Subject
Re: QUERY: Hairy Hermaphrodite in Lolita? (fwd)
Date
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EDITOR's NOTE. Kurt Johnson, lepidopterist & co-author with Steve Coates
of the new NABOKOV'S BLUES, offers a series of notes on that Hairy
Hermaphrodite. During his work on Nabokov's "blues," Kurt did extensive
field work in the S. American tropics.
-------------------
From: Kurt Johnson <belina@dellnet.com>
Well, enter another biologist [entomologist]. When I read this I was
immediately reminded of those ugly occasions of being awoken by having a
house centipede (Chilopod, Order Scutigerida) run across me while in bed.
The "100" legs of chilopods are extremely long (up to 10 times body width on
each side) and those 100 legs brushing by you feel exactly like hair. Now,
checking some references chilopods are no truly hermaphroditic BUT there is
no sexual contact involved in the mating-- rather the males leave a
spermataphore somewhere, sometimes in the a web spun by a female for
instance, or just "around" and the female locates it and picks it up.
Fertilization per se can take place much later. It might be a matter of how
far Nabokov was "stretching" the image. Now I am also struck by having read
just the other night on the New York subway, on "Poetry in Motion" an
excerpt from a Chinese poet saying, of the heat of summer, something to the
effect that he found himself laying awake at night in the heat, fearing
centipedes. No connection except perhaps some lingering historical (that
poem was AD 700) fear about centipedes in the night. So, who knows, the
house centipede running across you at night might be a possibility. Its
happened to me in New York City, not far from Cambridge, Ithaca etc.
Kurt Johnson
[my PhD had an entomological speciality]
----- Original Message -----
From: Donald Barton Johnson <chtodel@humanitas.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.ucsb.edu>
Sent: Monday, October 18, 1999 10:59 AM
Subject: QUERY: Hairy Hermaphrodite in Lolita?
> ------------------ I posed this question to Zoran Kuzmanovich at the
> Cornell conference, but we could not resolve it to our (or at least my)
> satisfaction.
>
> In Part 1 of Lolita, at the very beginnning of Chapter 27 (p. 109 in the
> rev. ed. of The Annotated Lolita), Humbert says:
>
> "Finally, I did achieve an hour's slumber--from which I was aroused by
> gratuitous and horribly exhausting congress with a small hairy
> hermaphrodite, a total stranger."
>
> What's the literal meaning of this sentence? I had always assumed that
> Humbert was being bitten by a mosquito (it is August, after all), but my
> husband the biologist assures me that hermaphroditic insects are extremely
> rare. Nabokov, needless to say, knew his insects. Any ideas?
>
> Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
> Holy Cross College
> Worcester, MA 01610
> ssweeney@holycross.edu
of the new NABOKOV'S BLUES, offers a series of notes on that Hairy
Hermaphrodite. During his work on Nabokov's "blues," Kurt did extensive
field work in the S. American tropics.
-------------------
From: Kurt Johnson <belina@dellnet.com>
Well, enter another biologist [entomologist]. When I read this I was
immediately reminded of those ugly occasions of being awoken by having a
house centipede (Chilopod, Order Scutigerida) run across me while in bed.
The "100" legs of chilopods are extremely long (up to 10 times body width on
each side) and those 100 legs brushing by you feel exactly like hair. Now,
checking some references chilopods are no truly hermaphroditic BUT there is
no sexual contact involved in the mating-- rather the males leave a
spermataphore somewhere, sometimes in the a web spun by a female for
instance, or just "around" and the female locates it and picks it up.
Fertilization per se can take place much later. It might be a matter of how
far Nabokov was "stretching" the image. Now I am also struck by having read
just the other night on the New York subway, on "Poetry in Motion" an
excerpt from a Chinese poet saying, of the heat of summer, something to the
effect that he found himself laying awake at night in the heat, fearing
centipedes. No connection except perhaps some lingering historical (that
poem was AD 700) fear about centipedes in the night. So, who knows, the
house centipede running across you at night might be a possibility. Its
happened to me in New York City, not far from Cambridge, Ithaca etc.
Kurt Johnson
[my PhD had an entomological speciality]
----- Original Message -----
From: Donald Barton Johnson <chtodel@humanitas.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@UCSBVM.ucsb.edu>
Sent: Monday, October 18, 1999 10:59 AM
Subject: QUERY: Hairy Hermaphrodite in Lolita?
> ------------------ I posed this question to Zoran Kuzmanovich at the
> Cornell conference, but we could not resolve it to our (or at least my)
> satisfaction.
>
> In Part 1 of Lolita, at the very beginnning of Chapter 27 (p. 109 in the
> rev. ed. of The Annotated Lolita), Humbert says:
>
> "Finally, I did achieve an hour's slumber--from which I was aroused by
> gratuitous and horribly exhausting congress with a small hairy
> hermaphrodite, a total stranger."
>
> What's the literal meaning of this sentence? I had always assumed that
> Humbert was being bitten by a mosquito (it is August, after all), but my
> husband the biologist assures me that hermaphroditic insects are extremely
> rare. Nabokov, needless to say, knew his insects. Any ideas?
>
> Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
> Holy Cross College
> Worcester, MA 01610
> ssweeney@holycross.edu