John Ray Jr.'s Foreword (Preamble) in Lolita is, in fact, an important
element of "Lolita."* Historical dates and chronologies only hinder
the reader to conclude that Humbert Humbert's "Confessions..." is
actually comfortably wedged between JR Jr's pages and Vladimir Nabokov's
own. Not only Humbert Humbert has been shoved aside
(it's Nabokov who authored "On a book entitled Lolita") but
there's a new twist when he discusses his authorial "ontologicval
status": "After doing my impersonation of suave John Ray,
the character in Lolita who pens the Foreword, any comments coming straight from
me may strike one — may strike me, in fact — as an impersonation of Vladimir
Nabokov talking about his own book. A few points, however, have to be discussed;
and the autobiographic device may induce mimic and model to blend."
Vladimir Nabokov's published name acquires the same
reality as successful writer Vivian Darkbloom's!
The reflexions and torsions, this time, don't remind me of a topological
anamorphosis (although there is still a chance to discover a special
perspective that solves this Penrose-like impossible geometry) but, mainly,
of the "Moebius band" (Escher again!). Now, the complexities of the
metafictional intromissions are solved by creating a space along which someone
may amble at leisure without ever being either "in" nor "out" of it.
However, there's always an observer's watching eyes and
those remain external (have the English readers been shoved aside, like
H.H., too?**).
This topological representation is more clearly demonstrated in Bend
Sinister: (a "bend" indeed)
"He saw the Toad crouching at the foot of the wall,
shaking, dissolving...with his transparent arm, and Krug...just a fraction of an
instant before another and better bullet hit him, he shouted again: You, you —
and the wall vanished, like a rapidly withdrawn slide, and I stretched myself
and got up from among the chaos of written and rewritten pages, to investigate
the sudden twang that something had made in striking the wire netting of my
window." Nevertheless, in this case, the reader seems to be
invited to walk alongside the author on the Moebius's narrow
strip.
...........................................................................................................................................................................................
* - I hadn't realized, until now, that JR Jr most probably has never even
met or seen HH. He was invited to edit the manuscript by his
lawyer-cousin only after HH's and Lolita's deaths.
** - "My private tragedy, which cannot, and indeed
should not, be anybody's concern, is that I had to abandon my natural idiom, my
untrammeled, rich, and infinitely docile Russian tongue for a second-rate brand
of English, devoid of any of those apparatuses — the baffling mirror, the black
velvet backdrop, the implied associations and traditions — which the native
illusionist, frac-tails flying, can magically use to transcend the heritage in
his own way."