Subject
=- The Original of Lolita -= (fwd)
From
Date
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---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: Wednesday, May 26, 2004 12:55 PM -0400
From: Thomas Bolt <t@tbolt.com>
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Subject: =- The Original of Lolita -=
------------------ Another Lototype:
- An adolescent girl has a crush on a scholarly gentleman*, a
boarder in her mother's house.
- She is 14 years old, but "very well developed physically,
especially when viewed from behind, even though the bare,
pearly-blue knees beneath her short tartan skirt were still
childishly rounded and tender."
- She is sexually precocious, still very much a child, and
something of a tease ("She was so caressing with everyone that
she would actually lick her lips. [...] there was an expression
of naïve, constantly surprised rapture in her glistening blue
eyes, and her lips were always moist. [...] there was something
gracefully coquettish about her movements. The red bow tied in
her nutbrown, shimmering hair made her particularly seductive").
- She has been taken out of school and left "in a state of
happy-go-lucky idleness."
- She has a lap-sitting encounter with her scholar ("She would
climb, without restraint, into [his] lap--in all innocence, it
seemed, as a child might--and was probably too aware of what he
was secretly obliged to suffer, cradling her weight and her
fullness and softness, averting his eyes from the bare knees
beneath her little checked skirt...).
- Suspense builds around their illicit flirtation, and desire is
mixed with horror ("[she] made the most of every opportunity to
trap him in some empty room where she could fling her arms
around his neck, and, her eyes gleaming, licking her lips,
whisper hastily: 'Sweetheart, sweetheart, sweetheart!' On one
occasion she managed to catch his lips with her moist mouth so
deftly that for the rest of the day he was unable to think of
her without a bittersweet tremor--and horror").
- She has an older rival in the house, who notices the
attraction and sets herself in angry opposition ("One day when
she was passing by she saw him with [the girl] on his knee--what
business was it of hers? But her eyes blazed with sudden fury
and she gave a ringing cry: 'Don't you dare climb all over men's
knees, you filthy little girl!").
- She plots against him (tormenting him with gossip, contriving
by claims of a painful insect bite to trick him into kissing her
naked rump).
- The tale does not end well for him.
- The story is written in a lovingly descriptive style, by a
writer with an affinity to Gogol who began his career as a poet.
- The story is written in Russian, by a fellow writer of the
Emigration.
- The author is known personally to Nabokov; has been
photographed with Nabokov; is, in fact, a character in Speak,
Memory!
- The story appears seven years before Bend Sinister, fifteen
years before Lolita**.
- Nabokov had both the motive and the opportunity to read the
story; we might even make the case that he is unlikely not to
have read it.
1.
Is Zoyka of Ivan Alekseevich Bunin's short story "Zoyka and
Valeria" the original of Lolita?
No. She is quite a different person, from quite a different
work, in which there is no Quilty and no Catullus, no Aztec red
convertible, no McFate, no Blue Licks obelisk, no Kasbeam
barber, no sign of the Tigermoth, no small matter-of-fact voice,
no big pink bubble with juvenile connotations, no lovely,
trustful, dreamy, enormous country.
2.
Should Ivan Alekseevich Bunin be better known outside of Russia,
and completely translated into, for instance, English?
Yes, please. He is a wonderful writer, and readers of Nabokov
who do not know his work are in for a treat.
Cheers,
Tom Bolt
t@tbolt.com
======
Ivan Bunin stories in print in English:
Bunin, Ivan. David Richards and Sophie Lund, trans. 1987. The
Gentleman from San Francisco and Other Stories. Harmondsworth,
Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd.
http://www.penguinputnam.com/Book/PrinterFriendly/0,1897,0140185526,00.html
?cs=3
Above quotations from this translation.
Bunin, Ivan. Bernard Guilbert Guerney, trans. 2002. The Dreams
of Chang and
Other Stories. Amsterdam: Fredonia Books. [*** Nabokov's
favorite Russian-English translator, family members excepted***]
Bunin, Ivan. Graham Hettlinger, trans. 2002. Sunstroke: Selected
Stories of Ivan Bunin. Ivan R. Dee.
http://print.google.com/print/doc?isbn=1566634261
======
--------
* The scholar, a graduate student in his last year, is a mere 10
years older than the girl who adolizes him, but is still clearly
not an "age-appropriate match"
**The story was published after "The Enchanter" was written, and
yet the protagonists of both stories die in violent collisions
at the end!
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L
Date: Wednesday, May 26, 2004 12:55 PM -0400
From: Thomas Bolt <t@tbolt.com>
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Subject: =- The Original of Lolita -=
------------------ Another Lototype:
- An adolescent girl has a crush on a scholarly gentleman*, a
boarder in her mother's house.
- She is 14 years old, but "very well developed physically,
especially when viewed from behind, even though the bare,
pearly-blue knees beneath her short tartan skirt were still
childishly rounded and tender."
- She is sexually precocious, still very much a child, and
something of a tease ("She was so caressing with everyone that
she would actually lick her lips. [...] there was an expression
of naïve, constantly surprised rapture in her glistening blue
eyes, and her lips were always moist. [...] there was something
gracefully coquettish about her movements. The red bow tied in
her nutbrown, shimmering hair made her particularly seductive").
- She has been taken out of school and left "in a state of
happy-go-lucky idleness."
- She has a lap-sitting encounter with her scholar ("She would
climb, without restraint, into [his] lap--in all innocence, it
seemed, as a child might--and was probably too aware of what he
was secretly obliged to suffer, cradling her weight and her
fullness and softness, averting his eyes from the bare knees
beneath her little checked skirt...).
- Suspense builds around their illicit flirtation, and desire is
mixed with horror ("[she] made the most of every opportunity to
trap him in some empty room where she could fling her arms
around his neck, and, her eyes gleaming, licking her lips,
whisper hastily: 'Sweetheart, sweetheart, sweetheart!' On one
occasion she managed to catch his lips with her moist mouth so
deftly that for the rest of the day he was unable to think of
her without a bittersweet tremor--and horror").
- She has an older rival in the house, who notices the
attraction and sets herself in angry opposition ("One day when
she was passing by she saw him with [the girl] on his knee--what
business was it of hers? But her eyes blazed with sudden fury
and she gave a ringing cry: 'Don't you dare climb all over men's
knees, you filthy little girl!").
- She plots against him (tormenting him with gossip, contriving
by claims of a painful insect bite to trick him into kissing her
naked rump).
- The tale does not end well for him.
- The story is written in a lovingly descriptive style, by a
writer with an affinity to Gogol who began his career as a poet.
- The story is written in Russian, by a fellow writer of the
Emigration.
- The author is known personally to Nabokov; has been
photographed with Nabokov; is, in fact, a character in Speak,
Memory!
- The story appears seven years before Bend Sinister, fifteen
years before Lolita**.
- Nabokov had both the motive and the opportunity to read the
story; we might even make the case that he is unlikely not to
have read it.
1.
Is Zoyka of Ivan Alekseevich Bunin's short story "Zoyka and
Valeria" the original of Lolita?
No. She is quite a different person, from quite a different
work, in which there is no Quilty and no Catullus, no Aztec red
convertible, no McFate, no Blue Licks obelisk, no Kasbeam
barber, no sign of the Tigermoth, no small matter-of-fact voice,
no big pink bubble with juvenile connotations, no lovely,
trustful, dreamy, enormous country.
2.
Should Ivan Alekseevich Bunin be better known outside of Russia,
and completely translated into, for instance, English?
Yes, please. He is a wonderful writer, and readers of Nabokov
who do not know his work are in for a treat.
Cheers,
Tom Bolt
t@tbolt.com
======
Ivan Bunin stories in print in English:
Bunin, Ivan. David Richards and Sophie Lund, trans. 1987. The
Gentleman from San Francisco and Other Stories. Harmondsworth,
Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd.
http://www.penguinputnam.com/Book/PrinterFriendly/0,1897,0140185526,00.html
?cs=3
Above quotations from this translation.
Bunin, Ivan. Bernard Guilbert Guerney, trans. 2002. The Dreams
of Chang and
Other Stories. Amsterdam: Fredonia Books. [*** Nabokov's
favorite Russian-English translator, family members excepted***]
Bunin, Ivan. Graham Hettlinger, trans. 2002. Sunstroke: Selected
Stories of Ivan Bunin. Ivan R. Dee.
http://print.google.com/print/doc?isbn=1566634261
======
--------
* The scholar, a graduate student in his last year, is a mere 10
years older than the girl who adolizes him, but is still clearly
not an "age-appropriate match"
**The story was published after "The Enchanter" was written, and
yet the protagonists of both stories die in violent collisions
at the end!
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
D. Barton Johnson
NABOKV-L