Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0001509, Wed, 4 Dec 1996 11:39:38 -0800

Subject
Re: Lolita queries (fwd)
Date
Body
From: Steven Barnat <exnihilo@sirius.com>

Thanks to those who offered suggestions on Humbert's hermaphrodite (the
hairy hand won some laughs from me) and the porter's "disguised man."
Re the former -- I suspected a mythological reference, which I'm still
digging for.

Re the latter -- I suspected here something like Humbert's mishearing
"Our Glass Lake" for Hourglass lake, or like Quilty's playful disguising
of "where the devil did you get her?" with "the weather is getting
better." Humbert, after all, says it was his "static," and not his
interpolation.

--

Steven Barnat
San Francisco, CA
exnihilo@sirius.com