Re: a question
blah b b blah (jrovira@juno.com)
Sat, 16 Jan 1999 11:35:07 -0500 (EST)
On Sat, 16 Jan 1999 11:58:56 +1100 Camille Scaysbrook
<verona_beach@geocities.com> writes:
>
>Jim wrote:
>> Yeah, see, here I'd have to vehemently distinguish between Nabokov's
>> voice and Humbert's. Remember that _Lolita_ is Humbert Humbert
>speaking,
>> it's Nabokov acting in a very literary way like he's someone else.
>The
>> identification of the narrative with Nabokov would then be like
>> identifying Leonardo DiCaprio with Romeo.
>
>Well, this is partially right ... but it would be more correctly like
>identifying William Shakespeare with Romeo, which is a slightly
>different
>thing. I would assume there are little parts of Shakespeare - and more
>importantly, little parts of his opinions and biases and outlooks on
>life -
>scattered all the way through his works. I would assume that any
>writer, if
>they are hoping to convey any sort of message or ethos, would be
>conveying
>something approximating their own.
>
First off, I was calling Nabokov an actor doing another voice, taking on
another character--that's the analogy. That's why I chose DiCaprio
instead of Shakespeare. Of course, the best analogy would be if
Shakespeare was himself playing Romeo in his play, but that seldom
happens.
Yes, of course an author is attempting to convey something approximately
their own through their work. What we disagree upon is where to find it.
Within the world of the book called Lolita, Humbert the Narrator is
speaking. Within our real world, Nabokov created this character called
Humbert and had him write a book explaining the sequence of events
leading up to the murder he committed.
So every line in the book is, technically, Humbert's. I would look for
Nabokov by taking a step back and trying to see what Humbert doesn't see,
maybe, I don't know. But I'm pretty sure that if we can even begin to
approach Nabokov through Lolita, it's not going to be in the individual
lines spoken by the character Humbert.
I'm sure some of them--maybe even many of them--do reflect Nabokov in a
lot of ways, of course. Seeing that Humbert is a scholarly, cultured
European living in America kinda tells me where Nabokov may have drawn
some of his inspiration from :). But I think these ideas have become
objectified--externalized--by being translated into fiction and put in
Humbert's voice. So they become Humbert and not Nabokov all over again.
It would be like trying to separate Shakespeare from his characters and
their lines. It can't be done--the exercise would be more a reflection
of the biases of the one doing it. So many times Shakespeare seems to
reflect or take for granted the biases of his audience, then steps back
and presents an alternate view with equal force. So where does his
opinion lie? I don't think he even cared as far as his art was
concerned.
>> So what does this tell us about Nabokov's intent? That he is
>showing us
>> the limitations of Humbert's perspective by having him deny
>something so
>> obvious, or that he's trying to violate our expectations at every
>turn?
>> Maybe both. At present, in this case, I'm leaning toward the
>former.
>
>I always had trouble considering Humbert an `unreliable narrator' -
>but of
>course he is, probably more than the trusting reader imagines (and
>something certainly emphasised by `Pale Fire' which is basically about
>the
>phenomena) - how do we know it was Lolita who seduced him first, etc
>etc -
>but he conveys to me an odd sort of trustworthiness for a simple
>reason -
>what has he to lose? He's in jail. He's lost Lolita. He quite possibly
>knows he is about to die. For that reason I find it hard rather than
>easy
>to mistrust him.
>
It's not a matter of whether or not we can "trust" Humbert to be
honest--I think he's certainly being honest. But that doesn't mean he's
always "right". Do you know what I mean? Like he may say he's **not**
trying to get back to Anabelle, he may even mean it when he's saying it,
but that may be a blind spot of his. An area in which he's "in denial."
>We must always remember that underneath any book is the writer's
>intent and
>opinions - Nabokov's being firmly stated as anti-Freudian - rendered
>both
>thematically and, here, in the way the author wants us to read and
>comprehend the book. For my money, I think the placing of this
>specifically
>Freud-esque episode at the beginning of the book is there to trip the
>reader up - for everything that follows is designed to make us
>question the
>whole idea of Freudianism and the reasons for a perversion such as
>Humbert's.
>
That's just it--I don't see that particular explanation of Humbert's
perversion as being specifically Freudian. I'll need a reference to some
of Freud's writing before I accept that, thanks :) I used the phrase "in
denial" up above, and that IS particularly Freudian, I admit, but I don't
think it's exclusively Freudian.
Let's take this a step further back. Ok, if you value an author's intent
so deeply, I hate Freudian psychoanalytic theory as much as Nabokov does.
Therefore, my "intent" by my previous statements describing "the
psychology of desire" and "Humbert's desire to get back to Anabelle"
could not possibly be to specifically interpret the novel and Humbert's
motives in psycholanalytic terms. Psychoanalysis was just the latest
rage in Nabokov's day, but certainly not the only means by which human
psychology could be explored.
Psychology does not equal psycholanalytic theory. Very simple.
Now if we were taking pyschoanalytic theory for granted it makes sense
that Humbert would be "in denial" of his true motives--they would be
being suppressed by his tortured superego--thus Humbert's denial is proof
that he is indeed being motivated by subconscious drives. But since I
don't believe this I won't explore this possibility further.
What I do think was happening was that Humbert took his feelings for
Lolita very seriously, and didn't want them dismissed so easily. Truth
be told, though, through almost the entire book he was being a selfish
jackass and about as unloving as he could possibly be. He didn't care
about what was best for Lolita, much less what She wanted--and it was
obviously to be OUT of the situation. He hated the author of the school
play so much for taking Lolita that he murdered him, but at the time that
man was rescuing Lolita--at least in her opinion. The key thing here is
that Lolita wanted to leave with the man. Humbert still cared so little,
even at the end of the novel, for Lolita's choice that he treated this
rival author as a villian. Which he was, in many ways, but not for the
reasons ascribed to him.
Lolita certainly did pursue Humbert as well, initially, but he desired
her before she made a move, so Humbert was by no means Lo's victim.
>By the way - anyone seen the new movie of `Lolita'? I heard it got a
>limited release in America. Still no word on whether it will ever
>reach
>Australia. With the banning of `The Tin Drum' in some parts of America
>I'm
>suprised they even let a print into the country.
>
>Camille
Yeah, it was released for a short run over at the alternative cinema over
here, but I missed it :) Ugh...
Jim
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