Friday, December 11, 2009
How does one finish this class in a blog? This was certainly a course unlike any other i have ever taken and will probably ever take again. When i first learned that the author we would be studying was Nabokov all i knew was that he was the pervert who wrote a book about pedophilia, oh how much i have learned! I have loved learning about Nabokov and i am so glad that i took this section of studies of a major author because while the class might be over i feel like my discoveries about Nabokov's literature are just beginning.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Final Paper
Solipsistic Nabokov: The Imagination of Narrators and Their Characters
D.H. Lawrence once warned that one should, “never trust the teller, trust the tale.” This advice is particularly important to heed when reading Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire or Lolita as the narrators of both tales are highly unreliable. They are not as much flat out liars who change the stories in order to trick their readers but instead the story to the narrators exists less on the pages of the novel and more within the imaginations of their narrators. It is in this imagined sense of reality that the narrator’s perceptions are distinguished as examples of solipsism.
Solipsism is a theory that has several related meanings, however, in its most basic sense; solipsism is the perception that one’s own mind is the only thing which is known to exist. Anything else is uncertain, as it may only be a creation of the mind. With this understanding, the self becomes the only object of importance, for one’s mind is perceived as the only thing known for sure to exist. Those who have solipsistic attitudes are often labeled as egomaniacal or narcissistic, since they put their own desires above all else. Such solipsists habitually refuse to take others into consideration in their actions since they are unable to confirm that others actually exist.
Nabokov seems to develop both Lolita and Pale Fire using the theory of solipsism in both of his main characters as well as in the texts themselves. Like his use of varying themes, Nabokov applies solipsism in layers throughout both works. On one level, readers are led to the solipsistic belief that the only truth in each text is that the mind of the narrator exists and the story they tell is most likely a construct of the narrator’s mind. On another level, the reader becomes aware that they can no longer trust that the narrator’s mind exists as they come to the realization that the narrator himself is construct of yet another imagination. Both the narrators, Humbert Humbert and Charles Kinbote, exist in realities created within their own minds interpreting their stories to fit their own desires. In this way the reader trusts that the narrator is real yet questions his story. As one explores Nabokov’s writing further, the assumption that the narrator exists becomes suspect as they are revealed to be just as imagined as their stories.
Humbert’s narration presents his own solipsism as he remains completely internalized throughout almost the entire story, within his own mind and thoughts, turning events and characters into fictionalized forms of their actual selves. Dolores Haze, an overall ordinary young girl, becomes the nymphet Lolita, a reconstruction of Humbert’s lost love Annabel Leigh. In this way we understand that the narrator’s story is unreliable as he is a highly solipsistic character. Yet the novel also shows the reader that it is possible the very narrator we rely on for the story is a figment of imagination himself. Humbert beseeches the audience to allow him to exist in their minds, imploring “Please, reader; no matter your exasperation with the tenderhearted, morbidly sensitive, infinitely circumspect hero of my book, do not skip these essential pages! Imagine me; I shall not exist if you do not imagine me” (Lolita, 129) As the text itself becomes an exercise in solipsism, the reader must allow Humbert to exist in their minds, as nothing can be proven to exist outside the mind. Humbert’s only chance at reality is to have his reader allow him to dwell in their imagination. Lolita the novel has now become like Lolita the character, simply a figment of an imagination.
“Humberts world is completely internal, a world of language and fantasy” (Stringer-Hye). The character Lolita appears in the pages of the novel as such a figment of Humbert’s mind that she hardly exists within the text. She is given very little dialogue and only Humbert’s perceptions of her are described. She could be a construct of Humbert’s mind. In reality her name is Dolores Haze, yet to Humbert she is made into something else--a nymphet named Lolita. Humbert’s mind creates Lolita in order to recover the love he shared with Annabel Leigh. He notes that “I broke her spell by incarnating her in another” (Lolita, 15) and saying that “In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain girl-child. In a Princedom by the sea” (Lolita, 9).
The reader seems to enter into a solipsistic state in which the only part of the narration that seems clear is that it is coming from the perspective of Humbert Humbert. It becomes increasingly apparent that it is uncertain how much of Humbert’s narration is real and how much is crafted by his own mind. Ellen Pifer comments on this in Nabokovs Novel Offspring: Lolita and Her Kin when she observes that “Like the goddess Athena who sprang fully formed from Zeus’s brow, Lolita is a mythical being. A figment of Humbert’s dreaming mind, the fantasized nymphet can claim no earthly genealogy or surname.” (Pifer, 85) Humbert himself acknowledges this when he is first about to kiss her and change her forever, saying that it “was the beginning of the ineffable life which, ably assisted by fate, I had finally willed into being” (Lolita,113). Although Humbert credits “fate” as well, a method which also removes blame from him, he also concedes that the situation is one that he has created. Harriet Hustis compares this moment to Boudillard’s ideas on simularcrum noting that in this case Humbert is simulating or pretending to have something that is not real but is instead desired. She writes:
“Humbert doesn't have Dolores' consent to his ‘game’: she doesn't know that she is his ‘nymphet,’… Moreover, Dolly Haze doesn't have an innocent, bumbling Humbert on her hands: this is no ‘backfisch foolery’--and Humbert knows it. As Baudrillard acknowledges, simulation complicates the distinction between ‘the real’ and the ‘not-real’ in ways that go beyond mere pretending: pretending, or dissimulating, leaves the principle of reality intact: the difference is always clear, it is simply masked, whereas simulation threatens the difference between the 'true' and the 'false,' the 'real' and the 'imaginary.' Nymphets are, in essence, simulations--by Humbert's own admission, they inhabit an ‘intangible island of entranced time’" (Hustis, 93).
The seduction of “Humbert the Humble” by the nymphet Lolita is simulated within the mind of Humbert. In reality the situation is more likely to be a pedophile taking advantage of a young girl but because of the solipsistic nature of the novel we are only given the simulacrum of the mind and are therefore left questioning the validity of the facts given.
Humbert, by the end of the novel, is forced to see Lolita as a real person who exists outside of his fantasies and mind when he sees her as an adult who is married and pregnant. At this point in the novel she is no longer Lolita to Humbert. He must revert his image of her back into a real person, as he calls her by her real name Dolly Schiller. Since she is no longer the fantasy he wants she is turned back into a real character, yet Humbert’s solipsistic nature remains. When Lolita, now Dolly, tries to talk to Humbert, he notes that “She groped for words. I supplied them mentally (‘He broke my heart. You merely broke my life’)” (Lolita, 279). The reader is forced to accept this as Lolita’s response yet it is in fact only the imagined words provided for her by Humbert.
Humbert uses this simulation of Lolita to excuse his actions to an extent, reasoning that since she exists within the confines of his mind then no real crime can be committed against her. As long as Lolita remains fictionalized so too do his crimes against her. Humbert describes the scenario in which he reaches sexual climax after Lolita sits with her legs on his lap; she becomes a character in his mind instead of a real girl. To Humbert in this moment she is Eve with her “Eden-red apple,” and so to him she now takes responsibility for their fall from grace. This is another example in which Humbert’s solipsism releases him from guilt. In his complete preoccupation with his own desires and his fictionalization of Lolita, he does not find himself guilty of any trespass since he is completely enclosed within his own mind. “Thus had I delicately constructed my ignoble, ardent, sinful dream; and still Lolita was safe--and I was safe. What I madly possessed was not she, but my own creation, another fanciful Lolita--perhaps, more real than Lolita; overlapping, encasing her; floating between me and her, and having no will, no consciousness--indeed no life of her own. The child knew nothing. I had done nothing to her” (Lolita, 62). It is after this encounter in which Lolita becomes someone who Humbert does not recognize as real but instead as someone with “no will, no consciousness” and “no life of her own” that he declares “Lolita had been safely solipsized”(Lolita, 60).
Humberts mind appears to create much of the world around him as he fictionalizes characters and inserts his own dialogue into the voice of others. It becomes clear that the story he tells is unreliable due to his solipsism, but the reader hold firm to the understanding that Humbert and his mind concretely exist. As he tells the reader though that “I shall not exist if you do not imagine me” this all changes, Humbert exists now only in the mind of the reader and the only reality becomes the text itself as everything else seems to be a product of an imagination.
Like Humbert in Lolita, throughout Pale Fire, the narrator, Charles Kinbote, i.e. Charles the Beloved, i.e. Professor Botkin, is so immersed and trapped within the boundaries of his own mind that he is unable to ever transcend them. Kinbote invents an entirely new identity and life for himself all within the confines of his mind. His solipsism is so concentrated that his own identity becomes unreliable as it is a construct of his imagination. Professor Botkin imagines himself to be Charles Kinbote who believes himself to be the exiled king, Charles the Beloved of Zembla. Although the external clues to his solipsism are provided throughout the novel, his mind does not allow him to recognize them. At one point in the novel he is confronted by a discussion in which he should see himself yet doesn’t:
“ ‘That is the wrong word,’ he said. ‘One should not apply it to a person who deliberately peels off a drab and unhappy past and replaces it with a brilliant invention. That’s merely turning a new leaf with the left hand.’ I patted my friend on the head and bowed slightly to Eberthella H. The poet looked at me with glazed eyes. She said: ‘You must help us, Mr.Kinbote: I maintain that what’s his name, old- the old man, you know, at the Exton railway station, who thought he was God and began redirecting the trains, was technically a loony, but John calls him a fellow poet.’ ‘We all are, in a sense, poets, Madam,’ I replied” (Pale Fire, 238)
Kinbote’s solipsism becomes so constraining that he is both unable in one sense to recognize himself in this conversation yet he also praises himself as he refers to his “brilliant invention.” The reader in this situation is given the scenario only from the viewpoint of Kinbote’s creative imagination.
This solipsism as a narrator is also seen in his interpretation of John Shades poem as his complete immersion within his own thoughts and preoccupations can be distinguished. Lines of the 999-line poem which appear to be written about the death of Shade’s daughter Hazel are distorted in the view of Kinbote to resemble a story about “a distant northern land” called Zembla and its dethroned King Charles the Beloved, whom Kinbote would have the reader believe is him. Kinbote interprets line 149: “One foot upon a mountain top” into a ten-page story about the escape of Charles the Beloved from Zembla. Like Humbert’s description of Lolita, the reader could presume that to Kinbote the poem “had been safely solipsized.”
Kinbote further “solipsized” the world around him in his interpretation of John Shade’s death. In reality John Shade’s killer is Jack Grey, an escapee from the hospital for the criminally insane who intends to kill Judge Goldsworth. Yet through Kinbote’s narration, he is an extremist from Zembla named Gradus who intends to kill Kinbote (or Charles the Beloved). It is the narrator’s mind that has constructed not only Gradus’ intended victim but also Gradus himself.
Many critics examine the solipsistic nature of the story by questioning to what lengths imagined realities exist within the text. While the character of Kinbote or Botkin’s solipsistic nature becomes apparent throughout the story, the texts solipsistic nature becomes apparent throughout its critics. While Kinbotes reality exists only in his imagination, the books second layer of solipsism appears when it is suggested that he himself is only a construct of another characters imagination. Brian Boyd asserted that Kinbote was in fact an imagined character manufactured by the mind of John Shade, he then later asserted that instead the text was produced by the ghost of John Shade and then retracted this theory in favor of the idea that the ghost of Hazel Shade was responsible. Up until this argument the existence of the narrators mind, crazy as he may be, was accepted. With the question of whether or not Kinbote exists or not as a figment of Shades imagination, the text again becomes the only reality that the reader can rely on, not the narrator or his narration. Nabokov creates a larger form of solipsism where just as the stories can be viewed as a fictional construct of the mind, so can the narrators on whom the reader relies.
In all novels characters are on a basic level imagined- Dorothy exists on the pages of Wizard of Oz, yet the reader in both of these texts is never sure if Lolita or Kinbote even exist on the pages of the novel. While Dorothy is real in the imaginary realm of Oz, Lolita and Kinbote in a sense become doubly imaginary, being both fictional inside and outside the novel, not only are they fictional in the fact that they are in a novel but they are also fictional within the novel as they are constructs of their narrators minds. Nabokov used solipsism in the two texts in the same way that he used almost every theme in all of his texts, as a game played with the reader. The reader is taken on an investigation through the murky waters of the narrators solipsistic mind, attempting to decipher reality from imagined.
D.H. Lawrence once warned that one should, “never trust the teller, trust the tale.” This advice is particularly important to heed when reading Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire or Lolita as the narrators of both tales are highly unreliable. They are not as much flat out liars who change the stories in order to trick their readers but instead the story to the narrators exists less on the pages of the novel and more within the imaginations of their narrators. It is in this imagined sense of reality that the narrator’s perceptions are distinguished as examples of solipsism.
Solipsism is a theory that has several related meanings, however, in its most basic sense; solipsism is the perception that one’s own mind is the only thing which is known to exist. Anything else is uncertain, as it may only be a creation of the mind. With this understanding, the self becomes the only object of importance, for one’s mind is perceived as the only thing known for sure to exist. Those who have solipsistic attitudes are often labeled as egomaniacal or narcissistic, since they put their own desires above all else. Such solipsists habitually refuse to take others into consideration in their actions since they are unable to confirm that others actually exist.
Nabokov seems to develop both Lolita and Pale Fire using the theory of solipsism in both of his main characters as well as in the texts themselves. Like his use of varying themes, Nabokov applies solipsism in layers throughout both works. On one level, readers are led to the solipsistic belief that the only truth in each text is that the mind of the narrator exists and the story they tell is most likely a construct of the narrator’s mind. On another level, the reader becomes aware that they can no longer trust that the narrator’s mind exists as they come to the realization that the narrator himself is construct of yet another imagination. Both the narrators, Humbert Humbert and Charles Kinbote, exist in realities created within their own minds interpreting their stories to fit their own desires. In this way the reader trusts that the narrator is real yet questions his story. As one explores Nabokov’s writing further, the assumption that the narrator exists becomes suspect as they are revealed to be just as imagined as their stories.
Humbert’s narration presents his own solipsism as he remains completely internalized throughout almost the entire story, within his own mind and thoughts, turning events and characters into fictionalized forms of their actual selves. Dolores Haze, an overall ordinary young girl, becomes the nymphet Lolita, a reconstruction of Humbert’s lost love Annabel Leigh. In this way we understand that the narrator’s story is unreliable as he is a highly solipsistic character. Yet the novel also shows the reader that it is possible the very narrator we rely on for the story is a figment of imagination himself. Humbert beseeches the audience to allow him to exist in their minds, imploring “Please, reader; no matter your exasperation with the tenderhearted, morbidly sensitive, infinitely circumspect hero of my book, do not skip these essential pages! Imagine me; I shall not exist if you do not imagine me” (Lolita, 129) As the text itself becomes an exercise in solipsism, the reader must allow Humbert to exist in their minds, as nothing can be proven to exist outside the mind. Humbert’s only chance at reality is to have his reader allow him to dwell in their imagination. Lolita the novel has now become like Lolita the character, simply a figment of an imagination.
“Humberts world is completely internal, a world of language and fantasy” (Stringer-Hye). The character Lolita appears in the pages of the novel as such a figment of Humbert’s mind that she hardly exists within the text. She is given very little dialogue and only Humbert’s perceptions of her are described. She could be a construct of Humbert’s mind. In reality her name is Dolores Haze, yet to Humbert she is made into something else--a nymphet named Lolita. Humbert’s mind creates Lolita in order to recover the love he shared with Annabel Leigh. He notes that “I broke her spell by incarnating her in another” (Lolita, 15) and saying that “In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain girl-child. In a Princedom by the sea” (Lolita, 9).
The reader seems to enter into a solipsistic state in which the only part of the narration that seems clear is that it is coming from the perspective of Humbert Humbert. It becomes increasingly apparent that it is uncertain how much of Humbert’s narration is real and how much is crafted by his own mind. Ellen Pifer comments on this in Nabokovs Novel Offspring: Lolita and Her Kin when she observes that “Like the goddess Athena who sprang fully formed from Zeus’s brow, Lolita is a mythical being. A figment of Humbert’s dreaming mind, the fantasized nymphet can claim no earthly genealogy or surname.” (Pifer, 85) Humbert himself acknowledges this when he is first about to kiss her and change her forever, saying that it “was the beginning of the ineffable life which, ably assisted by fate, I had finally willed into being” (Lolita,113). Although Humbert credits “fate” as well, a method which also removes blame from him, he also concedes that the situation is one that he has created. Harriet Hustis compares this moment to Boudillard’s ideas on simularcrum noting that in this case Humbert is simulating or pretending to have something that is not real but is instead desired. She writes:
“Humbert doesn't have Dolores' consent to his ‘game’: she doesn't know that she is his ‘nymphet,’… Moreover, Dolly Haze doesn't have an innocent, bumbling Humbert on her hands: this is no ‘backfisch foolery’--and Humbert knows it. As Baudrillard acknowledges, simulation complicates the distinction between ‘the real’ and the ‘not-real’ in ways that go beyond mere pretending: pretending, or dissimulating, leaves the principle of reality intact: the difference is always clear, it is simply masked, whereas simulation threatens the difference between the 'true' and the 'false,' the 'real' and the 'imaginary.' Nymphets are, in essence, simulations--by Humbert's own admission, they inhabit an ‘intangible island of entranced time’" (Hustis, 93).
The seduction of “Humbert the Humble” by the nymphet Lolita is simulated within the mind of Humbert. In reality the situation is more likely to be a pedophile taking advantage of a young girl but because of the solipsistic nature of the novel we are only given the simulacrum of the mind and are therefore left questioning the validity of the facts given.
Humbert, by the end of the novel, is forced to see Lolita as a real person who exists outside of his fantasies and mind when he sees her as an adult who is married and pregnant. At this point in the novel she is no longer Lolita to Humbert. He must revert his image of her back into a real person, as he calls her by her real name Dolly Schiller. Since she is no longer the fantasy he wants she is turned back into a real character, yet Humbert’s solipsistic nature remains. When Lolita, now Dolly, tries to talk to Humbert, he notes that “She groped for words. I supplied them mentally (‘He broke my heart. You merely broke my life’)” (Lolita, 279). The reader is forced to accept this as Lolita’s response yet it is in fact only the imagined words provided for her by Humbert.
Humbert uses this simulation of Lolita to excuse his actions to an extent, reasoning that since she exists within the confines of his mind then no real crime can be committed against her. As long as Lolita remains fictionalized so too do his crimes against her. Humbert describes the scenario in which he reaches sexual climax after Lolita sits with her legs on his lap; she becomes a character in his mind instead of a real girl. To Humbert in this moment she is Eve with her “Eden-red apple,” and so to him she now takes responsibility for their fall from grace. This is another example in which Humbert’s solipsism releases him from guilt. In his complete preoccupation with his own desires and his fictionalization of Lolita, he does not find himself guilty of any trespass since he is completely enclosed within his own mind. “Thus had I delicately constructed my ignoble, ardent, sinful dream; and still Lolita was safe--and I was safe. What I madly possessed was not she, but my own creation, another fanciful Lolita--perhaps, more real than Lolita; overlapping, encasing her; floating between me and her, and having no will, no consciousness--indeed no life of her own. The child knew nothing. I had done nothing to her” (Lolita, 62). It is after this encounter in which Lolita becomes someone who Humbert does not recognize as real but instead as someone with “no will, no consciousness” and “no life of her own” that he declares “Lolita had been safely solipsized”(Lolita, 60).
Humberts mind appears to create much of the world around him as he fictionalizes characters and inserts his own dialogue into the voice of others. It becomes clear that the story he tells is unreliable due to his solipsism, but the reader hold firm to the understanding that Humbert and his mind concretely exist. As he tells the reader though that “I shall not exist if you do not imagine me” this all changes, Humbert exists now only in the mind of the reader and the only reality becomes the text itself as everything else seems to be a product of an imagination.
Like Humbert in Lolita, throughout Pale Fire, the narrator, Charles Kinbote, i.e. Charles the Beloved, i.e. Professor Botkin, is so immersed and trapped within the boundaries of his own mind that he is unable to ever transcend them. Kinbote invents an entirely new identity and life for himself all within the confines of his mind. His solipsism is so concentrated that his own identity becomes unreliable as it is a construct of his imagination. Professor Botkin imagines himself to be Charles Kinbote who believes himself to be the exiled king, Charles the Beloved of Zembla. Although the external clues to his solipsism are provided throughout the novel, his mind does not allow him to recognize them. At one point in the novel he is confronted by a discussion in which he should see himself yet doesn’t:
“ ‘That is the wrong word,’ he said. ‘One should not apply it to a person who deliberately peels off a drab and unhappy past and replaces it with a brilliant invention. That’s merely turning a new leaf with the left hand.’ I patted my friend on the head and bowed slightly to Eberthella H. The poet looked at me with glazed eyes. She said: ‘You must help us, Mr.Kinbote: I maintain that what’s his name, old- the old man, you know, at the Exton railway station, who thought he was God and began redirecting the trains, was technically a loony, but John calls him a fellow poet.’ ‘We all are, in a sense, poets, Madam,’ I replied” (Pale Fire, 238)
Kinbote’s solipsism becomes so constraining that he is both unable in one sense to recognize himself in this conversation yet he also praises himself as he refers to his “brilliant invention.” The reader in this situation is given the scenario only from the viewpoint of Kinbote’s creative imagination.
This solipsism as a narrator is also seen in his interpretation of John Shades poem as his complete immersion within his own thoughts and preoccupations can be distinguished. Lines of the 999-line poem which appear to be written about the death of Shade’s daughter Hazel are distorted in the view of Kinbote to resemble a story about “a distant northern land” called Zembla and its dethroned King Charles the Beloved, whom Kinbote would have the reader believe is him. Kinbote interprets line 149: “One foot upon a mountain top” into a ten-page story about the escape of Charles the Beloved from Zembla. Like Humbert’s description of Lolita, the reader could presume that to Kinbote the poem “had been safely solipsized.”
Kinbote further “solipsized” the world around him in his interpretation of John Shade’s death. In reality John Shade’s killer is Jack Grey, an escapee from the hospital for the criminally insane who intends to kill Judge Goldsworth. Yet through Kinbote’s narration, he is an extremist from Zembla named Gradus who intends to kill Kinbote (or Charles the Beloved). It is the narrator’s mind that has constructed not only Gradus’ intended victim but also Gradus himself.
Many critics examine the solipsistic nature of the story by questioning to what lengths imagined realities exist within the text. While the character of Kinbote or Botkin’s solipsistic nature becomes apparent throughout the story, the texts solipsistic nature becomes apparent throughout its critics. While Kinbotes reality exists only in his imagination, the books second layer of solipsism appears when it is suggested that he himself is only a construct of another characters imagination. Brian Boyd asserted that Kinbote was in fact an imagined character manufactured by the mind of John Shade, he then later asserted that instead the text was produced by the ghost of John Shade and then retracted this theory in favor of the idea that the ghost of Hazel Shade was responsible. Up until this argument the existence of the narrators mind, crazy as he may be, was accepted. With the question of whether or not Kinbote exists or not as a figment of Shades imagination, the text again becomes the only reality that the reader can rely on, not the narrator or his narration. Nabokov creates a larger form of solipsism where just as the stories can be viewed as a fictional construct of the mind, so can the narrators on whom the reader relies.
In all novels characters are on a basic level imagined- Dorothy exists on the pages of Wizard of Oz, yet the reader in both of these texts is never sure if Lolita or Kinbote even exist on the pages of the novel. While Dorothy is real in the imaginary realm of Oz, Lolita and Kinbote in a sense become doubly imaginary, being both fictional inside and outside the novel, not only are they fictional in the fact that they are in a novel but they are also fictional within the novel as they are constructs of their narrators minds. Nabokov used solipsism in the two texts in the same way that he used almost every theme in all of his texts, as a game played with the reader. The reader is taken on an investigation through the murky waters of the narrators solipsistic mind, attempting to decipher reality from imagined.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Trying to write a Nabokov Final Paper
So after being almost finished with a first draft on the importance of Paratext in Nabokovs three novels I have decided to start all over and write a new paper on Solipsism in the three novels, and yes i barely understand solipsism myself. In any other class this would seem beyond idiotic right? yet i figure since this is a class about Nabokov full of cats, rungs in ladders and mobious strips why not change my topic and dive into a state of utter confusion! Regardless of the utter confusion the idea of solipsism in respect to Lolita, Pale Fire and Transparent Things just seemed too cool to pass up, so here i go, wish me luck!
Transparent Things and Oscar Wilde
When the character Monsieur Wilde is introduced in Transparent Things in chapter 25 i immediately thought of Oscar Wilde, since the spelling of the last name was the same. Knowing that this is Nabokov and nothing is purely coincidental I have been on the look out ever since for some thing relating Oscar Wilde to this text, and since my knowledge of Wilde is pretty minimal it took me quite a while. But recently I was looking through a poem of his called " The Ballad of Reading Goal," the work is inspired apparently by a hanging that Wilde witnessed of a man named Charles Woodridge who was convicted of killing his wife. Then I came upon the stanza: "Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!"
This immediately stuck out to me as something that did not just pertain to Transparent Things but also to Lolita and Pale Fire. It would seem that in all of the novels that we have read by Nabokov the fate of each of the character is to " kill the thing he loves." Humbert Humbert in this scenario is certainly the coward who does it with a kiss, as he destroys Lolita. Kinbote or Botkin seems to kill John Shades work which he loves so much in a sense "with a flattering word" and I'm not sure if Hugh Person fits into one of these categories but he kills his wife who is the thing that he loves the most. I would like to look a little further into this poem and its possible ties with Nabokov but i thought it was interesting that his mention of Wilde was able to sort of reveal a common theme in not just this text but the others that we have read as well.
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!"
This immediately stuck out to me as something that did not just pertain to Transparent Things but also to Lolita and Pale Fire. It would seem that in all of the novels that we have read by Nabokov the fate of each of the character is to " kill the thing he loves." Humbert Humbert in this scenario is certainly the coward who does it with a kiss, as he destroys Lolita. Kinbote or Botkin seems to kill John Shades work which he loves so much in a sense "with a flattering word" and I'm not sure if Hugh Person fits into one of these categories but he kills his wife who is the thing that he loves the most. I would like to look a little further into this poem and its possible ties with Nabokov but i thought it was interesting that his mention of Wilde was able to sort of reveal a common theme in not just this text but the others that we have read as well.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
First Thoughts on Transparent Things
About a year ago I decided to take my love of food to the next level and climb my own personal culinary Everest and make croque en bouche. While I knew it could be considered a particularly difficult task it seemed rather basic, multiple cream puffs stacked in a tower and glazed with sugar. How wrong I was, however after about three days and four fallen messes of cakes I finally got it right and it was quite possibly the most delicious dessert I have ever had. I now see that Transparent Things is possibly my literary croque en bouche, I underestimated it due primarily to its short length. While I enjoyed the work I am rather confident now that coming to a comprehensive understanding of the text will be a long process of trial and error.
I was really loving Nabokov’s attention to and use of the relationship between the afterlife and those who are living, and the narration from beyond the grave. That was until Tuesdays class when the possibility of multiple narrators was brought up, sending me spiraling back into a state of complete confusion. It seems to me that Transparent Things is an entirely different type of writing in which the reader is the main character ( You Person) and the narrator is both a fictional dead man and possibly also the author himself ( who also seems to be a character in a book by the previously mentioned dead narrator in the form of his anagrammed name in Adam Von Librikov.) So while you are a character in a story by Nabokov, he is a character in a story by Mr. R? This jumbled and confused line of thinking I am on is feeling more and more like that that mess of deflated cream puffs and burnt sugar by the second.
Nabokovs Latest Novel
Here is a link to a New York Times article about Nabokov and Original of Laura its an interesting article and is worth looking at for the picture of Nabokov in shorts with high socks and a butterfly net alone!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Gates-t.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Gates-t.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
Poprishchin and Kinbote
One of the most interesting things that I have found reading Nabokov is seeing all of the different things that influenced his work, whether they be from history or literature or even his own life. In looking at Nabokov and finding out more about him and his work I have continuously come across references to Nikolai Gogol. Gogol is even mentioned in pale fire , as a “marvelous humorist such as Gogol.” Pg. 155 and in reading information on Pale fire Gogols “Diary of a Madman” was mentioned, the title alone would suggest it is quite similar to Pale Fire. So I checked out a copy from the library and skimmed through it and found that the title is not the only thing that the two works have in common. Poprishchin, the main character becomes completely insane in the story and convinces himself that he is the heir to the recently vacated throne of Spain. It would seem that Poprishchin and Kinbote would have a lot of notes to share if the two characters were ever to meet, as they both are mad and have assumed the identities of missing kings. Since Nabokov wrote a biography of Gogol and his works it would seem that Poprishchin is a likely candidate for the inspiration of Kinbote.
Pale Fire
First reading Pale Fire to me was a little bit like first reading Beloved, I was confused. After getting further into the commentary, however, and understanding the tone of the book and seeing the humor and fun in the book, I have grown to really enjoy it. I was not expecting a work that was so funny and I really enjoyed that aspect of the book, I also saw a lot of connections between the book and Nabokovs’ real life. The murder of Shade and the murder of Nabokovs’ father on the same day was especially interesting. The exile from a Country similar to Russia, placed in a close proximity to Russia after the monarchy is overthrown in the story seems influenced by Nabokovs’ own experiences in Russia during the Revolution.
The work seems to place literary criticism in a particularly harsh light, as one mad mans analysis forever changes the poem itself. Even when the reader knows that the poem is not about Charles the Beloved and Zembla, the work is still altered into something different. The critic kills the poem ( and in a sense the poet as well.) I wonder how Nabokov would feel about our analysis of this text.
The work seems to place literary criticism in a particularly harsh light, as one mad mans analysis forever changes the poem itself. Even when the reader knows that the poem is not about Charles the Beloved and Zembla, the work is still altered into something different. The critic kills the poem ( and in a sense the poet as well.) I wonder how Nabokov would feel about our analysis of this text.
list of obnoxious traits in Charles Kinbote
Six things that annoy me about Charles Kinbote:
1. He is arrogant, and completely self-absorbed. He thinks things like,“ My free and simple demeanor set everybody at ease” pg. 21 or “ Shade could not write otherwise than beautifully- but void of my magic, of that special rich streak of magical madness which I was sure would run through it and make it transcend its time.” Pg.296-297
2. He is crazy. (this could actually be something I love about him as well) I love when the woman in the grocery store comes right out and says “ what’s more, you are insane” on page 25, it sums it all up quite nicely.
3. It would appear that he doesn’t know when he is unwanted, and I feel bad for Sybill and John Shade, because, after all, haven’t we all had neighbors a bit like Kinbote?
4. His note to line 680 “ Why our poet chose to give his 1958 hurricane a little-used Spanish name ( sometimes given to parrots) instead of Linda or Lois, is not clear.” pg.243
5. Stealing someone’s poem is not cool, even if it does make for a good story.
6. The way he calls Shade “our poet” is creepy.
1. He is arrogant, and completely self-absorbed. He thinks things like,“ My free and simple demeanor set everybody at ease” pg. 21 or “ Shade could not write otherwise than beautifully- but void of my magic, of that special rich streak of magical madness which I was sure would run through it and make it transcend its time.” Pg.296-297
2. He is crazy. (this could actually be something I love about him as well) I love when the woman in the grocery store comes right out and says “ what’s more, you are insane” on page 25, it sums it all up quite nicely.
3. It would appear that he doesn’t know when he is unwanted, and I feel bad for Sybill and John Shade, because, after all, haven’t we all had neighbors a bit like Kinbote?
4. His note to line 680 “ Why our poet chose to give his 1958 hurricane a little-used Spanish name ( sometimes given to parrots) instead of Linda or Lois, is not clear.” pg.243
5. Stealing someone’s poem is not cool, even if it does make for a good story.
6. The way he calls Shade “our poet” is creepy.
I think that my favorite paper that I read would have to be Jana Curries paper on the letter Q in Lolita. I was impressed on the papers ability to take such a specific point and form it into a coherent, interesting paper. Reading through it was like following a trail of clues, which is equally what reading a Nabokov text is like. I think that the discovery about the letter Q being slang for the word cue, which is given to Quilty as a nickname was fascinating. Further the finding that Q means initiation of deception was very interesting to me; it really proved that absolutely nothing that Nabokov put into his novels was without complete purpose and meaning. I think it was a great paper with new ideas and discoveries, obviously not the only paper of this type as there were many papers that I thought were amazing. This particular one just seemed to grab me though!
short paper
Lolita and The Little Mermaid
It would seem that nothing in Nabokov’s Lolita is written into the novel purely by chance, instead every one of the intricate facets carries with it great purpose and meaning. Due to this no simple sentence can be looked over without further examination, so when Humbert Humbert buys Lolita a book for a gift it is guaranteed that the book holds certain meaning in the story. Humbert narrates, “I bought Lo, for her thirteenth birthday, a de luxe volume with commercially “beautiful” illustrations, of Andersen’s The Little Mermaid.” (pg.174) It is from this line that one can begin to see the references to Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid throughout the story of Lolita.
The similarities drawn between the two characters of Lolita and Ariel are numerous, Lolita is described as a charming dancer throughout the story just as the character of Ariel is said to be the most graceful dancer ever seen, a skill which she must utilize as she is unable to speak. Further the two are both described as young princesses, Humbert calls Lolita “My Frigid Princess” (pg 166) and “A fairy princess” (pg 52) and Ariel is the youngest daughter of the merman king, a beautiful mermaid princess. Humbert notes on the fairy tale aspect of his labeling of Lolita as a princess saying, “And as if I were the fairy-tale nurse of some little princess.” (Nabokov, 39) Humbert here seems to acknowledge the fabled sense he gives to both himself and Lolita, he later even describes himself as crying “merman tears” (pg. 255) for Lolita after he has lost her. Near the end of the novel Humbert visits a married, pregnant Lolita and attempts to persuade her to return with him by offering her a clichéd fairytale ending saying “Now. Right now. Come just as you are. And we shall live happily ever after.” (pg.278) In a even more blatant illustration of the fairy-tale theme between Humbert and Lolita, Humbert describes himself as a type of prince charming, “What a comic, clumsy, wavering Prince Charming I was.” (Nabokov, 111)
As Humbert refers to Lolita as his little “princess” and even “my little Creole,” (Nabokov, 174) the prince in The Little Mermaid calls Ariel “his little foundling.” Both female characters are made into subordinate objects that both of the Male characters take advantage of. While Ariel wants to “enchant a mortal heart” in order to gain an eternal soul it would seem that Lolita wants to do the same in order to seem like an adult, like one of the movie stars that she loves to read about. Both Lolita and Ariel though are in the end destroyed by the “prince” characters though, just as Ariel is unable to return to the sea and her life as a mermaid, Lolita is unable to return to her childhood and a normal life. The Prince in The Little Mermaid breaks Ariel’s heart by marrying another, thereby killing her and ruining her ability to gain an eternal soul. And by taking away Lolita’s childhood essentially through raping her, Humbert destroys her soul and in the end she too dies.
While the word Nymph is used as a synonym for mermaid, the word enchantress is used as a description for both characters. Both Lolita and Ariel are portrayed by their narrators as enchantresses, but they are also similarly victims.
It would seem that nothing in Nabokov’s Lolita is written into the novel purely by chance, instead every one of the intricate facets carries with it great purpose and meaning. Due to this no simple sentence can be looked over without further examination, so when Humbert Humbert buys Lolita a book for a gift it is guaranteed that the book holds certain meaning in the story. Humbert narrates, “I bought Lo, for her thirteenth birthday, a de luxe volume with commercially “beautiful” illustrations, of Andersen’s The Little Mermaid.” (pg.174) It is from this line that one can begin to see the references to Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid throughout the story of Lolita.
The similarities drawn between the two characters of Lolita and Ariel are numerous, Lolita is described as a charming dancer throughout the story just as the character of Ariel is said to be the most graceful dancer ever seen, a skill which she must utilize as she is unable to speak. Further the two are both described as young princesses, Humbert calls Lolita “My Frigid Princess” (pg 166) and “A fairy princess” (pg 52) and Ariel is the youngest daughter of the merman king, a beautiful mermaid princess. Humbert notes on the fairy tale aspect of his labeling of Lolita as a princess saying, “And as if I were the fairy-tale nurse of some little princess.” (Nabokov, 39) Humbert here seems to acknowledge the fabled sense he gives to both himself and Lolita, he later even describes himself as crying “merman tears” (pg. 255) for Lolita after he has lost her. Near the end of the novel Humbert visits a married, pregnant Lolita and attempts to persuade her to return with him by offering her a clichéd fairytale ending saying “Now. Right now. Come just as you are. And we shall live happily ever after.” (pg.278) In a even more blatant illustration of the fairy-tale theme between Humbert and Lolita, Humbert describes himself as a type of prince charming, “What a comic, clumsy, wavering Prince Charming I was.” (Nabokov, 111)
As Humbert refers to Lolita as his little “princess” and even “my little Creole,” (Nabokov, 174) the prince in The Little Mermaid calls Ariel “his little foundling.” Both female characters are made into subordinate objects that both of the Male characters take advantage of. While Ariel wants to “enchant a mortal heart” in order to gain an eternal soul it would seem that Lolita wants to do the same in order to seem like an adult, like one of the movie stars that she loves to read about. Both Lolita and Ariel though are in the end destroyed by the “prince” characters though, just as Ariel is unable to return to the sea and her life as a mermaid, Lolita is unable to return to her childhood and a normal life. The Prince in The Little Mermaid breaks Ariel’s heart by marrying another, thereby killing her and ruining her ability to gain an eternal soul. And by taking away Lolita’s childhood essentially through raping her, Humbert destroys her soul and in the end she too dies.
While the word Nymph is used as a synonym for mermaid, the word enchantress is used as a description for both characters. Both Lolita and Ariel are portrayed by their narrators as enchantresses, but they are also similarly victims.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Clues to Quilty
One of the things i love the most about Lolita, is the way it seems made up of many little clues and puzzle pieces that the reader is meant to put together. It seems everything in Nabokov's writing, every word and every name is there on purpose, everything has meaning. I Loved how Nabokov gave little clues about Clare Quilty, more than just "Waterproof."
In his mention of Quilty in the "Who's Who in the Limelight" that he finds in the prison library he follows Quilty with "Quine, Dolores. Born in 182, in Dayton , Ohio. Studied for stage at American Academy. First played in Ottawa in 1900. Made New York Debut in 1904 in Never Talk to Strangers. Has disappeared since in [ a list of some thirty plays follows]." I love how after Quilty a Dolores is mentioned first as making a debut in a piece called "Never Talk to Strangers," a fitting title for the situation that Dolores Haze found herself in and that she disappeared. The mentioning of a Dolores disappearing in the same breath as Clare Quilty appears to be a first clue.
Quilty is also the man at the Enchanted Huntress who has the odd conversation with Humbert the first night he is with Lolita. He asks Humbert on page 127, " Where the devil did you get her?" and after Humbert says that she is his daughter Quilty replied " You lie- she's not" both of these comments though sound at first like misunderstandings on the part of Humbert. The real hint comes when Quilty says "Sorry. I'm pretty drunk. Good night. That child of yours needs a lot of sleep. Sleep is a rose, as the Persians say. Smoke?" This is later compared with the passage on page 262, when Humbert is again at the Enchanted Huntress, "Wine, wine, wine, quipped the author of Dark Age who refused to be photographed, may suit a Persian bubble bird, but i say give me rain, rain, rain on the shingle roof for roses and inspiration every time."
The similarities in the two, the Persians and the roses, are a clue to the reader that it was in fact Clare Quilty who was at the Enchanted Huntress that first night.
In his mention of Quilty in the "Who's Who in the Limelight" that he finds in the prison library he follows Quilty with "Quine, Dolores. Born in 182, in Dayton , Ohio. Studied for stage at American Academy. First played in Ottawa in 1900. Made New York Debut in 1904 in Never Talk to Strangers. Has disappeared since in [ a list of some thirty plays follows]." I love how after Quilty a Dolores is mentioned first as making a debut in a piece called "Never Talk to Strangers," a fitting title for the situation that Dolores Haze found herself in and that she disappeared. The mentioning of a Dolores disappearing in the same breath as Clare Quilty appears to be a first clue.
Quilty is also the man at the Enchanted Huntress who has the odd conversation with Humbert the first night he is with Lolita. He asks Humbert on page 127, " Where the devil did you get her?" and after Humbert says that she is his daughter Quilty replied " You lie- she's not" both of these comments though sound at first like misunderstandings on the part of Humbert. The real hint comes when Quilty says "Sorry. I'm pretty drunk. Good night. That child of yours needs a lot of sleep. Sleep is a rose, as the Persians say. Smoke?" This is later compared with the passage on page 262, when Humbert is again at the Enchanted Huntress, "Wine, wine, wine, quipped the author of Dark Age who refused to be photographed, may suit a Persian bubble bird, but i say give me rain, rain, rain on the shingle roof for roses and inspiration every time."
The similarities in the two, the Persians and the roses, are a clue to the reader that it was in fact Clare Quilty who was at the Enchanted Huntress that first night.
After reading Jennie Lynn's discovery regarding Joyce and Finnegans Wake I was intrigued by the similarities in the two works regarding names and found that the characters of Humbert Humbert and Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker are both given a list of similar nicknames.
Humbert is called: Hum, The Humble Hunchback, Humburger, Humbert the Small, Humbert the Terrible, Hummer, Hummerson, Humbert the Hoarse, Humbert the Wounded Spider, Jean-Jacques Humbert, Hamburg, Homburg, Humbird, Humbug, Humbert the Hound, Humbert the Humble, Humbert le Bel, Humbert the Hummer, Humbert the Cubus, Herr Humbert, Humbert the Popular Butcher, Humbertoldi, San Humbertino Humbert, and Hummerson, to name a few.
Humphrey is called: Humber, Humhum, Humble Humphry, The Hunchback Humphrey, Humpty Dumpty, and St. Hubert.
Humbert is called: Hum, The Humble Hunchback, Humburger, Humbert the Small, Humbert the Terrible, Hummer, Hummerson, Humbert the Hoarse, Humbert the Wounded Spider, Jean-Jacques Humbert, Hamburg, Homburg, Humbird, Humbug, Humbert the Hound, Humbert the Humble, Humbert le Bel, Humbert the Hummer, Humbert the Cubus, Herr Humbert, Humbert the Popular Butcher, Humbertoldi, San Humbertino Humbert, and Hummerson, to name a few.
Humphrey is called: Humber, Humhum, Humble Humphry, The Hunchback Humphrey, Humpty Dumpty, and St. Hubert.
One of the most fascinating things about photographs is the way that regardless of how old they are or how removed from your current situation they are, a photo can instantly transport its viewer back to that exact time and setting. This is a photo of my older sister and i when she, myself and my younger sister took a trip to Budapest, Hungary to celebrate the birthday of my older sister, Caitlin. This was a few years ago, but the picture can still bring me back to this exact place. I'm standing on the Danube river enjoying the warm sun on a rather cold march day, i can still hear the music that was playing in the streets and i can still taste the coffee i had just had. The smell of cigarettes, that were smoked by seemingly everyone in the country, begins to linger in my nose as i look at this. The good things remain in photographs, whether or not i was fighting with Caitlin that morning, which I am sure i was, or if i was jet lagged or in a bad mood don't translate in the photo. I see the two of us smiling and having fun together, i taste coffee and cigarettes and feel the sun. This is the beauty of photos, although i am busy at school in Montana and my sister is busy with work in DC it is important to look back at a time where we were able to be carefree and have fun together.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
First memories are a difficult subject matter due to the fact that they are usually pretty manufactured, influenced by stories and photographs. I have tricked myself before into recalling false memories of family members funerals, i can give vivid accounts of my cousin crying or my aunt holding my hand, i can even describe the food that was served. When i do this though my mother reminds me that at these times i was only three or four and the possibility of me actually remembering these events is slim, instead i have seen enough photos of the events and heard stories of my cousin crying, my aunt holding my hand, and the below par catering service that was hired enough to feel like these memories are my own. They are in fact though only stolen, gathered in bits and pieces from family members in order to create a full memory. The understanding of my memory kleptomania has made it nearly impossible to decipher my own memories from those i have compiled with the stolen memories of others. So the one early memory that i am quite certain is originally mine is vague and obscure, an event that certainly wouldn't be photographed or reminisced in stories, it is simply the very blurry image of a vacuum salesman standing in my parents living room. there are no great details, i couldn't tell you what he looked like, how our living room was arranged or whether we bought a vacuum or not. I accept this memory despite its bland nature as one of the best i have because it is entirely mine, unchanged or tainted by the memories of others.
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