Book Club

[landho]

Cinderella dropped out. Douche.

Landho, you've reminded me why I dropped out of English. As much as I enjoy the analysis and close examination, and all of the possible ways of interpreting and reading a text like Lolita, my melon just doesn't work the way yours does.

Eff Cinderella!!

I struggle with this...but I love the absurdity of it, the possibility that what we assume to be a fictional account may not be entirely accurate or truthful...while we've been given ample reason to mistrust (as demonstrated through the use of pseudonyms and his yanrs spun from memory...his word for word recounting of his diary in particular is extremely suspect), what reason has our narrator been given to lie?

Nabokov's license with reality and truth is interesting, and reflects in contemporary works I've recently enjoyed, such as American Psycho or even Pan's Labyrinth.

I love Pan's Labrynth and definitely want to see it again. (I bought it the day it came out on DVD, but it's been sitting on my shelf since then.)

Many of my favorite works of literature deal with the idea of an unreliable narrator: Lolita, The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, etc. In fact, all first-person narratives are suspect, but it doesn't always profit the reader to consider the narrative from that perspective. (For example, if we read Lovecraft's stories and just assume that every librarian or antiquitarian is off his rocker, than why the hell are we even reading Lovecraft in the first place?) The idea of a world within a world, a world that, on closer examination, doesn't really line up with the world as its described, really appeals to me.

As to HH's motive, what's usually posited is (spoiler alert) his desire to poeticize his love for Lolita, to immortalize her in a lyrical novel. This is not wholly convincing, however, given that HH seems to be a professor of English (chapter 4: he studied English literature and "published tortuous essays in obscure journals") and so would be aware of how the falsehoods that pepper his manuscript would be examined; he seems to want to be portrayed sympathetically, knowing that other accounts will likely surface; maybe he wants the "true" account to be buried; or maybe he's simply an ironist, a playful and erudite and deeply perverted European who loves to play with words (chapter 8: "Oh, my Lolita, I have only words to play with!").

I don't know what I believe with regard to HH's unreliability; I will have a clearer picture, though, after I've read Lolita again, given that I am paying greater attention to incidental details this time.

[broneck]

I'm starting to feel as though my understanding of the text is limited in scope due to a lack of knowledge of other texts, as well as the author's own personal politics and history.

Any suggestions on some ancilliary reading? I've got A Pale Fire sitting on a shelf at home, but that's one I could never get through (probably due to a predisposition against poetry).

[landho]

I haven't read Pale Fire yet; that's supposed to be a masterpiece as well, although it's been suggested (by Charles Kinbote, a character in Pale Fire) that the best way to read it is to have two copies, one open to the poem and the other open to the appropriate place in the commentary. Talk about next level.

Honestly, I think Lolita is the type of novel that you can read a hundred times and still not notice everything in it. That's one of the reasons I was excited that you picked it; not only is it one of my favorite novels of all time, but also I would be able to get a closer, more in-depth reading than I had gotten before. (I have too many books in the queue ahead of Lolita, and I don't think I would have gotten to it in the near future unless I was prompted to [as I was by the Super Book Klub].)

There is an afterword in the book that explains part of the publishing process, but it's best read after the conclusion of the novel. I think that Lolita is so wonderful because it succeeds on so many levels--as a straightforward story of perversion and love, as a parody, as a dense postmodernist novel rife with allusions, etc. But the first time it's read, I think it should be read for the simple pleasure of both Nabokov's ecstatic prose and also for the story, which at heart is one of the very best told that I've ever read. (It's also interesting that Nabokov, who was so detached a creator, would be able to create such emotion and longing in Lolita--he is clearly a master of artifice.)

I am trying to post small things that I notice that would be interesting to anyone reading the novel for either the first time or the fifth time. When I read the novel the first time, I tended to glaze over certain parts because they seemed so incidental (the excerpt from Who's Who in the Limelight in chapter 8, for example), but then when I reread the book, I was struck by how intricately planned Lolita was. So my general word of advice is this: take nothing Nabokov writes for granted.

As far as secondary sources, I would suggest that you read the book first unfettered by any critical commentary or interpretation and then seek out those sources afterward so that they augment rather than create your own understanding of the novel. The Wikipedia entry for Nabokov provides a good thumbnail biography of him and links to enough material on Nabokov to satisfy questions about him. More important than his intentions is his method, I think.

[grilled cheese]

There's some great geeking going on in this thread--and I love to see that. I must say that I find the issue of narrator reliability at once to be both maddeningly frustrating but also intensely interesting. I haven't read Lolita in over a decade, so it's great to hear some of landho's insight's on HH's narrative authority.

Slightly off topic from the Lolita discussion, but I'm curious, landho, if you've read any of Richard Ford's stuff. I read both The Sportswriter and Independence Day and left both with a sense of curious ambivalence, principally because I couldn't shake (even in the course of a leisurely, pleasure-read) the uneasiness produced by the idea that Frank Bascombe was an unreliable narrator. There are some brilliant moments in both books, but I don't feel immediately compelled to read the third in the trilogy, I believe it's The Lay of the Land. Who knows though, the streets keep calling me.

Stay geek my brothers.

[landho]

There's some great geeking going on in this thread--and I love to see that. I must say that I find the issue of narrator reliability at once to be both maddeningly frustrating but also intensely interesting. I haven't read Lolita in over a decade, so it's great to hear some of landho's insight's on HH's narrative authority.

Slightly off topic from the Lolita discussion, but I'm curious, landho, if you've read any of Richard Ford's stuff. I read both The Sportswriter and Independence Day and left both with a sense of curious ambivalence, principally because I couldn't shake (even in the course of a leisurely, pleasure-read) the uneasiness produced by the idea that Frank Bascombe was an unreliable narrator. There are some brilliant moments in both books, but I don't feel immediately compelled to read the third in the trilogy, I believe it's The Lay of the Land. Who knows though, the streets keep calling me.

Stay geek my brothers.

G33|<4L!!!

I haven't read any Richard Ford, although I've read good things about him. I agree that unreliable narrators create a sense of discomfort in the reader (the idea that you can't really trust what you're reading combined with the idea that there is no way to get another perspective other than to read what the narrator says really closely), but at the same time I find these texts the most rewarding because there is more meaning to mine, so to speak.

(Sorry for being so active in this thread--work is slow today, and I have free rein to screw around, and reading and commenting on Lolita seems both enjoyable and fruitful.)

Chapter 9

In the midst of all this discussion about the unreliability of the text, it's easy to lose sight of Lolita being a very, very funny book. HH remarks that it must be easy for the reader to imagine "how repulsed [he] was by the glitter of deodorized career girls that a gay dog in one of the offices kept unloading on [him]." But HH only hints at these shenanigans: "Let us skip all that."

He also further elucidates on his very peculiar sexual desires: "With two botanists and an old carpenter I shared now and then (never very successfully) the favors of one of our nutritionists, a Dr. Anita Johnson--who was soon flown back, I was glad to say....We lived in prefabricated timber cabins amid a Pre-Cambrian world of granite....No temptations maddened me. The plump, glossy little Eskimo girls with their fish smell, hideous raven hair and guinea pig faces, evoked even less desire in me than Dr. Johnson had."

Something else that may undermine HH's trustworthiness as a narrator is his being institutionalized several times--once for more than a year: "A dreadful breakdown sent me to a sanitorium for more than a year; I went back to my work--only to be hospitalized again....oon after my return to civilization I had another bout with insanity (if to melancholia and a sense of insufferable opperssion that cruel term must be applied)."

But even more importantly--and this underscores the point I made earlier about HH's contempt for psychoanalysis and practitioners of the field and his playfulness--HH writes: "I discovered there was an endless source of robust enjoyment in trifling with psychiatrists: cunningly leading them on; never letting them see that you know all the tricks of the trade; inventing for them elaborate dreams, pure classics in style (which make them, the dream-extortionists, dream and wake up shrieking); teasing them with fake 'primal scenes'; and never allowing them the slightest glimpse of one's real sexual predicament." This statement could almost be read as a confession on HH's part, admitting that he intentionally duped Dr. John Ray. The last line is troublesome, though, as HH seems perfectly forthright in describing his predilection for nymphets in his memoirs. (But could this also be read as a red herring? That seems too much.)

[broneck]

HH also presents us with situations so absurd we're immediately led to mistrust. First two come to mind being intentionally remaining at the institution for the sole purpose of toying with his shrinks, and the ridiculous scenario I've already mentioned regarding the lovely lunch our hero has with his wife and her lover...

but beyond this, and getting to the nitty gritty of HH's perverse attraction to Lo, how much creedence do you give his description of their flirtations? as he recounts his days and evenings with the young temptress, I can't help but wonder how aware she is of his advances, how much she understands of his intentions, and how she interprets his actions...unfortunately, without the novel in front of me I can't quote verses specifically, but scenes in which our hero(ish) is playfully teasing Lolita's thighs, caressing her back, or getting closer and closer to a kiss, are difficult to read...given his propensity for dishonesty or re-fabricating truths (once again refer to the ease with which he recalls, word for word, the details of his diary...from within the confines of his cell), and his apparent need for self affirmation, can we take these passages at face value? I'll reserve my judgement of Lolita's innocence for the end of the novel, but at the moment our narrator's description of their interactions is suspect at best, and probably some of the most important ambiguities in the novel.

ps. regarding "most important in the novel" being a pretty sweeping statement to make having not finished the book, i was referring to the ambiguities being important for the purposes of our discussions...as the relationship between the two forms the basis of the novel.

[landho]

Clopek, I will say that when I first read those passages, I felt pretty aroused and then a little ashamed and aghast at my arousal. I think this was Nabokov's intention, though. (Earmarked for further discussion later.)

[broneck]

I found myself disgusted by his perversions, but mostly due to the fact that, at the outset of reading this novel, I was operating under the impression that Lo was the only girl that held the sexual attention of HH so captive...I didn't realize that he was actually, for all intents and purposes, a pedophile, but rather thought that one particularly sensual young girl had captured his desires (think American Beauty)...something I for one could at least rationalize, if not sympathize with...

(continuing with the "earmarked for later", I don't see a huge amount of shame coming from the part of our fearless narrator. . . just unadultered pleasure and joy in his sexual interests, made that much stronger when coupled with his inability to attain)

[dolly]

CHAPTER 19/20

On page 80, HH toys with the thought of impregnating Mrs. Haze purely as a means of occupying her while he can spend weeks of alone time with Lolita. He also mentions it as a chance to 'gorge the limp nymphet with sleeping pills'. Instances like this really demonstrate how twisted and sick HH's outlook is. Another instance is p. 87 when he describes in vivid detail how he could easily drown Haze in order to have Lola all to himself. After this gruesome display, and an attempt at coaxing himself into doing it, he comically and very casually says, "But what d'ye know folks, I just could not make myself do it."

The fact that he can juggle the thought of drugging Lola, murder, and then so cheerfully speak of the idea of killing off Haze with a tone akin to that of a corny TV show narrator, to me, really demonstrates whatever social disorder it is that he has. Later, he describes the harmless nature of men like himself, those interested in bedding young girls, as if they were simply misunderstood artists or something. It's all very odd, and I find it interesting how Nabokov's writing makes me read even the most offensive, gnarled trains of thought in a very calm tone.

[cjbreed]

I found myself disgusted by his perversions, but mostly due to the fact that, at the outset of reading this novel, I was operating under the impression that Lo was the only girl that held the sexual attention of HH so captive...I didn't realize that he was actually, for all intents and purposes, a pedophile, but rather thought that one particularly sensual young girl had captured his desires (think American Beauty)...something I for one could at least rationalize, if not sympathize with...

(continuing with the "earmarked for later", I don't see a huge amount of shame coming from the part of our fearless narrator. . . just unadultered pleasure and joy in his sexual interests, made that much stronger when coupled with his inability to attain)

i actually just started the book last night and have never read it before, and i too was under the impression that lolita was the only one HH had these feelings for. but it turns out he is a straight up pedophile. albeit a pedophile with an excellent vocabulary. and i detect no shame on his part, but rather a perverse pride in being one of the few to have discovered this rare and secret pleasure.

[broneck]

woo , six tips!!

I've skipped dolly's note as I haven't read that far yet, so I'll have to return to that...

I like the description or a "rare and secret pleasure", but as we read further we realize that his love of lolita could never be confined to just one girl, as the innocent beauty of youth will eventually wither and age, and our narrator will be forced to continue roaming in search of another young girl, all the while his ability to grow close with these "nymphets" deminishing as he himself ages...his blessing is a curse, perhaps it's best he died young himself.

[broneck]

CHAPTER 19/20

The fact that he can juggle the thought of drugging Lola, murder, and then so cheerfully speak of the idea of killing off Haze with a tone akin to that of a corny TV show narrator, to me, really demonstrates whatever social disorder it is that he has. Later, he describes the harmless nature of men like himself, those interested in bedding young girls, as if they were simply misunderstood artists or something...

His case of course, being that by not acting on these whims, he maintains his innocence to the end. . .the psychologists foreward even indicates that had he spent time with a psycho-pathologist, HH might have avoided the tragedy/accident/crime that is yet to come.

Interesting than, that HH goes to such lengths to discredit the scholarly musings of psychologists throught the novel. In discrediting Dr. John he is, in a way, daming himself...is it too much of a stretch to put these two thoughts together and suggest that even HH himself admits that his actions (whatever they should happen to be) were inevitable? that the "wounded spider" (page 54, a telling descriptive) is bound to strike, and that the pedophiles whose company he keeps will always be doomed to act upon their fancies?

NOTED FOR LOL QUALITIES - pg. 76-77.

"as she prepared me for my noble duty, it was still a nymphet's scent that in despair I tried to pick up, as I bayed through the undergrowth of dark decaying forests."

[landho]

Chapter 10

I laughed at HH showing up to Ramsdale only to be confronted with the news that the McCoo house (where he is to live) had burned down.

[cjbreed]

looks like i need to read faster. have to skip too many posts .

[m1sterko]

quick question... do you think the movie followed the book closely?

still havent started lolita .__.;;

[landho]

quick question... do you think the movie followed the book closely?

still havent started lolita .__.;;

Haven't seen the Kubrick movie, but I did see (most of) the Adrian Lyne one (1997). From what I've heard, the Kubrick one is truer to the spirit of the novel.

The Lyne adaptation followed the plot pretty closely, and Irons seems as if he would make a good HH, but it's impossible to capture Loilta, with its myriad allusions and scintillating language, its continual self-references, etc. into a medium other than the printed page.

[dolly]

His case of course, being that by not acting on these whims, he maintains his innocence to the end. . .the psychologists foreward even indicates that had he spent time with a psycho-pathologist, HH might have avoided the tragedy/accident/crime that is yet to come.

Interesting than, that HH goes to such lengths to discredit the scholarly musings of psychologists throught the novel. In discrediting Dr. John he is, in a way, daming himself...is it too much of a stretch to put these two thoughts together and suggest that even HH himself admits that his actions (whatever they should happen to be) were inevitable? that the "wounded spider" (page 54, a telling descriptive) is bound to strike, and that the pedophiles whose company he keeps will always be doomed to act upon their fancies?

NOTED FOR LOL QUALITIES - pg. 76-77.

"as she prepared me for my noble duty, it was still a nymphet's scent that in despair I tried to pick up, as I bayed through the undergrowth of dark decaying forests."

CHAPTER 27:

When you mentioned his frequent dismissals of doctors, I started noticing it more...I saw one other instance, but I forget where and forgot to write it down...

"The child therapist in me (a fake, as most of them are-but no matter) regurgitated neo-Freudian hash and conjured up a dreaming and exaggerating Dolly in the "latency" period of girlhood."

I'm wondering why he chooses to dismiss doctors, as he is one himself...I could understand why he might slander psychologists and whatnot, because he understands that they would surely peg him as being mentally ill, but why physicians like Dr. John?

Also, another lollercopter moment:

"...she crept out into the audible drizzle and with a childish hand tweaked loose the frock-fold that had stuck in the peach-lef- to quote Robert Browning."

[landho]

CHAPTER 27:

When you mentioned his frequent dismissals of doctors, I started noticing it more...I saw one other instance, but I forget where and forgot to write it down...

"The child therapist in me (a fake, as most of them are-but no matter) regurgitated neo-Freudian hash and conjured up a dreaming and exaggerating Dolly in the "latency" period of girlhood."

I'm wondering why he chooses to dismiss doctors, as he is one himself...I could understand why he might slander psychologists and whatnot, because he understands that they would surely peg him as being mentally ill, but why physicians like Dr. John?

HH appears to have a postgraduate English degree; it's the field of psychology in particular (not authority in general, I don't think) that HH (and Nabokov!) take issue with.

HH could dismiss the field of psychology simply because it's easier for Nabokov to create a character that shares some of the same views that he does. Something else to consider, though, is maybe HH dismisses psychology because he doesn't (want to) think of himself as sick. That would be pretty convenient, no? HH certainly goes out of his way mention other cases throughout history (Edgar Allen Poe and Virginia were mentioned in chapter 11.)

[broneck]

I like how he constantly tosses "therapist" and "the rapist" in the same sentence, highlighting his contempt for the profession and their invasive practices.

[cjbreed]

i hate to lag behind but i gotta ask what you guys thought of HH's description of the unfortunate fate of his 1st wife and her new husband. i mean what kind of experiment requires you to crawl around on all fours and live on a diet of dates and bananas? for a year. any significance to this? is he just trying to degrade and dehumanize them, or is there more to it? either way, HH is pretty funny.

[broneck]

The problem I've always had with close reading is that sometime's we want to apply meaning where there's nothing beyond the surface. I think this particular instance is probably just the glib (and in all likelyhood, dishonest) brand of anecdotal humour our narrator practices. it's funny, and HH is certainly not above laughing at the expense of his dead cuckoldress wife and her lover.

[landho]

i hate to lag behind but i gotta ask what you guys thought of HH's description of the unfortunate fate of his 1st wife and her new husband. i mean what kind of experiment requires you to crawl around on all fours and live on a diet of dates and bananas? for a year. any significance to this? is he just trying to degrade and dehumanize them, or is there more to it? either way, HH is pretty funny.

No, I laughed out loud at this, too. There were some weird ethnic experiments going on during this era in America, though--anyone remember the Tuskegee Syphillis Experiment?

The problem I've always had with close reading is that sometime's we want to apply meaning where there's nothing beyond the surface. I think this particular instance is probably just the glib (and in all likelyhood, dishonest) brand of anecdotal humour our narrator practices. it's funny, and HH is certainly not above laughing at the expense of his dead cuckoldress wife and her lover.

I agree; I don't think there is anything too deep about this other than a hilarious story of his ex-wife and her husband.

[dolly]

Oh boo, I've found the book that I want to choose when it's my turn, but I don't think I can wait that long! I might just have to go ahead and read it anyway...

"Confessions of a Thug" by Philip Meadows Taylor

It's about the thuggees in 19th century India...I was inspired to read the book when I was talking to my dad last night (who is currently reading a book about the British empire), and he said,

"You know, the ONLY thing I remember from my interview to go to Oxford is when they asked me if I believed in religious freedom. I replied yes, and one of the interviewers said, 'What about the lughaees?' I replied by saying that what they did simply didn't square with me [they would run up and randomly strangle people on the street to honour the goddess of destruction...oookaaay]." Later, the interviewers told him that that answer was why he got into the school (well, combined with grades of course)...

it looks so interesting, and i've read nothing but stellar reviews

[landho]

Chapter 11

I know Clopek brought this up earlier, but does anyone else find it weird that chapter 11 is essentually a diary within a diary?

Nabokov had used the device of the unreliable narrator before; the narrator of Despair, the first Nabokov novel I ever read (written in 1934, twenty-one years before Lolita), sees a hobo who is his mirror image--a veritable doppleganger. He concocts a bizarre plan to murder the hobo, dress him up in his own clothes, and collect the insurance money. Of course, it's revealed that the hobo looks nothing like the narrator; when the police find the hobo's corpse, they remark that it is very strange that a hobo had been found murdered in the park wearing someone else's clothes. On top of that, the hobo's feet were crammed into shoes that did not fit him whatsoever. The narrator's name was Hermann. Even though Despair is a minor work, a lot of the themes reverberate throughout Lolita, especially the idea of the delusional or mistaken narrator and the idea of doubling (which occurs throughout the work).

Also, the list of names on the back of the incomplete map is not unimportant; some of the names mentioned in the foreword are cross-referenced here. Of course, reading over this list is a bit tedious, and there is no real reason why we would normally pay attention to this list, especially since there is no real context given to any of the names. (This is not true, though, but the context is spread through the novel and a bit of detective work has to be done to ascertain its significance.)

Chapter 12

HH, while unapologetic and forthright about his pedophilia, is at the same time aware of how monstrous it is:

"I know exactly what I wanted to do, and how to do it, without impinging on a child's chastity; after all, I had had

some

experience in my life of pederosis; had visually possessed dappled nymphets in parks; had wedged my wary and bestial way into the hottest, most crowded corner of a city bus full of strap-hanging school children."

We could argue that he simply doesn't want to get caught, but his phrasing--"impinging on a child's chastity"--suggests some ambivalence, almost as if he has an idealized, romantic view of childhood that his perversions trespass.

Chapter 13

HH seems to be delusional; how could someone like Lolita not notice that he had just masturbated in his pants while groping her? His description of her reaction belies his own assessment:

" 'Oh, it's nothing at all,' she cried with a sudden shrill note in her voice, and she wiggled, and squirmed, and threw her head back, and her teeth rested on her glistening underlip as she half-turned away, and my moaning mouth...almost reached her bare neck, while I crushed out against her left buttock the last throb of the longest ecstasy man or monster had ever known."

And afterward, Lolita answered the phone, "cheeks aflame, hair awry, her eyes passing over me lightly as they did over the furniture"--the perfect picture of someone postcoital.

And from what we learn about Lolita herself later, we have to seriously question HH's claims here.

Chapter 14

As in chapter 12, HH again reveals his understanding of his sexual appetite; at this point, Lolita is little more than an object for HH--the perfect nymphet:

"What I had 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."

Indeed, he thens compares her to a photograph that he shamefully masturbates to in the dark, so confident is he of her ignorance of his actions.

HH also suggests that we should pity rather than revile his perversions:

"The elation with which the vision of new delights filled me was not horrible bu pathetic. I qualify it as pathetic. Pathetic--because despite the insatiable desire of my venereal appetite, I intended, with the most fervent force and foresight, to protect the purity of that twelve-year-old child."

Kind of a farfetched claim, especially given the reaction of some of the other readers in this thread.

[broneck]

Chapter 11

I know Clopek brought this up earlier, but does anyone else find it weird that chapter 11 is essentually a diary within a diary?

Chapter 13

HH seems to be delusional; how could someone like Lolita not notice that he had just masturbated in his pants while groping her? His description of her reaction belies his own assessment:

" 'Oh, it's nothing at all,' she cried with a sudden shrill note in her voice, and she wiggled, and squirmed, and threw her head back, and her teeth rested on her glistening underlip as she half-turned away, and my moaning mouth...almost reached her bare neck, while I crushed out against her left buttock the last throb of the longest ecstasy man or monster had ever known."

And afterward, Lolita answered the phone, "cheeks aflame, hair awry, her eyes passing over me lightly as they did over the furniture"--the perfect picture of someone postcoital.

And from what we learn about Lolita herself later, we have to seriously question HH's claims here.

To your first point, the one issue with the diary that really really drives its falsities home is the first line of chapter 12, at which point he laments "this proved to be the last of twenty entries or so..." implying that while he maintained a photographically perfect memory of the diary, the actual events that he had recorded had somehow slipped his mind. This is borderline ridiculous.

Is there a time which HH is trying to block from memory? Something unpleasant that he tried to supress? (but what could be darker? Is he just sparing us further ramblings that are unimportant to the tale? Wtf?)

To the point regarding when HH "masturbated in his pants while groping her", I think it speaks greatly of his initial denial of Lolita's actual sexuality, and to his twisted desire to maintain her purity...it also speaks further to Lolita's sexuality than I believe we may have initially given credit, as I didn't interpret it as a scene of masturbating, but rather assumed that HH essentially dry fucked Lo, who knew what the throbbing tumor of love in his pants was all too well. He describes her post-coital face (as you rehashed above) but is certainly denying her sexuality (though, if "teeth resting on her glistening underlip" didn't clue him in...)

As such, delusional is certainly not the term I'd use to describe our reluctant hero, no more than any Father is delusional when he tells himself that his little girl is still pure and chaste, even when it is painfully obvious that she's been fornicating with the neighbour's son for months now. This may tie in to the random fatherly instincts HH feels, as well as his need to enroll Lo in school, rather than cut and run for mexico.

Thoughts?

[landho]

To your first point, the one issue with the diary that really really drives its falsities home is the first line of chapter 12, at which point he laments "this proved to be the last of twenty entries or so..." implying that while he maintained a photographically perfect memory of the diary, the actual events that he had recorded had somehow slipped his mind. This is borderline ridiculous.

Is there a time which HH is trying to block from memory? Something unpleasant that he tried to supress? (but what could be darker? Is he just sparing us further ramblings that are unimportant to the tale? Wtf?)

To the point regarding when HH "masturbated in his pants while groping her", I think it speaks greatly of his initial denial of Lolita's actual sexuality, and to his twisted desire to maintain her purity...it also speaks further to Lolita's sexuality than I believe we may have initially given credit, as I didn't interpret it as a scene of masturbating, but rather assumed that HH essentially dry fucked Lo, who knew what the throbbing tumor of love in his pants was all too well. He describes her post-coital face (as you rehashed above) but is certainly denying her sexuality (though, if "teeth resting on her glistening underlip" didn't clue him in...)

As such, delusional is certainly not the term I'd use to describe our reluctant hero, no more than any Father is delusional when he tells himself that his little girl is still pure and chaste, even when it is painfully obvious that she's been fornicating with the neighbour's son for months now. This may tie in to the random fatherly instincts HH feels, as well as his need to enroll Lo in school, rather than cut and run for mexico.

Thoughts?

Well, the real reason, I think, that HH doesn't run off to Mexico is that it wouldn't make for a very interesting novel, which wouldn't suit Nabokov so well.

But HH definitely wants some level of normalcy in his relationship with Lolita, I think, although in order to maintain that illusion he has to do some pretty odd stuff (such as constantly moving around the country).

I need to catch up, though, before I can offered a more considered response...!

[landho]

Oh, and should clarify--didn't mean "masturbate" as in jerking off, but "masturbate" as in self-induced pleasuring. I definitely agree that HH was dry humping Lolita--something pretty hard not to notice when you're the one being humped.

See also frotteurism (!).

[broneck]

interesting as we get deeper into part 2, my thoughts on father figures denying the sexual activities really come into play

[showbiz00ditc]

definately gonna be using this thread as a guide for the newly discovered joy of reading i've stumbled upon.

but i take my tiiime reading books... and i read slow.

but i'll be checking which books sound good and reading some of your analysis of them.

subscribed.

[landho]

Chapter 17

HH's delineates his monstrous plans after reading Charlotte's love letter, but then he clarifies:

It is with a great effort of will that in this memoir I have managed to tune my style to the tone of the journal that I kept when Mrs. Haze was to me but an obstacle. That journal of mine is no more; but I have considered it my artistic duty to preserve its intonations no matter how false and brutal they seem to me now. Fortunately, my story has reached a point where I can cease insulting poor Charlotte for the sake of retrospective versimilitude.

Mentioned as almost an afterthought, but certainly creates a dissonance between HH the narrator and HH the character. Also (and I haven't gotten there yet), we have to consider Clopek's intimations about part 2; the HH there seems to be at once aware of both his monstrous and perverted appetite and his guilt at indulging in them.