Fran/Jansy: Before we get over-excited: Charlotte Hayes is quite a popular name (google gives 3,820,000 matches of which the ‘highlights’ are listed at
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/charlotte/hayes).
IS there clear evidence that Nabokov mangled the name of a London ‘Madame’ to name Lo’s mum? Recent MISallusioning with Angus/Hugh MacDiarmid and earlier confusion with Edsel Ford, must give us pause. Already, the so-called association of Charlotte Haze with one particular Charlotte Hayes from many hundreds so-named is triggering fanciful and contradictory speculation. And rational debate is hindered by the known fact that not every character named by Nabokov provides a proven, significant, positive ‘allusion.’ Goodman in TSLSK is quite nasty, allowing us to argue that “VN is playing the irony card.” Likewise, the characters of the two Charlottes are so disparate that one can be tempted to say: “Precisely! How Nabokovian!” Or, like FA, you can “shift the blame” by one authorial level, and assert “Isn’t that just like the nasty H-H to hint that Madame Procuress Haze was breeding a nymphet for personal gain.”
Stan Kelly-Bootle
On 03/01/2009 13:07, "Nabokv-L" <nabokv-l@UTK.EDU> wrote:
Subject:
RE: [NABOKV-L] THOUGHTS: Charlotte Hayes in LO
From:
frances assa <franassa@hotmail.com> <mailto:franassa@hotmail.com>
Date:
Fri, 2 Jan 2009 06:59:31 -0500
To:
Vladimir Nabokov Forum <nabokv-l@listserv.ucsb.edu> <mailto:nabokv-l@listserv.ucsb.edu>
"I must confess that I cannot see Charlotte as a "madam" or her daughter in a "stable of nymphs" and this is why I'm curious to learn more about this suggestion of "debauchery" and poor silly Mrs. Haze-Humbert.( Or am I misguided and alone when I find a strain of authorial cruelty in such a connection?) "
This discovery of Charlotte Haze-Hayes is indeed exciting. I must say I was taken aback at the association of Lo's mother with a Madame, as well. But on further thought, we are reading Humbert's madcap story--and as an effete, snobby intellectual (to harken to Spiro Agnew) this otherwise inappropriate association fits right in. The cur! Fran Assa