Opinions are often simple exercises to shift
perspectives when we examine a theory. However, it may happen that one is
only expressing emotions, such as one's displeasure with bad or
facile puns in literature.
When we express a personal
taste instead of an intelligent argument (de gustibus non
disputandum), we reveal a "personal fact". My opinion about
Hayes=Haze is not an intelligent argument, see?
Independently of attributing an intention to
Humbert's "character", qua Haze/Hays, or to his creator
VN, such an imputation ( a curious word in this context) strikes me as
false or gross, as not being typical of Nabokov. Besides, perverse monstrous HH is not capable of every type
of sin, his "contempt for the Haze character" stops short from
his shooting her, but he does stop.
I cannot agree, with SKB, that
"I shouldn't harbor a theory" about HH's confessions
- written in an insane asylum. Are
HH's references to Quilty, to the police or to the winged members
of the jury, in Lolita, to be read outside the fictional
universe of the novel?
Nevertheless, I do
agree that Lolita's plot relies on the "reality" of HH's
exploitation of his young step-child and, therefore, that the supposition
that HH "only dreamed of bedding his fantasies" completely alters
the efficacy and poignancy (plus a hundred adjectives more) of VN's
novel.
I entertained this conjecture because, outside the
literary field, this kind of delusion sometimes takes place.
I think it is important that we remember that, in
the novel, HH tried and failed to avoid acting out his fantasies with
Lolita as, for example, under the protection of a "crystal sleep" -
but that HH was perfectly aware that his tactics were almost as
harmful and perverse as when he actually raped
her.
I also think that many of his "confessions" are
delusional.
Jansy
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Tim Henderson: ...don't you think the 'childish and cruel' wordplay is
really part of HH's character, part of his contempt for the Haze character? His
own name is a self-constructed pseudonym, isn't it, despite the fact that he
puts it into "real" dialogue....?
1.SKB to JM [ Why would VN be
merely teasing when he saw in Carroll an HH prototype] Many valid
reasons to distinguish the eccentric Victorian Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll)
from VN’s monster[...] IF you harbour the theory that HH “only dreamed” of
bedding his fantasies, then you’re reading a different novel [...]Lolita’s own
reactions (not to mention Quilty’s and the FBI’s?) to his merely “dreamed”
rogerings must also be moved to HH’s febrile imagination[...]BTW: David Crystal
reports that the word “paedophile” first appears in written English 1924. I
can’t verify this right now, but if true, one wonders what such offenders were
called in Carroll’s times.
2.SKB to JM [ I consider a play with both
names, C.Hayes and C.Haze, childish and cruel. The use of "harlot"...might have
triggered some kind of vague authorial irony...still be a tasteless joke -
should it not have been simply accidental ] I think we have different
notions of what constitutes “allusional proof.” I still see no hard evidence
that VN’s decision to name Lo’s mother as Charlotte Haze had anything to do with
the existence of a real Madame called Charlotte Hayes. In fact, your observation
that “Charlotte” hides the string “harlot” helps reduce the
likelihood.