I´ve worked for several years as a training-analyst and full-member of the International Psychoanalytic Association ( from which I resigned last year) and part of my teaching to candidates concerns what is loosely named " applied psychoanalysis" ( works such as Freud´s article on Leonardo da Vinci, or Bonaparte´s paper on Edgar A. Poe ), a kind of investigation about the links between an artist´s fantasy life, symptoms and external circumstancesch which must be pursued with great care - if at all.

Concerning the posting about Joanne Morgan´s book ( which I haven´t ordered to read and simply use here the information offered at her site ), who deals with matters relative to paedophilia and child abuse from the stand point of political science and philosophy, I must confess that I feel certain qualms that arise from my professional bias. It is my opinion that Nabokov stated what he wanted to reveal concerning his experience with Uncle Ruka and a fondling governess, therefore I feel doubtful that he would have played games and riddles about any painful experiences of submission or complicity in such distressing situations, even if intentionally using them to defy or denounce Freud and the "Viennese circle".
It is one thing to conjecture about Nabokov character´s secrets hidden in an attic or by his choices of wordplay and acrostics. It is something entirely different when these suppositions are expanded into an author´s personal life and real suffering - and to no useful outcome to the person under scrutiny.
Perhaps Nabokov´s forceful writing may help to bring up the social issue of child abuse by enhancing the reader´s sensibility to these matters, but I still prefer to follow theories that are limited to the realm of his fiction.

----- Original Message -----

Sent: Friday, July 01, 2005 12:28 AM

Subject: BIBLIOGRAPHY: Nabokov's Lolita Riddle by Joanne Morgan

EDNOTE. Something from the wilder shores of Nabokov studies. See www.lolitariddle.com for a description of JOANNE MORGAN'S BOOK.

About the Author

Joanne Deirdre Morgan was born in 1959 in Ottawa, Canada. She grew up in a Canadian diplomatic family, living in Moscow, Brussels and Vienna, before moving to Canberra, Australia in 1975. She finished a honors degree in political science and philosophy at the Australian National University in 1982. She was actively involved in the Women's Liberation Movement during the early 1980s and was employed as a child support worker in a women's refuge. After becoming an Australian citizen, she joined the public service and worked as a policy officer for the Federal and State governments. In 1996 she returned to university studies, completing a Social Work degree in 1999. She won a Commonwealth scholarship to undertake PhD studies in sociology at the University of Sydney. The title of her completed thesis is "Social Change and the Charismatic 'Author-Leader': A Case Study of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique" (2002).

Jo's interest in the widespread social problems generated by pedophilia was sparked by background research for her article "US Hate Crime Legislation: A Legal Model to Avoid in Australia", published in the Journal of Sociology in 2002 (abstract). She initially read Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita intending to include it as a literary case study of pedophilia within her PhD thesis. Instead she became side-tracked by the author's insistence that he had planted a 'riddle' within Lolita. Solving Nabokov's Lolita Riddle is Jo's first book.

Jo is also a member of the small acoustic folk group, Joyshell. You can hear a few demo songs from Joyshell's recent CD at www.joyshell.com

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----- Original Message -----

From: Jomorgan

To: chtodel@cox.net

Sent: Thursday, June 30, 2005 6:27 PM

Subject: Nabokov's Lolita Riddle

Dear D Barton Johnson

Please visit my website www.lolitariddle.com. I have just published a code-cracking book in Australia which proves that Nabokov wrote Lolita as a semi-autobiographical account of his own terrible sexual abuse as a boy at the hands of his molesting, pedophilic Uncle Ruka. Nabokov invented an ingenious code which hinged on a deliberate 'Freudian slip' (what he called 'blunders'). There are several errors in his memoirs and his translation of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin - especially in the stanza referring to trysts with uncles and children by the old lime trees. These 'errors' pivot on the word 'plain' - hence Nabokov instructed he wanted his biographer to search for the plain truth about his life, not Marxist bunkum or Freudian rot.

You may order a copy of my book by visiting my website.