Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita

[StillILearn]

Still, laughing! Sometimes I think I speak English as if it's my second language even though it's actually my only language!

What I meant to say was that, after reading the last dozen or so posts, I suspected that you all (amongst you) had achieved a good psychological take on Lolita-the-child! (I myself was nodding vigorously with what each of you had to say about her -- that she was obviously a "risk-taker" and that she probably felt safe with HH insofar as testing the waters of her budding sexuality, her "chutzpah", etc.) I feel like I know little Lo much better now.

What made HH tick is still a mystery to me -- and he got to tell the entire tale from his (warped) point of view!

 

[steffee]

Having read further now, I think I am changing my mind about Lolita (the character, not the book).

In Chapter 27, when H picks her up from school and they head off to a hotel, she addresses him (mockingly) as "daddy" but then teases

"say, wouldn't Mother be absolutely mad if she found we were lovers"
"Good Lord, Lo, let us not talk that way"
"But we are lovers, aren't we?"

And later... "I am filthy in thought, word and deed" (Lolita says).

And CH. 31. H says "Did I deprive her of her flower? Sensitive gentlewoman of the jury, I was not even her first lover."

 

[StillILearn]

And later... "I am filthy in thought, word and deed" (Lolita says).

Do you recall on which page I can find this, steffee?

(Still, trying to keep an open mind...)

 

[Gem]

Peder, Pontalba, all,

You've all given me a great deal to think about. Lolita is certainly an enigma, as soon as i think i've cracked her, another thought comes along and changes my mind.
Basically, she is a normal twelve year old child - she's not particularly beautiful (aside from in HH's eyes) and she's certainly not charming - with the language she uses Her ordinariness is highlighted by the way that like any normal twelve year old she is only interested in popular culture and resists HH's efforts to culturify (is that even a word?) her.
The one thing that sets her apart from normal twelve year olds is her sexual experience. I don't think she has a developed sense of right and wrong or any kind of self awareness - i don't mean the physical kind. To me she seems to be a lost girl drifting aimlessly, led astray by her own stubborness. She mistook Quiltys attentions as being affection. So when HH came along, and she craved affection again perhaps she linked back to Quilty - ie. if she plays along with HH then she get the affection - doesn't she say that HH looks like Quilty? - perhaps she does this linking unconciously.

StillILearn, yep HH is sure going to be a hard nut to crack, i look forward to reading what everyone has to say.

Peder,

First, when he asked Lo to come with him, he had on the tip of his tongue to add the word "reprieve." (p 278)

Second, when he asked if she really wouldn't come with him, and she said no again, he said dejectedly "It would have made all the diifference." (p 280)

I'm going to have to go away and think it over, the second example is exactly the type of thing that makes me sympathetic towards HH every now and then - even if it does only last for a few nanoseconds

 

[steffee]

Do you recall on which page I can find this, steffee?

(Still, trying to keep an open mind...)

It's halfway through Ch. 27 in Part 1. Page 114 in my copy... it's a few lines above the "Zillians" comment.

 

[Peder]

Still, laughing! Sometimes I think I speak English as if it's my second language even though it's actually my only language!

What I meant to say was that, after reading the last dozen or so posts, I suspected that you all (amongst you) had achieved a good psychological take on Lolita-the-child! (I myself was nodding vigorously with what each of you had to say about her -- that she was obviously a "risk-taker" and that she probably felt safe with HH insofar as testing the waters of her budding sexuality, her "chutzpah", etc.) I feel like I know little Lo much better now.

What made HH tick is still a mystery to me -- and he got to tell the entire tale from his (warped) point of view!

StillILearn,
I don't understand at all why you are laughing, except laughing is a good thing to do I didn't see anything strange about your post, or the English in it.

And what I meant to say, was that the view of Lolita had really slid radically across a whole range of possibilities to get to where it was last seen. And while that psychological view makes sense to me now, I used to be the guy who who was at the other extreme and argued for Lolita's complete innocence. No knowledge or experience of sex; no complicity or awareness in the couch scene; not really bratty, just typical; no attraction to Humbert; and no anything else. Now that I write all that down, I see I have to add "if you can believe such a thing." So there might (well) still be some, or many, in the discussion who have different views. There sure are enough possibilities.

And yeah Humbert is a problem because he has done such evil things, and has led such a 'dirty' prior life as well. But I sense some change in my view coming there also. Stay tuned!

And P.S. I haven't heard the psychological 'in love' view before, so this may be a ground-breaking discussion. Or else just plain crazy!

So stay connected! It's getting to sound like we are having the whole auditorium to ourselves. Can you hear echoes where you are?

Peder

 

[pontalba]

And CH. 31. H says "Did I deprive her of her flower? Sensitive gentlewoman of the jury, I was not even her first lover."

That was indeed my 'jaw-dropping' moment the first time I read Lolita! Literally! Although considering her actions just prior, I don't know why!

As far as Humbert the Hound, man or monster............in spite of the truely terrible things he did, I still have a certain amount of sympathy for him. He too was a product of his upbringing. Early death of his mother. Note that both of the main characters opposite sex parents died when HH and Lo were quite young. Hmmmmm......... ok. The same sex parent was, while not abusive, at the least they were inattentive parents. HH was left for the hotel staff and aunt that predicted her early death (what a winner she was!) around his 16th birthday. And we are well aware of Madam Charlotte's um, untimely death in Lo's 12th year.

Nabokov's Balancing Act again?

Not everyone by any means would have been affected as HH was by the interruption of his tryst with Annabel, but that was his make up from the beginning. He was not a strong person. I don't really want to, but I do feel sorrow for his fate.

 

[StillILearn]

Thanks, steffee, I found it on page 114 of my Annotated Lolita. (They know better than to mess with the page numbers with us fans watching them.)

I'm still giving this precocious kid every benefit of the doubt. I see her as being a tease and way over the edge (admittedly), but this is still kid stuff so far. Nothing to compare with the following evil and singularly Humbertish thought on page 116:

"We might," chanted Humbert - knowing perfectly well, the sly tumescent devil, that by nine, when his show began, she would be dead in his arms.

The latest Mrs. Humbert being actually dead in fact?

If Lolita were fifteen, say, I might be harder on her. Or fourteen even.

 

[pontalba]

The child lists being a "friend to male animals" right in there with "We baked in a reflector oven." Oy!

 

[Peder]

OMG a whole avalanche of posts I didn't know were there!

Gem, Steffee
There ya go again, moving my view of Lolita all around. Just kidding, but I agree that every time I look in the book I see something new ...... or miss something new

Like frinstance that 'I am filthy' remark!

And StillILearn, now I get it! That 'most excellent' phrase? I wasn't mimicking you. I thought I was original with it. Can't believe that happened.

Time to sit back again, and now read a bunch of new posts,
Peder,

 

[StillILearn]

I'm going to have to go away and think it over, the second example is exactly the type of thing that makes me sympathetic towards HH every now and then - even if it does only last for a few nanoseconds.

HH is fortunate to have all of you to give him the benefit of the doubt; I would have had him summarily sentenced, hanged, drawn and quartered by now. And his head on a pike outside the city gates.

I'll be interested to hear what else the defense has to present on his behalf.

 

[Peder]

It will be sly and crafty.
Heh heh heh

 

[Gem]

I feel like i should say something in HH's favour, as i did feel sympathetic towards him. However i have the horrible suspicion that this was only because he drew me in with his language and charm - pretty much like he continually attracted women even though he had a failed marriage, mental problems and he isn't exactly the best catch financially speaking. So my feelings towards HH are ambiguous to say the least.

Pontalba has already very ably covered his past, which may explain his actions to a certain degree. A very wily lawyer could argue that before Lolita, HH had only watched girls from afar and that the only reason he took things further with Lolita was because of Lolita - a sexually active girl, who encouraged him but that would bring us back to Lolita so lets quickly move away.

I think we all agree that yes it was monstrous of him to do what he did with Lolita regardless of any mitigating factors - as a well travelled, educated man he should have realised the consequences - and been able to differentiate between keeping his twisted fantasies in his mind and actually bringing them out into reality.

Did he really love her or is that simply his justification for his heinous acts?

 

[StillILearn]

Did he really love her or is that simply his justification for his heinous acts?

I think he did love her to the best of his limited ability.

But balance that with this:

"I sat beside Dolly just behind [her little schoolmate's] neck and that hair, and unbuttoned my overcoat and for sixty-five cents plus the permission to participate in the school play, had Dolly put her inky, chalky, red-knuckled hand under the desk."

And

" ... the thought that with patience and luck I might produce eventually a nymphet with my blood in her exquisite veins, a Lolita the Second, who would be eight or nine around 1960 . . . indeed, the telescopy of my mind, or un-mind, was strong enough to distinguish in the remoteness of time a . . . bizarre, tender, salivating Dr. Humbert, practicing on supremely lovely Lolita the Third the art of being a granddad."

 

[pontalba]

StillILearn When I read the above, it was enough to make my blood run cold.

I am trying to fix the sequence, and can't bring that quote to hand, what page is it on? To my mind, his "love" for Lolita came later. In the beginning, it was all mixed up with Annabel, but at the end of the book, when he visited her it seemed that it was by then Lolita he loved.

I say this because on p.278 around the middle of the page the exchange that takes place between them is a long way from their old exchange method. i.e. sex acts for money. In this exchange she asks him:

"You mean," "she said opening her eyes and raising herself slightly, the snake that may strike," "you mean you will give us [us] that money only if I go with you to a motel. Is that what you mean?"

He was simply trying to get her to come back to him. Because he loved her. As you say, in his limited fashion.

 

[steffee]

As far as Humbert the Hound, man or monster............in spite of the truely terrible things he did, I still have a certain amount of sympathy for him. He too was a product of his upbringing. Early death of his mother. Note that both of the main characters opposite sex parents died when HH and Lo were quite young. Hmmmmm......... ok. The same sex parent was, while not abusive, at the least they were inattentive parents. HH was left for the hotel staff and aunt that predicted her early death (what a winner she was!) around his 16th birthday. And we are well aware of Madam Charlotte's um, untimely death in Lo's 12th year.

Nabokov's Balancing Act again?

Not everyone by any means would have been affected as HH was by the interruption of his tryst with Annabel, but that was his make up from the beginning. He was not a strong person. I don't really want to, but I do feel sorrow for his fate.

I am a couple of chapter in Part 2 now. In Part 1, I felt sorry for him too. He came across as certainly having some kind of mental illness, and his thoughts are far from honourable (particularly to poor Charlotte as well as Lolita) but at least he showed some thought for Lolita, for what he was doing, or planning to do...

P.12, Lolita starts: "Well, you haven't kissed me yet, have you?"
"Inly dying, inly moaning, I glimpsed... Remember she is only a child. Remember she is only----"

p.130. "I insist on proving I am not and never was, and never could have been, a brutal scoundrel"

p.139. "This was an orphan. This was a lone child, an absolute waif, with whom a heavy-limbed, foul-smelling adult had had strenuous intercourse three times that very morning"

In part 2 though, he is more concerned with Lolita keeping their little secret, and uses every trick in the book to make it so...

p. 147. "I was clever enough to realize that I must secure her complete co-operation in keeping our relations secret"

"Look darling, what it says. I quote: the normal girl-- normal, mark you-- the normal girl is usually extremely anxious to please her father.... the girl forms her ideals of romance and of men from her association with her father"

"Okay. I go to jail. But what happens to you, my orphan? Well, you are luckier. You become the ward of the Department of Public Welfare-- which I am afraid sounds a little bleak"

Now how can anyone feel sympthy for that?

 

[Peder]

Well, Madam Prosecutor,
The defense is ready. How would you llike to proceed?
Shall we wait for Steffee to finish?
Or Steffee how do you feel about probably seeing yet more spoilers?
I'm easily willing to wait, the discussion is going along so nicely and may reach its conclusion without a trial.
Peder

 

[StillILearn]

I am trying to fix the sequence, and can't bring that quote to hand, what page is it on? To my mind, his "love" for Lolita came later. In the beginning, it was all mixed up with Annabel, but at the end of the book, when he visited her it seemed that it was by then Lolita he loved.

pontalba, these quotations can be found on pages 174 and 198.

HH wants us to blame Lo, and he's quite the manipulating charmer. He's extremely good at what he does, which is justifying his unjustifyable behavior. Also, we have to take his word on simply everything we read in this book. I see the entire novel as a compendium of prevarications (in fact, I don't trust in his latter day protestations of an unselfish love for Dolly Schiller either), but I'm still willing to try to keep an open mind.

 

[StillILearn]

Well, Madam Prosecutor,
The defense is ready. How would you llike to proceed?
Shall we wait for Steffee to finish?
Or Steffee how do you feel about probably seeing yet more spoilers?
I'm easily willing to wait, the discussion is going along so nicely and may reach its conclusion without a trial.
Peder

Let's skip the trial and hang him now!

Ooops. Open mind, Still, Open mind...

 

[pontalba]

ROTFALOLTIC!