Dieter Zimmer's wrote: "Leaving "Beardsley" in
'Appalachia' on May 29, 1949, supposedly for Hollywood where Humbert pretends to
have an engagement while he really hopes to cross into Mexico with Lolita.
This trip and all its stops, however, have been planned by Lolita, certainly in
conjunction with Quilty, and they have planned differently. Of their destination
we only know it is the "Continental Divide..." As demonstrated by
the novel's chronology and special paragraphs, Lolita and Quilty were
cast in the role of HH's destiny.* For the first time did I
fully realize that this absurd couple
was establishing the pattern for Humbert Humbert's car trip,
thereby performing another kind of patterning (but still, a
patterning) which we encounter in VN's much earlier novel, "The
Defense.." In the latter, fate's representative is Valentinov (at least, in
Luzhin's sick mind)..One of the possible interpretations of Luzhin's suicide (a
suimate?) is that he has made an attempt to escape from Valentinov and from
his puppeteer, Nabokov/God.
Sandy Drescher** notes that the "distinction between Game and Problem controls how the end
of the novel is to be understood. If the chess board of eternity is part of a
Game, then suicide is unsuccessful as a defense. It is a defeat if Luzhin jumped
into a malignant continuation of the life he wished to escape...Alternatively,
if eternity is a Chess Problem, Luzhin enters into that abstract realm where he
functions, can finally be at home, will enjoy the music of the spheres."
An interesting, metaphysical, point.
The comparison between Luzhin's chess-obsessed life and
HH's nymphet-obsession hadn't occurred to me before. Luzhin would be
someone trying to escape from his destiny whereas Humbert was in his
pursuit. It didn't occur to me either that it could be possible to
reread "Lolita" bearing in mind the chess-world distinction between "a game" and
"a problem." In Pale Fire (if memory serves me)the
indifferent Gods are playing a "game of
worlds" ..but...but...hyerogliphs, entomology, numbers
and chess-moves form an impenetrable veil that keeps me
away from Nabokov's reeling firmament.
btw: I searched for other entries related to "Tellurium" (52). In Pale
Fire the reference is to "Chtonic," from TSEliot's poem, JS line 370.
1.ADA (a): Marina's "Man-made objects lost their significance or grew
monstrous connotations; clothes hangers were really the shoulders of decapitated
Tellurians, the folds of a blanket she had kicked off her bed looked back at her
mournfully with a stye on one drooping eyelid and dreary reproof in the limp
twist of a livid lip."
(b)Van's: "What a soprano Cora had been! Demon took Van to
the world-famous Opera House in Telluride in West Colorado and there he enjoyed
(and sometimes detested) the greatest international shows...He passed through
various little passions — parlor magic, chess, fluff-weight boxing matches at
fairs, stunt-riding — and of course those unforgettable, much too early
initiations when his lovely young English governess expertly petted him between
milkshake and bed***..."
2. RLSK: Clare Bishop: " She had no special
intention of being happy or of making Sebastian happy... it was merely a matter
of naturally accepting life with Sebastian because life without him was less
imaginable than a tellurian's camping-tent on a mountain in the
moon..."
...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................
* - I remember Aubrey McFate, plus the different references to fate
made by HH, and I recovered this particularly revelatory sentence: "I now warn the
reader not to mock me and my mental daze. It is easy for him and me to decipher
now a past destiny; but a destiny in
the making is, believe me, not one of those honest mystery stories where all you
have to do is keep an eye on the clues. In my youth I once read a French
detective tale where the clues were actually in italics; but that is not
McFate's way — even if one does learn to recognize certain obscure
indications." However, I failed to consider Lolita's and Quilty's schemes as being
in fact a part of the "fiction's real." until now. In my eyes, the
latter simply corresponded to HH's delusional states - for these
(and their productions) were real enough for me.
HH gradually starts to
refer to CQ as "McFate.' and exhibits a dim awareness of his
presence.
The first time we
find an Aubrey McFAte is in a list of names (copied on the reverse
side of a sheet with a childish outline of the map of America). HH thinks
it indicates the names of Lolita's class-mates and I failed to realize the
irony of the name Aubrey in connection to its first intimation of Beardsley
and "mapping out" ( " 'Ah,' said Mrs. Humbert, dreaming...'Little Lo, I'm afraid, does
not enter the picture at all, at all. Little Lo goes straight from camp to a
good boarding school with strict discipline and some sound religious training.
And then — Beardsley College. I have it all mapped out, you
need not worry'.". )
*** - John Shade's lines:
"But like
some little lad forced by a wench/With his pure tongue her abject thirst to quench,/ I was
corrupted, terrified, allured..." came
to my
mind.