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Re: Nabokov and Twelve-Year-Old Girls ...
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In a message dated 2/22/2012 8:09:58 PM Central Standard Time,
STADLEN@AOL.COM writes:
>
> >> Does Humbert ultimately receive some moment of Grace? I like to think
>> he has, as he sits overlooking and overhearing the children near the end
>> of the novel. It does move in a mysterious way, its wonders to perform.
>
>
> Brian Boyd has long ago pointed to Nabokov's brilliance and insight in
> having Humbert seductively place this passage just where it is near the end of
> his narrative. Nabokov ruthlessly exposes readers who are seduced by the
> rhetoric of a child-rapist and murderer. This does not mean that Humbert's
> fleeting insight had no validity, but it was fleeting, and he did not have
> the integrity to act on it.
>
> Anthony Stadlen
>
>
I would set this alongside what Humbert ultimately says and does in his
last meeting with dowdy, pregnant Lo. I think, or like to think, that he has
effected his own catharsis, his own redemption, before dying. He surely has
nothing tangible to gain by writing these things in his "confessions." It
does strike me as a "moral" ending to the novel, if such is possible.
Burgess extends the same possibility of redemption to Alex in the "missing" 21st
chapter of A Clockwork Orange, as does Dostoyevsky to Raskolnikov, even
though "that is another story," as does Tolstoy to Ivan Ilyich, who, in his own
way, is a great sinner too. In most classic novels the protagonist dies with
some grace, with the possible exception of poor Emma, to whom none is
offered by either God or the author.
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STADLEN@AOL.COM writes:
>
> >> Does Humbert ultimately receive some moment of Grace? I like to think
>> he has, as he sits overlooking and overhearing the children near the end
>> of the novel. It does move in a mysterious way, its wonders to perform.
>
>
> Brian Boyd has long ago pointed to Nabokov's brilliance and insight in
> having Humbert seductively place this passage just where it is near the end of
> his narrative. Nabokov ruthlessly exposes readers who are seduced by the
> rhetoric of a child-rapist and murderer. This does not mean that Humbert's
> fleeting insight had no validity, but it was fleeting, and he did not have
> the integrity to act on it.
>
> Anthony Stadlen
>
>
I would set this alongside what Humbert ultimately says and does in his
last meeting with dowdy, pregnant Lo. I think, or like to think, that he has
effected his own catharsis, his own redemption, before dying. He surely has
nothing tangible to gain by writing these things in his "confessions." It
does strike me as a "moral" ending to the novel, if such is possible.
Burgess extends the same possibility of redemption to Alex in the "missing" 21st
chapter of A Clockwork Orange, as does Dostoyevsky to Raskolnikov, even
though "that is another story," as does Tolstoy to Ivan Ilyich, who, in his own
way, is a great sinner too. In most classic novels the protagonist dies with
some grace, with the possible exception of poor Emma, to whom none is
offered by either God or the author.
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
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/