StillILearn
New Member
pontalba, at this point, I think we may safely rest our case.
-
Welcome
to BookAndReader! We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!
Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.
Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita
- Thread starter Love4OneAnother
- Start date
pontalba, at this point, I think we may safely rest our case.
StillILearn
New Member
Well then, go on ahead.
( ... drumming fingers on table ...)
( ... drumming fingers on table ...)
Peder
Well-Known Member
StillILearn said:Well then, go on ahead.
( ... drumming fingers on table ...)
Well then, please hang on a bit. Counsel here needs to store up some rest for the brilliant opening argument.
Meanwhile, I came across another very unusual one-of-a-kind sentence from Lo, since we are talking about her. Humbert is speaking (p. 284):
"And I have still other smothered memories, now unfolding themselves into limbless monsters of pain. Once in a sunset-ending street of Beardsley, she turned to little Eva Rosen ... and so very serenely abd seriously, in answer to something the other had said about its being better to die than hear Milton Pinski, some local schoolboy she knew, talk about music, my Lolita remarked:
'You know what is so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own';
and it struck me .. that I did not know a thing about my darling's mind and that quite possibly, behind the awful juvenile cliches, there was in her a garden and a twilight, and a palace gate -- dim and adorable regions which happened to be lucidly and absolutely forbidden to me ....."
That paragraph suggests the lessening of solipsism in Humbert, but the morbidity of Lo's comment is what really stands out to me. To me it cries out that she felt completely alone and was inwardly aching, right then, for any kind of human companionship. Friends? Love? A family? A father? A mother? All of the above?
That's an unusually desolate comment for a young teenager, I think, and it is the only comment like it in the book, I think. And I don't recall any resonances with any other events in the book. But Nabokov certainly put it there for a purpose. And as another seemingly isolated comment for us to think about as part of the entire picture.
Peder
StillILearn
New Member
Keep an eye on this guy, pontalba, I think he's trying to soften us up.
Peder
Well-Known Member
The Defense Part 1 - Opening
The Defense Opens
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury! You have been carefully selected for your high intelligence and for your fine impartial open minds, and that latter has been a difficult task because you certainly are all aware of all of the misinformed talk and publicity about a certain book. We are holding this trial in a special courtroom here, in between the covers of a book, because this is the only impartial place where we can assemble all the witnesses and all the facts. Nevertheless it is still important to distinguish truth from falsity, fact from fiction. I shall show you that, in fact, my client is completely innocent of the charges against him, and that the charges against him are based on pure fiction.
The Defendant Himself
You see before you Mr. Herbert Himble, himself, sitting right here at the defense table - yes, he is alive, not fictional! --- a completely broken man because of great and genuine personal misfortunes in his own family. He has lost his beloved wife. The State - that woman over there -- is trying to execute him. And not so long ago he received a very distressing phone call about his beloved one and only daughter. She is in some difficulty and the outcome is extremely uncertain.
Author and Book
Now, as to author and book, the facts are really quite simple.
Mr Himble is a completely unknown author and the manuscript that he has written will feature in this trial.
But, the book I mentioned, called "Trail of a Killer," was written by a different famous Austro-Hungarian author. And, famous though that author may be - you have undoubtedly heard of him -- when he tried his hand at a cheap detective story he failed miserably and the book did not sell well at all. It was called Groszny's Wind when they tried selling it in selected mid-Western cities, and it will be a blot on the memory of his writing career forever.
The third fact is that Mr. Himble, in addition to being an unknown author, is also a very poor author indeed, and we shall come back to that later.
Family Life
First I would direct your attention to my client, Mr. Herbert Himble here.
Mr. Himble is a modest and loving family man who, until a few years ago, had a lovely wife, the former Charlene Blaze, bless her memory. /bows head/ She was the light of his life but was killed in an unfortunate automobile accident right in front of her own home. She was also called Big Blaze because, somehow, it seemed to fit.
Mr. Himble and Charlene also had a daughter 17 years ago, whose birthday is in fact a few days from now. Her name is Dorothy and they call her Dory at school, but at home she was called Little Dor. And always when her father hugged her, he called her his Little Dorito, because he does indeed adore her, get it?, and because he is also given to atrocious puns, especially in his writing. At school she is sometimes also called Little Blaze, because some of the giggling immature little boys think she is a hot little article, when really it is the eyes that get them. There is certainly no other reason because, as one of the boys quipped, "Her halter has nothing to halt."
Finally, we must note that, when Charlene died, Mr. Himble took his Little Dor on a recuperative trip all around the Country, where they visited every tourist sight they could find. Little Dor admired every one of them and came to see what a good father he really was. And needless to say, they always stayed in separate hotel and motel rooms.
And now he is faced with this trial. For murder, no less! /face shows shock and horror/
Here we shall have a short recess for coffee, may it please the Court. Rest rooms are to the right.
/General hubbub fills the room./
The Defense Opens
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury! You have been carefully selected for your high intelligence and for your fine impartial open minds, and that latter has been a difficult task because you certainly are all aware of all of the misinformed talk and publicity about a certain book. We are holding this trial in a special courtroom here, in between the covers of a book, because this is the only impartial place where we can assemble all the witnesses and all the facts. Nevertheless it is still important to distinguish truth from falsity, fact from fiction. I shall show you that, in fact, my client is completely innocent of the charges against him, and that the charges against him are based on pure fiction.
The Defendant Himself
You see before you Mr. Herbert Himble, himself, sitting right here at the defense table - yes, he is alive, not fictional! --- a completely broken man because of great and genuine personal misfortunes in his own family. He has lost his beloved wife. The State - that woman over there -- is trying to execute him. And not so long ago he received a very distressing phone call about his beloved one and only daughter. She is in some difficulty and the outcome is extremely uncertain.
Author and Book
Now, as to author and book, the facts are really quite simple.
Mr Himble is a completely unknown author and the manuscript that he has written will feature in this trial.
But, the book I mentioned, called "Trail of a Killer," was written by a different famous Austro-Hungarian author. And, famous though that author may be - you have undoubtedly heard of him -- when he tried his hand at a cheap detective story he failed miserably and the book did not sell well at all. It was called Groszny's Wind when they tried selling it in selected mid-Western cities, and it will be a blot on the memory of his writing career forever.
The third fact is that Mr. Himble, in addition to being an unknown author, is also a very poor author indeed, and we shall come back to that later.
Family Life
First I would direct your attention to my client, Mr. Herbert Himble here.
Mr. Himble is a modest and loving family man who, until a few years ago, had a lovely wife, the former Charlene Blaze, bless her memory. /bows head/ She was the light of his life but was killed in an unfortunate automobile accident right in front of her own home. She was also called Big Blaze because, somehow, it seemed to fit.
Mr. Himble and Charlene also had a daughter 17 years ago, whose birthday is in fact a few days from now. Her name is Dorothy and they call her Dory at school, but at home she was called Little Dor. And always when her father hugged her, he called her his Little Dorito, because he does indeed adore her, get it?, and because he is also given to atrocious puns, especially in his writing. At school she is sometimes also called Little Blaze, because some of the giggling immature little boys think she is a hot little article, when really it is the eyes that get them. There is certainly no other reason because, as one of the boys quipped, "Her halter has nothing to halt."
Finally, we must note that, when Charlene died, Mr. Himble took his Little Dor on a recuperative trip all around the Country, where they visited every tourist sight they could find. Little Dor admired every one of them and came to see what a good father he really was. And needless to say, they always stayed in separate hotel and motel rooms.
And now he is faced with this trial. For murder, no less! /face shows shock and horror/
Here we shall have a short recess for coffee, may it please the Court. Rest rooms are to the right.
/General hubbub fills the room./
StillILearn
New Member
Herbert Himble, himself? Recess for coffee? It was a good thing you pointed out the restrooms, because I was in danger of wetting my pants while laughing!
StillILearn
New Member
You're pretty sure you're not talking about Hervert Humble and Charlene Hays here? Their stories sound pretty simian, I mean similar.
Peder
Well-Known Member
Well, he does sometimes call himself humble Himble. But yes, P. Hervert Humble would fit very well (after I get him acquitted and back out into society). And maybe his wife's name really was something more like what you say. Carlotta Days, or something? Anyway, I'm pretty sure his daughter's name was not Loretta. I've never heard of a Lorito.StillILearn said:
And I do know that Anna Belli still lives. She's at The Slender Arms hotel. And Rita Book can probably also be found there and called as a witness.
But enough scintillating conversation out here in the corridor, I must go shuffle papers for the defense and look mighty and mportant.
See you inside later,
/gleaming smile/
/glides off/
Peder
StillILearn
New Member
I'm pretty sure he meant slithers.
StillILearn
New Member
Peder said:Oh, and BTW, that coffee recess wasn't to drink coffee.
Peder, you're too funny.