Re: a question

Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Sun, 17 Jan 1999 22:09:59 +1100 

Jim wrote:
> 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, I understood that you were emphasising the fact that Nabokov was
giving a performance - and just for the record Shakespeare *did* appear in
many of his own plays, (most famously as the Ghost in Hamlet but also Adam
in As You Like It) - and the analogy you draw now approximates the
distinction I was trying to draw. But that begs the question one could ask
of any performance - how much of it is the actor him or herself, how much
of it is an assumed `role'? Who is pulling the strings - the character or
its animator?

As you say, Humbert unavoidably must contain at least a little V. Nabokov.
- in the same way Kermit the Frog had a little Jim Henson. Without their
puppet-masters, marionettes are just pieces of wood. Ultimately, no matter
their degree of naturalness, we can see the strings or the rods. (Some
puppet troupes even make a virtue of it, cladding their puppeteers in black
and describing them as literally the `shadows' of their puppets). We are
aware of them as a construction. Similarly, we are always aware of Nabokov
pulling the strings behind Humbert, and, as you say, become externalised.
But I still cannot surmount the portly shadow behind the character.

I can't quite follow the thread of your argument - you say that

>  So they become Humbert and not Nabokov all over again.

But then you say:
 
> It would be like trying to separate Shakespeare from his characters and
> their lines.

So - are you saying that the writer is inherently sentient in his or her
creations, or they can wholly transcend themselves into these created
personas? Shakespeare is a special case - no word was truer said than the
description of him as `myriad minded Shakespeare' because he had the rare
gift of being able to present all sides of the argument with equal force
and plausibility and almost no bias. Arguably, this is why he was such a
great dramatist; maybe, then, Oscar Wilde's assumptions on Art were right
on the mark. Maybe S. was the rare puppeteer who cast no shadow.

> 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."

Yes. You could argue that *this* is how we get to know Nabokov - but I
would argue that this is actually how we get to know Humbert. Nabokov knows
what's going on between Humbert's lines; Humbert doesn't.
 
> 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.  

I saw it as Freudian in the sense that adult behaviour can be seen as the
direct result of childhood experience. Whether it is or not, it begs to be
interpreted as such - especially by the sorts of people Nabokov probably
assumes will be reading his book on the basis of its sensational content -
presumably the Charlotte Hazes of the world who know Saturday Evening Post
Freud.

> 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. 

Yes - but all the way through, Humbert admits his villany. He admits that
he is thoroughly despicable and reprehensible, and every bit a villan
(which, you could argue, helps him to justify and even soften his murder of
Quilty)

> 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. 

Again - how can we know that Humbert is telling the truth? How can we know
that he isn't fondly whitewashing the details to himself and to his
audience as we all do in our minds from time to time - perhaps Lolita
turning to face him sleepily in bed has grown in his mind to an out-and-out
seduction. You just can't know these things. But I guess that very
perversely this *makes* us part of the psychoanalytic loop. We are even
presented the novel as a psychiatric case. But even by this - by
introducing a document so full of love and emotion in the framework of the
driest, most clinical form of writing - Nabokov could be imploring us to
separate the Freud from the real visceral experience.

 Geez ... this is all getting v. complicated (:

Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
@ THE ARTS HOLE www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442
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