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Re: Two from SKB
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On 05/01/2009 12:28, "jansymello" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:
> SKB: Look for LEWIS CARROLL IN NUMBERLAND, Robin Wilson, W W Norton, 2008.
> Enough wordplay, perhaps, for non-mathematicians [...}VN was teasing when he
> said Carroll was an H-H prototype. Carroll certainly loved photographing naked
> nymphets but NO HANKY-PANKY.
>
> JM: Why would VN be merely teasing when he saw in Carroll an HH prototype,
> considering their shared pedophilic voyeurism?
> In "The Enchanter", as in the initial stages in "Lolita", both narrators
> insistently consider possible harms being inflicted on young girls by using
> them as objects for their fantasies, with no intended "hanky-panky." HH may
> have only dreamed his Commedia with Lo - who knows?
> ---------------
>
> Jansy: many valid reasons to distinguish the eccentric Victorian Dodgson (aka
> Lewis Carroll) from VN¹s monster. To be a plausible real-life ³prototype² for
> HH (with his physical paid-abuse of under-age prostitutes long before Lo
> appeared!) surely requires more than someone photographing very young
> upper-class girls, often chaperoned and always with their parent¹s approval
> and even encouragement! IF you harbour the theory that HH ³only dreamed² of
> bedding his fantasies, then you¹re reading a different novel and most of our
> discussions and tonnes of ³Lolita² criticism must be re-hashed. Lolita¹s own
> reactions (not to mention Quilty¹s and the FBI¹s?) to his merely ³dreamed²
> rogerings must also be moved to HH¹s febrile imagination. There¹s undoubtedly
> wild speculations and many unsolved mysteries about Carroll¹s private life
> e.g., the four [in]famous missing diaries and several pages torn (after his
> death, tis widely believed) from his surviving diaries. Good old Wiki covers
> these complexities, in particular Carroll¹s falling out with the Liddle
> family. The 9+ year-old Alice Liddle, you¹ll recall, is often taken as the
> model of his Alice tales, IN SPITE of Carroll¹s REPEATED DENIALS. (Forgive the
> case-shift SHOUT, but I love it when the critics IGNORE an author¹s
> self-exegesis.) His strange rift with the Liddles, according to some
> Carrollians & based on recent document finds, was due to suspicions that he
> was showing too much interest in LORIN Liddle! The Scouse verb is ³sniffing
> around!² But here¹s a how-d¹ye-do,¹ LORIN was the shared name of Alice¹s
> mother AND Alice¹s OLDER sister. Yet another warning against onomastic
> over-exuberance. You might start leaping into comparisons with HH¹s ploy to
> ³get at² Lo via Lo¹s mum! I meantersay: LO and LORIN can¹t possibly be a
> coincidence? BTW: David Crystal reports that the word ³paedophile² first
> appears in written English 1924. I can¹t verify this right now, but if true,
> one wonders what such offenders were called in Carroll¹s times. As a further
> etymological warning that origins and first-citations can be problematical:
> ³television² first appears in print in 1903!
> ---------
>
> SKB: IS there clear evidence that Nabokov mangled the name of a London
> Madame¹ to name Lo¹s mum?[...] Already, the so-called association of
> Charlotte Haze with one particular Charlotte Hayes from many hundreds so-named
> is triggering fanciful and contradictory speculation. And rational debate is
> hindered by the known fact that not every character named by Nabokov provides
> a proven, significant, positive allusion.¹ Goodman in TSLSK is quite nasty,
> allowing us to argue that ³VN is playing the irony card.² Likewise, the
> characters of the two Charlottes are so disparate that one can be tempted to
> say: ³Precisely! How Nabokovian!² Or, like FA, you can ³shift the blame² by
> one authorial level...
>
> JM: I consider a play with both names, C.Hayes and C.Haze, childish and cruel.
> The use of "harlot", present in "Charlotte", might have triggered some kind of
> vague authorial irony. In my opinion this relationship would still be a
> tasteless joke - should it not have been simply accidental - for it is
> probable that VN had been cognizant of literature related to "coxcombe"
> matters, as indicated by M.Couturier.
> ---------
> Jansy: I think we have different notions of what constitutes ³allusional
> proof.² I still see no hard evidence that VN¹s decision to name Lo¹s mother as
> Charlotte Haze had anything to do with the existence of a real Madame called
> Charlotte Hayes. In fact, your observation that ³Charlotte² hides the string
> ³harlot² helps reduce the likelihood. (Interestingly, the popularity of
> Charlotte stems from its roots [feminine form of Karl, Charles, etc] meaning
> ³free woman!²)
>
> When we say ³IF X then Y² there¹s the danger of illogically adding credence to
> X if Y is considered to be true!
> Here we have X = ³VN knew of Charlotte Hayes the notorious procuress and
> mangled the name as Charlotte Haze, Lo¹s mother.² Y is ³It¹s cruel and
> childish of VN to associate these two women in any way.² You understandably
> consider Y to be true, BUT that leaves open the truth or falsehood of X.
>
> skb
>
>
>
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