Subject
LOLITA Chronology
Date
Body
I'm new to this page, feeling a little over my head as far as various paper
chases are concerned, and perhaps my comment will be old news to Nabokovians
everywhere; but Leona Toker, in her delightful Mysteries of Literary
Structures ('88 I think) argues much the same thing (i.e. that the final
pages of Lolita are hallucinatory) but by following a different (and from my
perspective, more compelling) narrative thread--the dating of Lo's letter to
H.H., approximately ninety days before his death (see John Ray's intro)
suggests that the final sections of the book were imagined from a
psychiatric ward, he is really in prison for bringing a minor across state
lines, etc.
Again, I would imagine this is old news to most Nabokov scholars, but I
haven't heard much discussion of it. And it is a reading that has
completely changed the way I look at Lolita. If you don't know of it, by
all means look it up.
chases are concerned, and perhaps my comment will be old news to Nabokovians
everywhere; but Leona Toker, in her delightful Mysteries of Literary
Structures ('88 I think) argues much the same thing (i.e. that the final
pages of Lolita are hallucinatory) but by following a different (and from my
perspective, more compelling) narrative thread--the dating of Lo's letter to
H.H., approximately ninety days before his death (see John Ray's intro)
suggests that the final sections of the book were imagined from a
psychiatric ward, he is really in prison for bringing a minor across state
lines, etc.
Again, I would imagine this is old news to most Nabokov scholars, but I
haven't heard much discussion of it. And it is a reading that has
completely changed the way I look at Lolita. If you don't know of it, by
all means look it up.