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Re: QUERY: Lolita's subjectivity and America
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Let's not forget the volatile creativity and random humour of real-life
nicknames. Most families produce a profusion of internal pet-names and
diminutives, some of which carry on into school and adult usage. The names
themselves do not always admit to logical scrutiny -- 'Tiny' can be obese,
'Fatty' the rake -- and who uses which name for whom and when cannot be
neatly tabulated like an exercise in Samoan anthropology. Yet, when
dramatists and novelists assign names to characters, we tend to expect them
to have a deeper significance. A real-life Dolores would not be expected to
grow up sad and soulful, but as created by Nabokov, we rush to read Latin
tears into her character. Dolores happens to have an abundence of common
derivatives and diminutives, one of which jumps ahead unavoidably when we
buy the book! There's no reason to suppose that Lo, her mother, teachers,
lovers, and school pals were unaware of all the variants. HH has his own
spin on her 'name' as narrator, leaving us a few clues on how others
addressed her under the strange formal and informal socio-contextual codes
that govern such behaviour.
Stan Kelly-Bootle
On 15/04/2008 17:21, "Stringer-Hye, Suellen"
<suellen.stringer-hye@VANDERBILT.EDU> wrote:
> I respectfully disagree with this conclusion. While it is true that Humbert¹s
> first person narrative does create an illusory Lolita, the intricate
> patternings and images underlying that prose, reveal quite a bit about Dolores
> Haze, her real relationship with her mother, the loss of her brother and
> father, her teenage dreams and her adult difficulties. This seems to me
> Nabokov¹s extraordinary achievement in Lolita--- and one that is often
> overlooked.
> Suellen Stringer-Hye
>
>
>
> From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum [mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU] On Behalf Of
> Matthew Roth
> Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 8:22 AM
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] QUERY: Lolita's subjectivity and America
>
>
> Barrie asked: "What are the best writings, if any, on what it's like to be
> Lolita, or how someone becomes Lolita? Whose imagination imagines what Lolita
> is really like -- her subjectivity?"
>
>
>
> MR: Most of the criticism I have encountered focuses on Humbert's
> "solipsizing" of Lolita. She has no subjectivity that we can access, since the
> Lolita we are given is, as Humbert says, "not she, but my own creation,
> another, fanciful Lolita--perhaps, more real than Lolita; overlapping,
> encasing her; floating between me and her, and having no will, no
> consciousness--indeed, no life of her own" (62 AnL). Leland de la Durantaye,
> in his excellent, very readable book Style is Matter: The Moral Art of
> Vladimir Nabokov, does a great job unpacking all of the repercussions (for
> Humbert and for us) of this deeply flawed imaginative act. As he puts it,
> Humbert "can only 'enjoy in peace' his vicious circle of paradise if the real
> little girl he is do desperately mistreating does not too violently interpose
> herself--and so he decides to 'firmly ignore' her in favor of the 'phantasm'
> first formed on this fateful Sunday [the davenport scene]" ( 72-73). I do not
> think it is possible to know or to guess who the actual (fictional) Dolores
> Haze might be, though we know that she is not the girl Humbert gives himself
> and, by extension, us.
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nicknames. Most families produce a profusion of internal pet-names and
diminutives, some of which carry on into school and adult usage. The names
themselves do not always admit to logical scrutiny -- 'Tiny' can be obese,
'Fatty' the rake -- and who uses which name for whom and when cannot be
neatly tabulated like an exercise in Samoan anthropology. Yet, when
dramatists and novelists assign names to characters, we tend to expect them
to have a deeper significance. A real-life Dolores would not be expected to
grow up sad and soulful, but as created by Nabokov, we rush to read Latin
tears into her character. Dolores happens to have an abundence of common
derivatives and diminutives, one of which jumps ahead unavoidably when we
buy the book! There's no reason to suppose that Lo, her mother, teachers,
lovers, and school pals were unaware of all the variants. HH has his own
spin on her 'name' as narrator, leaving us a few clues on how others
addressed her under the strange formal and informal socio-contextual codes
that govern such behaviour.
Stan Kelly-Bootle
On 15/04/2008 17:21, "Stringer-Hye, Suellen"
<suellen.stringer-hye@VANDERBILT.EDU> wrote:
> I respectfully disagree with this conclusion. While it is true that Humbert¹s
> first person narrative does create an illusory Lolita, the intricate
> patternings and images underlying that prose, reveal quite a bit about Dolores
> Haze, her real relationship with her mother, the loss of her brother and
> father, her teenage dreams and her adult difficulties. This seems to me
> Nabokov¹s extraordinary achievement in Lolita--- and one that is often
> overlooked.
> Suellen Stringer-Hye
>
>
>
> From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum [mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU] On Behalf Of
> Matthew Roth
> Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 8:22 AM
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] QUERY: Lolita's subjectivity and America
>
>
> Barrie asked: "What are the best writings, if any, on what it's like to be
> Lolita, or how someone becomes Lolita? Whose imagination imagines what Lolita
> is really like -- her subjectivity?"
>
>
>
> MR: Most of the criticism I have encountered focuses on Humbert's
> "solipsizing" of Lolita. She has no subjectivity that we can access, since the
> Lolita we are given is, as Humbert says, "not she, but my own creation,
> another, fanciful Lolita--perhaps, more real than Lolita; overlapping,
> encasing her; floating between me and her, and having no will, no
> consciousness--indeed, no life of her own" (62 AnL). Leland de la Durantaye,
> in his excellent, very readable book Style is Matter: The Moral Art of
> Vladimir Nabokov, does a great job unpacking all of the repercussions (for
> Humbert and for us) of this deeply flawed imaginative act. As he puts it,
> Humbert "can only 'enjoy in peace' his vicious circle of paradise if the real
> little girl he is do desperately mistreating does not too violently interpose
> herself--and so he decides to 'firmly ignore' her in favor of the 'phantasm'
> first formed on this fateful Sunday [the davenport scene]" ( 72-73). I do not
> think it is possible to know or to guess who the actual (fictional) Dolores
> Haze might be, though we know that she is not the girl Humbert gives himself
> and, by extension, us.
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
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