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...

for 9/29: responding to posts (Charlotte's death and after)

You should have finished the novel by Thursday of next week. We will go on discussing the ending while reading the critical articles noted on the syllabus. While your post does not have to relate directly to your "theme" - you should indicate your choice of theme in your post.

1. The uses of imagery: Humbert's obsession with the concretization of memory shows in his imagery. And, of course, the whole novel is retrospective - it is a memory. Using Juno's examples of concrete imagery for intangible things, look through the text for signs of the ways Humbert uses imagery to make a point, convince himself or the reader of something, or represent an event as something it is not.
2. Justifications: Tene' wrote about a TV show in which the pedophile character goes to bizarre lengths to deny his own nature. Respond to Tene' by finding another pop culture use or reference to Lolita - other than the one Tene' mentions in her first post. What is a "Lolita" in the popular imagination?
3. Kayla points out various ways that Humbert uses language to define, describe, and excuse his abnormality. In the "lap" scene, discussed in my previous post, we see that Humbert uses language to deceive himself about what he is actually doing. However, as the story goes on, before and after Charlotte's death, Humbert's beliefs about himself start to break down. Looking, as Kayla did, at the narrator's language, trace this increasing tension - it is one of the most important aspects of the story. Also, notice the split between body and mind and the pose of the scientist - justifications highlighted in Shea's post.
4. Stella points out another of Humbert's delusions or masks: he considers people "vulgar" who may be simply normal (and sexually mature) adults (after all, Valeria is unhappy with him due to his inability to provide the marital relations she expects - and she chooses a "vulgarian" instead of him). As the story goes on, Humbert's "sophistication" and Carlotte's, the Farlow's, and Lolita's "vulgarity" clash continually. Through this clash, Humbert struggles to maintain his sense of himself as a poet or a singular, gifted man. Discuss this key conflict.
5. Mary Linh describes the encounter with Lolita as a "return" of Annabelle. Her description brings up everything associated with Annabelle: the kingdom by the sea, the sunglasses discussed by Aaron, the name Annabelle, Hourglass or Our Glass Lake, Poe's poem, the theme of bells, etc. Discuss these and other mementos in the passages about Humbert's marriage, his and Charlotte's social life, and his eventual life as a widower.
6. Amy points out how Humbert, in spite of his disdain for psychoanalysis, presents himself in a way that justifies his tastes through the use of oppositions: virility and impotence; normal sex and his more poignant kind, animal pleasure and dazzling otherworldly beauty - and so on. His argument is aesthetic: he is a seeker of beauty, not a normal (vulgar) person or a normal pervert. As the story goes on, Humbert's oppositions break down... look for instances of this happening and Humbert's responses.
7. Bonus question! Appel usefully provides the magazine ad VN may have had in mind - "the conquering hero" - which leads Humbert to contemplate married life. And throughout his second brief marriage, Humbert compares himself to a movie star; Lolita also has a lively interest in the movies and associates him with a glamorous leading male, as does Charlotte. How does the celluloid world relate to Humbert's world of bad intents and self-deception?

Annotated "lap" scene with comments

p. 57 and on

I want my learned readers[half-insulting reference to the reader who may or may not be learned] to participate [the reader must take part in the scene, thereby replicating HH's action] in the scene I am about to

replay; I want them to examine its every detail and see for themselves how

careful, how chaste, the whole wine-sweet event is if viewed with what my

lawyer has called, in a private talk we have had, "impartial sympathy."[contradicts itself] So

let us get started. I have a difficult job before me.

 Main character: Humbert the Hummer. Time: Sunday morning in June.

Place: sunlit living room. Props: old, candy-striped davenport, magazines,

phonograph, Mexican knickknacks (the late Mr. Harold E. Haze--God bless the

good man--had engendered my darling at the siesta hour in a blue-washed

room, on a honeymoon trip to Vera Cruz, and mementoes, among these Dolores,

were all over the place). She wore that day a pretty print dress that I had

seen on her once before, ample in the skirt, tight in the bodice,

short-sleeved, pink, checkered with darker pink, and, to complete the color

scheme, she had painted her lips and was holding in her hollowed hands a

beautiful, banal, Eden-red apple. She was not shod, however, for church. And

her white Sunday purse lay discarded near the phonograph. Interesting contrast betwene the normal, martital sex that produced Lolita - and the kind he's about to have. By referring to Lolita as a memento, he underscores that to him she is language. He had seen her in the dress once before - for him, also, she is an echo of previous events or experiences.

 My heart beat like a drum [Nabokov's deliberate use of a trite experession from racy literature] as she sat down, cool skirt ballooning,

subsiding, on the sofa next to me, and played with her glossy fruit. [this may be Humbert's imagination, expressed as a double entendre: he imagines her masturbating] She

tossed it up into the sun-dusted air, and caught it--it made a cupped

polished plop. [a cupped plot because the sound is contained by her hands; she holds the sound. The apple is polished but not the sound - Humbert mixes kinesthetic experience (how something feels) with aural experience (the plop).]

 Humbert Humbert intercepted the apple. why third person here?

"Give it back," - she pleaded, showing the marbled flush of her palms.

I produced Delicious. [The odd naming of the apple by its type... a red delicious apple, shows that for him it symbolizes "sweet" experiences. Also, of course, an Edenic reference.] She grasped it and bit into it, and my heart was like

snow under thin crimson skin, and with the monkeyish [the sophisticated Humbert frequently refers to himself in animal terms, or as a monster when speaking of his sexuality. This underscores his division into two people: man and monster.] nimbleness that was so

typical of that American nymphet, she snatched out of my abstract grip the

magazine I had opened (pity no film had recorded the curious pattern, the

monogrammic linkage of our simultaneous or overlapping moves [their movements are linked as the letters in a mongrammed towel - the kind Charlotte Haze possesses - are linked.]). Rapidly,

hardly hampered by the disfigured apple she held, Lo flipped violently

through the pages in search of something she wished Humbert to see. Found it

at last. I faked interest by bringing my head so close that her hair touched

my temple and her arm brushed my cheek as she wiped her lips with her wrist.

Because of the burnished mist through which I peered at the picture [this description represents that mist; "burnished" is a repetition of "polished"], I was

slow in reacting to it, and her bare knees rubbed and knocked impatiently

against each other. Dimly there came into view: a surrealist painter

relaxing, supine, on a beach, and near him, likewise supine, a plaster

replica of the Venus di Milo, half-buried in sand. Picture of the Week, said

the legend. [The magazine item, like Charlotte's book club, shows the cheapening and mass-marketing of art. Nabokov also disapproved of most "modern" art.] I whisked the whole obscene thing away. Next moment, in a sham

effort to retrieve it, she was all over me. Caught her by her thin knobby

wrist. The magazine escaped to the floor like a flustered fowl. [The chicken-magazine is itself a surrealistic image. H.H.'s encounter with Lolita at this point seems like a fight.] She twisted

herself free, recoiled, and lay back in the right-hand corner of the

davenport. Then, with perfect simplicity, [Lolita's simplicity is the quality Humbert likes - she is ingenuous and guileless - mainly due to her ignorance of sex.] the impudent child extended her

legs across my lap. [He reverts here to the fatherly tone.]

 By this time I was in a state of excitement bordering on insanity [Humbert's "madness" is referenced here, but it separates him from his sexual leanings]; but

I also had the cunning of the insane. Sitting there, on the sofa, I managed

to attune, by a series of stealthy movements, my masked lust to her

guileless limbs [her limbs have no cunning design or plan; H.H. attunes his movements - another musical reference - to hers]. It was no easy matter to divert the little maiden's

attention while I performed the obscure adjustments necessary for the

success of the trick. [Humbert describes his sexual maneuvering as a technical operation - like tuning an instrument.] Talking fast, lagging behind my own breath [he is panting, a clue to how extreme the situation really is], catching

up with it, mimicking a sudden toothache [H.H. suffers from toothache throughout the novel, as Nabokov (and Joyce) also did.] to explain the breaks in my

patter--and all the while keeping a maniac's inner eye on my distant golden

goal, [the "golden goal" has a religious ring: like a search for the holy chalice.] I cautiously increased the magic friction that was doing away, in an

illusional, if not factual, sense, with the physically irremovable, but

psychologically very friable texture of the material divide (pajamas and

robe) between the weight of two sunburnt legs, resting athwart my lap, and

the hidden tumor of an unspeakable passion. [The "material divide" suggests the spiritual or interpersonal distance of which Humbert is not aware. The many phallic references in the passage are usually somewhat negative, although Humbert is proud of his "exceptional virility": tumor, monster, beast, etc.] Having, in the course of my

patter, hit upon something nicely mechanical, I recited, garbling them

slightly, the words of a foolish song that was then popular [Humbert needs to escape from the intricacy of his own thoughts and into her world, represented by a popular song he would probably despise.] --O my Carmen, my

little Carmen, something, something, those something nights, and the stars,

and the cars, and the bars, and the barmen; I kept repeating this automatic

[the automatism of the song is indicative of the "bestial" state Humbert has entered as a result of his "insanity" or arousal.] stuff and holding her under its special spell (spell because of the

garbling), and all the while I was mortally afraid that some act of God

[the interruption of God or, more likely, Charlotte, shows that Humbert thinks of his goals in terms of fate... and returns to the Edenic theme: illicit apple-eating is discovered and punished by Yahweh.] might interrupt me, might remove the golden load in the sensation of which

all my being seemed concentrated, and this anxiety forced me to work, for

the first minute or so, more hastily than was consensual with deliberately

modulated enjoyment [Humbert here does not refer to the issue of consent: rather, the sensation of haste is not consensual or "of the same sense" with his restrained enjoyment (or, to put it more simply: he is going too fast to enjoy himself.]. The stars that sparkled, and the cars that parkled, and

the bars, and the barmen, were presently taken over by her; her voice stole

and corrected the tune I had been mutilating. She was musical and

apple-sweet. [Not only is Lolita musically talented, but, to Humbert, she is like music: he refers repeatedly to her sweetness or the sweetness of the act here.] Her legs twitched a little as they lay across my live lap; I

stroked them; there she lolled in the right-hand corner, almost asprawl,

Lola the bobby-soxer, [she listens to swing or jazz, not the "classic pop" of the early '50s (e.g. Sinatra etc.) devouring her immemorial fruit, [as a type of Annabelle, she originates in the past; also, as an Edenic symbol, the apple does - being present and past at the same time is her fundamental quality for him.] singing through its

juice, losing her slipper, rubbing the heel of her slipperless [the lost slipper has cinderella overtones] foot in its

sloppy anklet, against the pile of old magazines heaped on my left on the

sofa--and every movement she made, every shuffle and ripple, [these are dance movements - and remember the dance-step description of her name that opens the book] helped me to

conceal and to improve the secret system of tactile correspondence [his "method" of molestation is a language based on touch - perhaps like some languages for the deaf] between

beast and beauty--between my gagged, bursting beast and the beauty of her

dimpled body in its innocent cotton frock. [phallic references - the frock is innocent, although he defiles the frock without her knowing it]

The scene is a parody of "racy" scenes in contemporary literature, with its euphemistic language underlining the way art can transform even the crudest content. It is also, and more importantly, a document of Humbert's own blindness to his own identity and actions. He uses language and poetic references to convince himself that he is different than a common deviant. He literally does not know what he is doing.