Assignments are

here.

Walk-through of term paper plan and use of criticism

This will be my presentation for 10/22.
Theme or motif for my study: uniqueness, resemblance, and replication in Lolita

Structure:

1. Introduction: why write this essay - justification
2. Setting the scene: how can we interpret Lolita? Use of quotes from criticism.
3. Introduction of idea: tracing it through passages from text, quoting with discussion.
4. Conclusions

Introduction: justification

• Most criticism of Lolita focuses on its typically Nabokovian qualities: penchant for games, undermining of fictive reality, concern with aestheticism. Otherwise, authors treat it as a "realistic" novel, searching for themes or finding fault with its cavalier treatment of hebephilia. New criticism should go beyond this, to a deeper understanding of the book.
• Lolita is one of the most admired and imitated novels of the postwar era: by understanding its design, we can understand the genre of literature it spawned.

Setting the scene: how can we interpret Lolita?

Critics have always distinguished between Lolita and a realistic novel, which means that Nabokov's masterwork does not attempt to reproduce or represent reality. As Nabokov has said (quote from interviews?) it is a self-contained reality unto itself. Furthermore, Nabokov's contempt for reductive interpretation is well known - he despises Freudian, Marxian, and other "formulaic" approaches to literature. At the same time, he has built a psychological explanation for Humbert's deviance into the novel, and, while constantly mocking those who would reduce literature to an interpretation, he presents a character in many ways ripe for exegesis. He has placed the reader in a double-bind. 

Phyllis A. Roth comments on this dilemma:

[quote (28) "Nabokov's relationship to his art... reverses the aim of much fiction... a change of consciousness."]

While it is frequently said that satire attempts to hold a mirror up to the reader, forcing him or her into an uncomfortable position, I believe this is overstated with Lolita. The reader, however, finds him/herself in the position of having to uncover patterns rather than mining for "deep meanings." [Alfred Appel commented on Nabokov's use of surfaces, viewing this "flatness" as an American quality that appealed to Nabokov - but I am saving this for the part of the plot that involves America.] Roth goes on:

[(29) Simply speaking, what Nabokov gives the reader is not reality, but a way of perceiving reality.."]

This way of perceiving reality is structured, I would argue by patterns and games. [Here I quote Nabokov's comment on chess puzzles - I can refer back to my own post. It is a contest between reader and writer.]

In chess, one must imagine the other player's point of view. Similarly, when reading Lolita, the point of view of the character echoes that of the writer. Roth comments:

[(29) "VN presents characters who are engaged in the working out of the same problem: how most successfully...]

The intricacies of the character/writer's attempt to create a fictional world, an attempt which fails in The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Bend Sinister, and Lolita - among others, structures the reader's experience as well. If H.H. is an artist, Lolita is the story of his failure:

[Roth (30) "Most of the central characters are artists, or artists in disguise."]

But Humbert, unlike V. in Sebastian Knight, is not an artist, but an artist manqué  a failed artist [describes himself this way on p. 15] whose frustrations lead him to attempt to mold his life into a work of art. Lolita is therefore both the creation of a failed world, the more elaborate for its failure, and the story of this world's creation, as Roth concludes: "readers of Nabokov will attest, to know the world of his novels is no slight accomplishment" (33).

When we attempt to understand Humbert, we are actually describing his artistic method; and his goals as an artist are to - not reproduce, but - rediscover a unique original. This goal is a key to Humbert's method of self-justification, his claim that he is an artist rather than a killer (Lolita 88); his conceit that he is, unlike the average child-molester, extremely discerning (16-17); and his psychological explanation that he has spent his life attempting to recover a lost or interrupted experience.

[possible quote: Winston 424: quotes from Lolita: we expect people to be as stable as fictional characters..." This assumption of a fixed, if not necessarily unique, identity is part of the process of writing fiction.]

Tracing the idea through the text[

[use opening passage with name to argue that Lolita is unique only to Humbert when she is called "Lolita" rather than other versions of her name?]

p. 16-18: uniqueness of nymphet-seekers and nymphets - but irreducible uniqueness of Annabelle ("no nymphet but my equal") italics mine

[note images of isolation: deserted beach 12-13 (unity of H. and A.), 14, 16, garden of Eden 20]

Uniqueness of Humber/Annabelle opposed to the trite, vulgar (i.e. common) Valeria (25-26) and the conventional Charlotte (37) [brief quotes only, with commentary highlighting the nature of their "vulgarity"]

p. 39 "it was the same child" - H.H. refuses to distinguish between individuals, later acknowledged when he says he had "safely solipsized" (60) Lolita.

This is a math problem. The isolation of two which leads to them being one is opposed to the plurality and repetitiveness of the real world. Nabokov's interest in mathematician/pedophile Lewis Carroll inspired the book; and we should also remember his description of himself as an "indivisible monist" (SO 85).

But Humbert is a copy: not only because he is a "type" as much as Charlotte as shown by her letter (67), but, even to Lolita, he resembles "some actor or crooner chap" (Quilty) (43).

Other relevant passages: Nabokov's use of lists (51-52) and interest in names: both emphasize the uniqueness of the important person in the list (Lolita); names, of course, indicate the individuality of any person, although the morphic names (for instance, Lolita's Spoonerisms 120) in Lolita demonstrate how unreliable this uniqueness is.

Other relevant scenes: masturbation scene (57) shows Humbert's belief that he and Lolita remain "solipsized" together - i.e. in his world - as long as they don't touch.

[bring in more Lewis Carroll]

"Rabbit hole" scene (122-124): by making contact with Lolita and therefore between the adult world and world of children, Humbert makes a terrible mistake - he enters reality.

"the Enchanted Hunter is blind by definition - is hunting an illusion or a delusion: when, after they leave the hotel, Lolita becomes a real person, her distinctness from the Annabelle image becomes more obvious..."

Lolita's adventures: 136-137 - separates her from the pristine image he had for her and connects her to "girls of her time" ruined by "modern co-education" (133): she is therefore one of many, not another of one

The Charlie to whom she lost her virginity is also one of many - Charlie-types appear everywhere as they drive around America. Once Lolita moves into the real world, she must be protected from - the real world so that Humbert can maintain his sense of her as singular.

Quilty appears in hotel (127) and as anyone who looks like Humbert or his lecherous uncle Gustave (123, 139, 202, 218, 237, 246, 359, 380, 406, 423). All these Gustaves are not only Quilty, but they resemble Humbert through kinship, which separates him from oneness with Lolita or uniqueness in himself. His real self is pursuing his "ideal" or Platonic self, which is pursuing its lost other half.

His "kingdom by the sea" is now mass-produced and mobile in the form of the "motor courts" (146) in which Humbert stays with Lolita - he continues to stay in them after he has lost Lolita.

210: "We consider our guests to be the finest people in the world" - emphasizes the anonymity of the guest.

218-219 pursued by Quilty, whom he generally sees in the car mirror

In general, they are in a world of industrial reproduction in which every roadside attraction is a copy of something else. This, for Appel, is part of the "Americanization" not only of Humbert, but of Nabokov. The world of surfaces in the experimental fiction of the day (Robbe-Grillet), films like "Last Year at Marienbad," celebrated by Nabokov, and the "flatness"  of the American landscape, enacts a rejection of "the old myths of depth" (23) and a flatness epitomized by Dick Tracy cartoon strips: a surface that cannot be interpreted.

269-276: Humbert's encounter with Lolita destroys any illusion of her uniqueness or oneness with Annabelle: she is a mother, a reproduction of Charlotte, and a mother - the cycle of biological reproduction goes on. It is Quilty who, at camp, held a "coronation ceremony" (276), theatrically dramatizing Lolita as a princess, whereas Humbert merely tried to view her as a rebirth of his original princess.

When Humbert confronts Quilty - (295-305): he does not to preserve his own uniqueness by killing his double [295: "une femme est une femme, mais un Caporal est une cigarette"], but to preserve the idea of Lolita's oneness with Annabelle long after the reality is extinct (cf. last passage 309).

Conclusion

The patterns in Humbert's failed artistic endeavor show the conflict between his desire to preserve the stillness of time. Only in this stillness can the sense of oneness between two people, similar to the unchanging figures in Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn," be preserved.

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave	15
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

However, this stillness is opposed by the nature of language: we know characters and figures through comparisons with other characters; and, in fiction, we know them as types to some extent. Characters situated in the modern world are subject to a universe of copies and comparisons. More importantly, the Humbert who writes Lolita from prison is distinct from the Humbert who is a character in Lolita - the distinction between the "real" person and his fictional version of himself results in the confrontation between Humbert and Quilty.

Ultimately, Lolita is about the failure of art to reproduce memory. The "depth model" of traditional art creates a surface that conceals meanings, but these meanings are generally ideas, not lost experiences. The surfaces of Lolita evoke the failed enterprise of the artist who wishes to recreate (according to the Romantic model in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein) life. Rather than representing such a recreation, it evokes the comic tension between the artist's goals and the unreliable medium of language.

Assignments 10/22 to 10/31 - these apply to everyone

due before class on 10/22:
Read "Aesthetic Bliss" and "The Dangers of Fiction."
Write about any of the three articles as a prelude to your research. In other words, when you write your term paper on Lolita and Speak, Memory, you will use criticism to set up your argument. In still more words, you will define how the book can be interpreted using these critics - who comment on the problems of interpretation. You will have to explain and justify your own approach. Try to write a first draft of this part of your essay - the part in which, using critics, you define your approach. In class on Tuesday I will demonstrate how to do this.

due before class on 10/24:
Nabokov's Anglophone poems are in the packet. Lolita - due to its self-conscious style and formal construction - may be interpreted in the manner of a poem rather than a novel. Nabokov also said that his poetry was a better link to Lolita than works of fiction like Bend Sinister. Read all the poems, but I have assigned one poem to each class member. The goal here is to interpret the poem as well as you can, but also to find Nabokovian themes and tendencies (and connections to Lolita) in the poems. Here are your poem assignments:
"A Literary Dinner" - Tene' and Nic
"The Refrigerator Awakes" - Tess and Eileen
"A Discovery" - Madeline
"The Poem" - Alex and Griffin
"An Evening of Russian Poetry" - Amy
"The Room" - Mary Linh
"Voluptates Tacionum" - Stella
"Restoration" - Juno and Josh
"The Poplar" - Emma
"Lines Written in Oregon" - Trey
"Ode to a Model" - Kayla
"The Ballad of Longwood Glen" - Andrea and Danielle
"Rain" - Shea

before class on 10/29
Option #1: If you are experienced with chess: Try to solve and comment on three of Nabokov's chess problems. Remember: chess problems are not meant to represent plausible situations that may arise in the playing of chess; they are absolutely "made up" situations. Also, remember: Nabokov was interested in the aesthetics of the problem - that is, the beauty of elegance of the situation and its solution. He considered chess problem composition an art. Your comments should attempt to connect Nabokov's approach to (and interest in) chess problems with his approach to fiction. If you study the chess problems, the create writing assignment is optional for you.

Option #2: The creative writing assignment: One of the problems of Lolita is that it is told completely through the voice of a madman. In spite of this subjective style which limits the reality of the events in the book, many readers respond to it as if it were a realistic novel. Writers such as A.M. Holmes have rewritten the notorious story from different points of view and in different styles. Take a key scene in Lolita and rewrite it - either altering the style (choose an omniscient, realistic voice) or the point of view (choose that of a female character such as Charlotte, Valeria, or Lolita - or even Mona Dahl - or a character such as Quilty or Maximovich). Post this revision on your blog - I will print out copies for the class, and we will discuss the composition as a whole group. The goal, ideally, is that your rewrite will shed light on the book itself - but we'll see how it goes.

"Farm Implements and Rutebega in a Landscape"

By John Ashbery.

Mid-term

You should use your blog to work towards this term paper proposal, due just before Thanksgiving (11/21). It will contain the following elements:

• brief summary of your theme and your possible theory about Lolita and Speak, Memory. If you don't have a theory yet - fine.

• a thorough collection of passages from both books you intend to use in your term paper: you should type out the passages, include the page numbers using MLA style (in-text citation), and include notes with each one relating it to your theme

• at least three critical articles with notes on how the views in each one may relate to your own study of Nabokov; in other words, you may be building on the ideas of others; or you may be balancing your ideas against others who see the books differently; you may use articles we've read for class, but I suggest you search the library database for critics who explore issues similar to the ones you are exploring in Lolita andSpeak, Memory.

Week of 10/14: Key Passages - the conclusion

In class, in groups, we will discuss the most important parts of the book's ending in light of the tensions we've established. Your post should touch on all three parts as well:

1. Losing Lo. Part Two: Chapters 18-20.
2. Finding Lo. Part Two: Chapters 27-29.
3. Killing Quilty. Part Two: Chapters 33-end.

Also read (for discussion Thursday), two articles on Lolita (print out and bring to class): "The Road to Lolita" and "In Search of Aesthetic Bliss." Your post for Thursday (due Wednesday) should touch on these articles, relating them to your theme (if you have one). Both are posted on Blackboard under "Resources."

More Lolita puzzles:
1. What is the color most frequently associated with Lolita?
2. If Lolita were a game, what is Humbert's fatal move?
3. There are many passages in which Lolita's appearance is compared to that of a boy? How would you interpret this?
4. Humbert cries out in a strange passage that he fears water above all else. A reference here appears to be to a section from Eliot's The Waste Land - "Death by Water." And the confrontation with Quilty contains a reference to "Gerontion." What do Lolita and The Waste Land have in common thematically, if anything?
5. A "swoon" is a way of becoming insensible to reality; and a "haze," mentioned throughout the book, is another state of unawareness. What are other ways of escaping from reality that are important in Lolita?
6. The essentially melancholy story has rhapsodic elements to the very end; Appel commented on Humbert's mix of pleasure and sorrow. How are his pleasure and sorrow connected?
7. We have noted Humbert's frequent references to fate or McFate. But, other than his judges, who is it that determines Humbert's fate? To whom could he be referring?

More about games in LOLITA

• When Lolita asks H.H. about the name of the hotel where he raped her and which she undoubtedly remembers, they are acknowledging two realities: the fictional nature of this story with its outrageous coincidences; and the fact that he raped her rather than her having "seduced" him. Humbert's uncomfortable awareness of his own physicality after their encounter at The Enchanted Hunters hotel is a sign of physical reality breaking through his screen of poetic language.
• A game has borders: during the one-year drive around America (the first one), Humbert cannot leave the borders of the US. 
• Humbert's apparent amorality is appropriate for a game player - no one feels remorse when taking a series of pieces in checkers.
• A game, like a work of art, is a symbolic system. But while traditional art is understood to refer to reality, the pieces in a game are meaningful only within the borders of the game.
• Why does Humbert know that he will leave clues if he tries to poison or drown Charlotte? Well, no action is hidden in a game. Humbert cannot kill because his role does not allow it. He cannot do things that are outside of his stated powers - like a bishop on a chess board. Jean Farlow is the referee of the "lake game." She sees everything and says she might put Charlotte and Humbert "in the lake" (of her painting). She also shows her moral watchfulness and curiosity by alluding to Quilty's crimes - which she heard about through Ivor Quilty, the dentist.
• Theater, as opposed to writing, makes the distinction between reality and fiction explicit, since th audience can clearly see that the stage is not real. In fiction, the audience imagines the story is real, which makes immoral content less acceptable. (However, Nabokov's style emphasizes that the actions of the story are only symbolic since they occur in language, not in reality. He uses extreme situations to emphasize this distinction between the symbolic and the real.) Drama tends to be self-conscious. One of the writer figures is Quilty the playwright; another is Vivian Darkbloom, associated with Nabokov. She not only writes plays, but a retrospective book about her lover, My Cue. And Lolita is a retrospective book about Humbert's lover.
• Speech is associated with power in Lolita (not power in the Foucauldian or broad sociological sense, but in the practical and interpersonal sense). Humbert's well-bred speech gives him power over Charlotte and the reader, but is useless agains Lolita and Quilty. He loses his ability to speak at times (notably when kissing Lolita for the first time). Maximovich and Charlotte both speak poorly (French, correct and incorrect, is a sign of status here, one that does not impress Lolita). She speaks less to Humbert as the story goes on.
• Part of the "game" of a novel, is the withholding and revelation of knowledge. Nabokov misleads us about whom Humbert has killed. He lies to Charlotte. Valeria lies about her past, as does Humbert (he exaggerates his polar exploits). But Humbert fails to understand Lolita's relationship with Quilty, and Lolita deliberately controls this knowledge. We see her taking on the role of the playful novelist late in Part Two, as if she has learned from both Humbert and Quilty.

LOLITA puzzles - use for both posts

Read chapters 4 & 5 of The Art of Play (in the packet).

1. Do you know where your children are? Lolita is up to something and Humbert doesn't know what she's up to. Make a catalog of the signs that she is doing something behind her stepfather's back. To win, you must find at least seven.
2. Where the bodies are buried. Are there more dead people than living in this story? It appears to be haunted by ghosts. We know from the Foreword that "no ghosts walk" (what does this mean in relation to the story)? Name at least ten dead persons who play a role in the story and indicate how we know they are dead. 
3. Déjà vu all over again. Sure, Humbert has a double. And Lolita had a precursor. But, wait, she had a precursor in two senses. And Humbert, in the Haze family, had a precursor. Humbert and Lolita, as a nontraditional couple, had a precursor couple. And Charlotte, as Humbert's wife, had a precursor. Charlotte's precursor's lover had a lover and their adventures resemble those of Humbert and Lolita. Humbert has two precursors and two successors as Lolita's lover. Quilty has a companion. Even Charlotte's maid has a counterpart. Humbert and Annabelle were "coevals" when they had their precocious affair, but similar child-lovers reappear throughout the book: find some. Gaston Godin is an opposite of Humbert Humbert: how? Describe the opposition between the similarly-named Charlie and Charlotte - both rivals of Humbert for ownership of Lolita. And so on. Find ten examples of how everyone is a different version of everyone else in Lolita.
4. "This is royal fun." Nabokov thought the name Humbert had a royal sound, and Humbert often refers to himself with a kingly cognomen. He and Annabelle spent their brief time together in a "kingdom by the sea." And monarchical language is everywhere. Lolita is often called a "princess" in a positive and negative sense. Find seven distinct ways that Nabokov refers to kings, courts, monarchy - and descendancy.
5. Enchanted hunting dogs. Nabokov once gave a lecture on the "equine theme" in Madame Bovary. Who or what is doglike in Lolita. Between dog and butterfly the dogs actually win (although butterflies and moths abound). Not only are there a lot of dogs or people that act like dogs - canine coincidence occurs at key crossroads in the book. Find seven examples to win.
6. Gaming the fiction: this can only be answered after the discussion of games on Tuesday 10/8 - i.e. for Thursday: While the novel itself may be seen as a game, various events in the novel are games in themselves: Lolita's "kissing game"; Humbert and Charlotte's marital game ("every game has its rules"); the "game" of avoiding the law and maintaining Lolita's compliance during their year-long drive through America; the proposed game of Russian Roulette with a revolver (later in the story)... In each case, how does the event have the characteristics of a game discussed in class?
7. Bonus questions: Who wrote The Enchanted Hunters? What was the indecent story about Ivor Quilty's nephew Jean Farlow wanted to recount? Why is it necessary for Jean to interrupt John when complains about the Italians and adds "at least we are spared the..."? After Jean's death from cancer, John outdoes Humbert in a sense - how? Humbert says you cannot design the perfect murder because you will leave signs. This seems surprising, given his belief in his own cleverness. But Humbert's murder of Charlotte by drowning was bound to fail - why? Originally Lolita is interested in boys her own age - the "Charlies" - that seem to be everywhere; however, Humbert learns from two sources that she lacks a normal interest in her coevals. Why does she change? As Humbert and Lolita travel around, Humbert sometimes addresses not "the jury" but specific people, living or dead. One of these is Clarence, his lawyer. Who are some others? Humbert's account of America refers to many recognizable aspects of the US - such as roadside attractions - but few real people? To what group do the real people belong? Are there any exceptions to this?

The Enchanted Hunters (revisited, or revivified; reevaluated)

• Let's not forget, H.H. has a bizarre conversation with a drunk person on the porch, perhaps C.Q. He imagines this person knows what he is about to do. We cannot be sure whether Humbert mishears the strangers' remarks, or whether he actually does know.. So reality is unstable here.
• Just incidentally, Humbert and Lolita having sex at the hotel Charlotte suggested for a romantic getaway underlines H.H. and Lo as having a quasi-marital relationship. Or: Lolita has replaced Charlotte. This is ironic because Charlotte's hatred of Lolita appears to be based on her resentment at being "replaced" by the younger generation.
• The purple pills don't work - or do they? Could it be that both drunken Humbert and drugged Dolores Haze are in some kind of narcotic haze - or a temporary state of enchantment?
• An "enchanted hunter" pursues something that may not be real, and the expression suggests that he is trapped in an eternal pursuit. Lolita, at the same time, is a "hunted enchanter" and H.H. is an enchanting hunter. After leaving the hotel, the humanness of both is emphasized: through Humbert's unwashed state and Lolita's post-coital discomfort. From this point onward, they are "disenchanted" in two senses: with one another and because the spell is broken.
• The Enchanted Hunters is not only the title of a play in which Lolita later performs but is in Briceland, a play on Broceliande, the forest where Merlin lived. (Vivian Darkbloom is Quilty's companion, as we know, but Vivian is also the name of the woman who is able to entrap Merlin with his own spell - and VD is an anagram of 'Vladimir Nabokov.')

Time and Our Glass (Hourglass) Lake

One other detail that relates to the question of Charlotte pulling Humbert "into" time in spite of his wish that time stops. The flirtations Jean Farlow warns Humbert that he is swimming with his wristwatch, which in the '50s would have been destroyed by water (and stopped). But Charlotte has given him a newfangled "waterproof" watch, so the hourglass of time goes on. This is a case of technology foiling H.H.'s "magical" world.

Nabokov, Lolita, and prejudice

This gives me a chance to return to the issue of prejudice - giving my opinion, not any final opinion - which came up early in the semester in regard to Nabokov or his characters being anti-woman. While, as someone with a traditional, though liberal (which meant anti-monarchist, the 18th century sense of liberal) background, Nabokov can never be expected to be in concord with contemporary values held in academia, cultural institutions, etc. However, his views and his characters' apparent views should not be confused.

Essentially, Nabokov might be put off by the American tendency to think in groups, whether we are prejudiced or decrying prejudice. We have already spoken about "categorical thinking" - Charlotte's and the Farlows' tendency to have a fixed and formulaic definition of "masculine" and "feminine." Charlotte's simple-mindedness in this regard is seen by Humbert as a contrast to the relatively fluid European attitude towards such matters: in other words, Europeans of his day were not so obsessed with groups and were less likely to generalize about them. Note that John Farlow complains about "too many Italians" in Lolita's school, and is about to go on when he is interrupted: "at least we are spared the..." Presumably, his going to refer to Irish or blacks. His prejudices show an American tendency to generalize. However, Nabokov would no doubt view discussion of "oppressed groups" as a horrendous example of Soviet-style generalization - and all but meaningless.

Philosophically, Nabokov described himself as an "indivisible monist." Philosophers like Leibniz, Hegel, and Schopenhauer were monists: they believed that everything in the world is essentially "one" (but not in a "we are the world" sense). It is all made of the same "substance," to use the language of Hegel. To put it more simply, everything about Nabokov's beliefs indicated that he hated reductiveness, the tendency to reduce complex phenomena into simple explanations. So, while he sees Charlotte's mistreatment of the maid, Louise, as a sign of her bourgeois ignorance, he probably would not have much patience with those who advocate for the rights of any group either.

Assignment for 10/02

Somewhat different from what I said in class - please post on your "topic," but with a special focus on the end of part one, Humbert's meeting with Lolita at the camp, their subsequent drive, their experience at the Enchanted Hunter, and their continued journey after. Look for specific examples of the theme on which you're focusing. I'll comment on every theme, as posted in your blog, by some time tomorrow...