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Re: The "56 days" conundrum in "Lolita"
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Just a few more thoughts on this: The claim that the 56-day span cannot, under any circumstances, be an inclusive total rests on the assumption that, on this point, the dictates of naturalism trump any other artistic concern--and that in this case it's possible to legislate exactly and inarguably what constitutes naturalism. These premises seem to me to be incompatible with Nabokov's fiction. The mere fact that it's necessary to speak of assumptions underlying the reading of a single piece of evidence reflects a problem of disproportion inherent in the narrow prosecution of such a claim. It seems to me that at least some of the novel's commentators have been blunt about the inclusive nature of the calculation (I remember Tekiner on this point most clearly, but if memory serves, Toker broaches the problem too). Perhaps the problem has received little attention because no Nabokovian has yet seen the wisdom of insisting so inflexibly on the meaning of the phrase "days ago" (which rings of literal-mindedness). In any case, it's not quite accurate to say that these critics have wholly neglected the issue; it's ridiculous to claim that they have been mindlessly "copying" each other. And if "newspapers" and "everyone" confirm the exclusive reading (to coin a convenient term) of the dates, then I think there's a good deal more sense on the Nabokovians' side of the table.
In the end, if the "exclusive" argument does have merit, it shouldn't be necessary to argue for it so shrilly and insultingly. If the sole virtue of this reading is that it further elevates the status of the 52 motif, I don't see that we gain very much, but I'm happy to go along with the premise to see where it leads. On the other hand, the inclusive calculation seems to me to have much to recommend it in its explanatory force--it leads to interesting places. If the artifice here strains sense in some narrow fashion (it might not), this isn't necessarily a liability. If some feel the hand of the artist in those license plates (and, well, everywhere else), others are welcome to see it in the inclusive calculation (what is this intuition if not a rending in the fabric of verisimilitude?). It seems small-minded to insist otherwise. Like all theories about the book, the "inclusive" reading can and should be revised. But it certainly seems more in keeping with the spirit of Nabokov's fiction than the alternative--at least, as that alternative has been represented in this thread.
My apologies if this seems like much ado about nothing. The point seems to me to be worth discussing, even if the tone of the discussion has been less than cordial.
Bruce
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2012 06:21:19 -0400
From: STADLEN@AOL.COM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] The "56 days" conundrum in "Lolita"
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
In a message dated 14/03/2012 02:22:16 GMT Standard Time,
bstone41@HOTMAIL.COM writes:
I'm not
sure that "56 days ago" has a "normal" meaning. I suppose it's true that
we wouldn't say "two days ago" if we mean "yesterday," but I don't think
this rule necessarily applies for longer increments of
time. And of course, we have to remember that Humbert is, in Ray's
word, "abnormal." In his poem, he refers to Lo's age as 5,300
days. He writes the line "about as many years before Lolita was born as
my age was that summer."
If in the year 1950 a newspaper had an archive column "25 years
ago", "50 years ago", "100 years ago", these columns would contain excerpts from
1925, 1900, 1850 respectively. There would not be any dispute about what was the
normal meaning of these terms. Nobody would be saying that perhaps the excerpts
should be from 1926, 1901, 1851 respectively.
Humbert is, normally, quite precise about time, as exemplified by the "5300
days". His calculation that "about as many years before Lolita was born as my
age was that summer" is accurate, too. (In the shortest chapter in the book he
gives an approximate date, 15 August, but he is clear that he is confused and
that this date is only approximate.) Hence, as others have argued, it is
striking that there is a discrepancy between his precise "56 days ago" and
the other dates given, by him and by John Ray, Jr.
Clearly, as Brian Boyd has demonstrated, Nabokov was himself capable of
miscalculation. But it is also possible that this is a deliberate error of
Nabokov's, intended to show what Freud called a motivated slip of
Humbert's. (That Nabokov accepted at least this part of Freud's thinking is
clear from elsewhere in Lolita.) We will not make sense of this if
we cling to what I insist is an abnormal, indeed simply wrong,
interpretation of what "56 days ago" means, just because Nabokov scholars have
copied each other in speaking of "3 days discrepancy". They are simply
compounding the original mistake, and making it more difficult to decide whether
the original mistake was Nabokov's or Humbert's.
The correct calculation of the discrepancy means that, if the other dates
are correct, then Humbert could have started writing his book at most 52
days ago when he claims to have started 56 days ago. And I have drawn
attention to the extraordinarily insistent hints on the significance
of the number 52 (which we are told neither Humbert nor Quilty, but only the
author, can understand) from Appel-Nabokov. Here, surely, is where the
search for the solution of the riddle should begin.
Even if you want to insist (perversely, as I see it) that "56 days ago"
might mean what I, and newspapers, and (I think) most English speakers
would call "55 days ago", you must surely acknowledge that what we mean
by "56 days ago" is one possible meaning. But this at least possible (and
in my view unique and correct) meaning has been neglected by Nabokov scholars,
as far as I know, until now.
Anthony Stadlen
Anthony
Stadlen
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convenor of the Inner Circle Seminars: an ethical, existential,
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See "Existential
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