Anthony Stadlen (to JM's: "(and it bothers me enormously having to admit that this episode represents the author's rendering of HH's epiphany)". Am I being presumptuous in thinking she may be bothered for the reason I gave the other day, that it is embarrassing if Nabokov -- and not merely Humbert -- claims a "moral apotheosis" (contributed to by the sounds on the mountain trail) following which Humbert loves Lolita "as a woman should be loved", although as he is her stepfather this would just be another variety of incest, with Dick as "incidental" and disposable, not to mention the little matter of the murder Humbert rushes straight off to commit?

 

JM: I wasn't thinking about incest, adultery, blindness, cruelty towards people, and a murder, when I confessed that the Telluride episode bothers me as an example of HH's epiphany (these crimes are fluttering all over the novel, I'm afraid). In my eyes the scene was not indicative of any sort of remorse on HH's part, it was a sentimental ramble to seduce the listeners so how could Nabokov cite it as a pious example of love? Really! It brought up no real insight on the part of HH and I even detected a subreptitious pleasure in this recollection: its insincerity was all too obvious, in opposition to HH's surprising contrition when he considers the damage he'd inflicted on this little girl, while he was musing about his "beard and putrefaction".

Everything I write here derives from a totally subjective interpretation, there's no common-sense nor any standard indignation involved.

 

Anthony Stadlen: "...That at least one level of Nabokov's book should be making fun of Freud by treating sexual abuse of a young girl as a disguised symbol of enchanted butterfly-hunting, rather than the reverse, struck me as immediately plausible [  ]Diana Butler saw Humbert's guilt -- in so far as he felt it -- at having destroyed Lolita's childhood as symbolising Nabokov's guilt at taking the life of his 'little butterfly'."