocking cradle may be an epistemological rather than an ontological blank.

.
Then, quoting Toker still,

In the fifties a further change takes place in Nabokov's fiction....the motif of ghosts...

and in this connection both the short story The Vane sisters as well as the novel Pnin are mentioned, followed by mentions of possible examples inThe Real Life of Sebastian Knight, The Gift and Glory. A fair number of source refernces are given by Toker throughout, among them Brian Boyd's Vladimir Nabokov's Palefire: The Magic of Artistic Discovery. [which first requires reading Pale Fire itself].

So that gives you the flavor of the essay, without its having many detailed answers, I would say.

My own summary would be that, yes, Nabokov did indeed believe in the idea of an afterlife, without having a detailed view of its nature, but having ideas about possible evidence of it existence that might be visible or intuited in this life.

Pale Fire and Boyd's corresponding book-length commentary provide a quite extended (and imaginative) treatment of how those ideas might look in the context of that story.
Peder

 

[pontalba]

Strong Opinions

Just received Strong Opinions , and had to share this bit as we've discussed the doppelganger issue a couple of times here. p.83 Let me first say it is this section is question and answer. This interview was conducted on Sept 25-29, 1966 at Montreaux, Switzerland and published in Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature, vol. VIII, no. 2, spring 1967. The interviewer was Nabokov's student at Cornell University in 1954, Alfred Appel, Jr.

(question) Would you care to comment on how the Doppelganger motif has been both used and aused from Poe, Hoffmann, Andersen, Dostoevski, Gogol, Stevenson, and Melville, down to Conrad and Mann? Which Doppelganger fictions would you single out for praise? (answer) The Doppelganger subject is a frightful bore.

There is more on Pnin regarding that aspect as well.

 

[steffee]

Thank you Peder, for posting all that, and for reading through an essay/chapter just to find it out!!

I remember a discussion a few pages back about Nabokov's religious ideas shining through in Pale Fire, and possibly Invitation to a Beheading too.

I will buy them both tomorrow...

I didn't know there was a "ghost" concept in Pnin, that's interesting, I really need to get started on that.

It seems strange, because with any other subject, Nabokov made sure he made his feelings known quite clearly, and yet, with religious beliefs he was a bit more cryptic... but then again, maybe he wasn't quite sure, as many people aren't, and then there's the pressures of conforming to mainstream religious ideas. I guess.

But thank you Peder, the Annabel Lee (Leigh) poem, is starting to make much more sense now

 

[steffee]

Just received Strong Opinions , and had to share this bit as we've discussed the doppelganger issue a couple of times here. p.83 Let me first say it is this section is question and answer. This interview was conducted on Sept 25-29, 1966 at Montreaux, Switzerland and published in Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature, vol. VIII, no. 2, spring 1967. The interviewer was Nabokov's student at Cornell University in 1954, Alfred Appel, Jr.

There is more on Pnin regarding that aspect as well.

LOL Pontalba, what a great answer.

 

[Peder]

I remember a discussion a few pages back about Nabokov's religious ideas shining through in Pale Fire, and possibly Invitation to a Beheading too.

I didn't know there was a "ghost" concept in Pnin, that's interesting, I really need to get started on that.

It seems strange, because with any other subject, Nabokov made sure he made his feelings known quite clearly, and yet, with religious beliefs he was a bit more cryptic... but then again, maybe he wasn't quite sure, as many people aren't, and then there's the pressures of conforming to mainstream religious ideas. I guess.

But thank you Peder, the Annabel Lee (Leigh) poem, is starting to make much more sense now

Steffee,
Hi, just back from a long early snooze.
I found Pale Fire very useful on the subject of an afterlife. John Shade describes it quite clearly, in what can easily be imagined to be VN's voice itself speaking through the character, and the Boyd book clarifies and carrries the idea further. I think it is unfortunate that people use the word 'ghost' because that has so many other Halloweeny connotations. The idea is much more subtle than that, so much so that I'm not sure I'll even recognize it in Pnin when I come across it. I didn't the first time. If I do this second time, then I'll shout.
VN was quite up front about concluding and saying one can have no idea of what the afterlife is like, but can at best intuit that it is there and that, if it has any influence in every day life back here, then that influence is quite subtle and (as far as I can tell) not in the manner of a wandering speaking person such as say in Hamlet, where 'ghost' is the term used.
If I'm lucky I'll find a passage in the part of Speak Memory that I have already read and post it.
Peder

 

[pontalba]

Pale Fire is on my list, but it'll probably be much later on rather than sooner. I don't know why, but poetry has always 'put me off' to some extent. Not quite so much now as when I was young, but I'm still.....wonky on the subject.

 

[StillILearn]

Pale Fire is on my list, but it'll probably be much later on rather than sooner. I don't know why, but poetry has always 'put me off' to some extent. Not quite so much now as when I was young, but I'm still.....wonky on the subject.

I'm the same, pontalba! I think I may have been forced to memorize Joyce Kilmer too early on in life. I have Pale Fire, but haven't read it yet. I willl though!

 

[steffee]

Pale Fire is on my list, but it'll probably be much later on rather than sooner. I don't know why, but poetry has always 'put me off' to some extent. Not quite so much now as when I was young, but I'm still.....wonky on the subject.

I never understand poetry. It's nice on a basic, 'isn't it clever how they do this clever iambic pentameter or whatever' level of appreciation, other than that, I haven't a clue.

 

[steffee]

I think it is unfortunate that people use the word 'ghost' because that has so many other Halloweeny connotations. The idea is much more subtle than that, so much so that I'm not sure I'll even recognize it in Pnin when I come across it. I didn't the first time. If I do this second time, then I'll shout.

Oh, right, I had no idea it was so subtle that you could even miss it altogether in Pnin

But I am most definitely looking forward to Pale Fire

You're right about the "ghost" concept, and I only used the word "ghost" because you did (or rather Toker did), and would have called it "spirit" or "discrete consciousness" or "state of being" or something equally as non-trite (??)

 

[pontalba]

I'm the same, pontalba! I think I may have been forced to memorize Joyce Kilmer too early on in life. I have Pale Fire, but haven't read it yet. I willl though!

I have it too. I happened to be at a library sale, and saw a nice hardback copy, but I want to get Boyd's "assistant" too. But of course I'll read PL first.

Steffee wrote: I never understand poetry. It's nice on a basic, 'isn't it clever how they do this clever iambic pentameter or whatever' level of appreciation, other than that, I haven't a clue.

Its partially the techno jargon that actually puts me off of it to begin with. Plus the poetry that I tried to read in school was so flowery that it gagged me. But I've lately run across some that I thought was quite nice. No, I don't remember what it was now, (Oy), but its a beginning.

 

[Peder]

Er-hem!

To all the poetry averse around here,

The poem in Pale Fire is probably not like other poetry you have read.
Even the critics agree with that, but in a different way. Barry Scherr in the Cambridge Companion says that

Nabokov's reputation rests to such a degree on his achievements as a prose writer that it is easy to overlook his entry into literature as a poet....
[But] Nabokov would likely have remained a footnote in literary history if he had not begun to write prose.

Ouch!

OTOH it may be that the lack of critical esteem for his poetry is part of the reason I hapen to like the few examples I have seen. I find them easy to read!

The story of a very sad family tragedy, and how John Shade and his wife coped with it, is told in the first half of Pale Fire entirely in the form of a poem. That poem, exept for a few lines, can quite easily be read as straight prose narrative, following normal sentence punctuation, using normal prose phrasing, and reading whole sentences as whole sentences, entirely as if one is reading a normal prose story -- almost completely ignoring the line breaks and rhyming structure that present it as poetry. So, ignore the rhymes and the line breaks and stop only at periods as you usually do. As usual there are some sentences that you will have to think about to get the meaninng or see the image, especially the very opening pair of lines. But that is par for reading Nabokov, it seems to me. Appreciation of it as poetry is definitely NOT necessary for reading and understanding the story it tells. And the poetry is the last thing we would be discussing anyway, I would assume.

So fix bayonets,
and charge ahead!
Peder

 

[Peder]

Great news (sort of),

Freud and Nabokov has arrived!

The beginning and end of the Introduction say:

A work devoted to Freud and Nabokov would seem to be the occasion for a psychoanalysis of Nabokov's characters, or a psychoanalytical discussion of Nabokov's aversion to Freud; or else a principled recounting of the multitudinous criticism that Nabokov wielded against Freud. But I intend to do none of those things.
...
The meeting place for Freud and Nabokov is their shared enterprise of writing. In exploring [the] two writers I hope to sggest a way in which psychoanalysis, as exemplified by Freud, has become more subjective and literary, subject to critical interpretation, while fiction, as exemplified by Nabokov, has become more theoretical.

In addition the author, Geoffrey Green, is a Professor of English, not a psychiatrist.

So with diminished hopes I shall read on, but not until I have finished Pnin and had a fair go at its hidden puzzle(s) and trying to win the game.

Stay tuned,
/yawn/
Peder

 

[StillILearn]

Great news (sort of),

Freud and Nabokov has arrived!

In addition the author, Geoffrey Green, is a Professor of English, not a psychiatrist.

Stay tuned,
/yawn/
Peder

I suggest that you seat them by the fire, with cups of Earl Gray, fake a nice phone call and scamper away. Then call it a day. What do you say?