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Fw: Pale Fire and Lolita
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----- Original Message -----
From: Jimmy Dee
I recently read Pale Fire and Lolita (the first in September and the second last week), and I was struck by a couple of things as I read. Page numbers below refer to Nabokov, Lolita (2d Vintage International ed., New York, 1997), 317 pp.
In Chapter 2, Part One (p. 10) of Lolita, Humbert, discussing his youth, says, ⌠Aunt Sybil had pink-rimmed azure eyes and a waxen complexion.■ I thought this bore a stark resemblance to the first two lines of the poem ⌠Pale Fire■:
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane;
And of course Sybil is the name of John Shade▓s wife in Pale Fire.
In this chapter of Lolita, Humbert speaks of his dead mother who ⌠died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning).■ Therafter Aunt Sybil had become a sort of surrogate mother to young Humbert. Of course much of ⌠Pale Fire■ concerns life after death, ghosts and other reflections beyond the grave. In particular, the lines above, followed by, ⌠I was the smudge of ashen fluff≈and I/Lived on, flew on in the reflected sky,■ depict the death of a bird on collision with a window and the illusory continuation of its flight by, perhaps, a single feather reflected on the far side by the glass. Aunt Sybil may in some sense be regarded as a postmortem simulacrum of Humbert▓s mother.
Later in Lolita, in Chapter 19 of Part Two (p. 227), after they leave Beardsley and go to Colorado, just before Lolita disappears, Humbert notices they are being followed. It is of course Quilty, though at the time he doesn▓t know this and calls him Trapp, after a resemblance to his cousin Gustave, and assumes he is a detective. At first the pursuer is driving a red convertible, but after Humbert gives him the slip, he begins to see Trapp (or to imagine he sees him) in a variety of cars, thinking that Trapp has begun changing autos in order to remain inconspicuous:
He seemed to patronize at first the Chevrolet genus, beginning with a Campus Cream convertible, then going on to a small Horizon Blue sedan, and thenceforth fading into Surf Gray and Driftwood Gray. Then he turned to other makes and passed through a pale dull rainbow of paint shades┘ grays, however, remained his favorite cryptochromism, and, in agonizing nightmares, I tried in vain to sort out properly such ghosts as Chrysler▓s Shell Gray, Chevrolet▓s Thistle Gray, Dodge▓s French Gray┘
I couldn▓t help noticing a similarity with Jakob Gradus, alias James de Gray, the character in Pale Fire. In both cases, the figure is a mute, sinister, gray pursuer glimpsed (literally or figuratively) approaching in the distance. Although I suppose Quilty is not entirely mute up to this stage, since he speaks through his plays at certain points in the book.
It▓s interesting that Gradus is painted as rather dim, and Kinbote regards him with total disdain, while eventually Humbert even comes to admire Quilty▓s wit. Of course both narrators▓ views are colored by fear and loathing of their nemeses. In the end, though, Humbert clearly deplores Quilty for reasons other than taking Lolita. Humbert regards Quilty as a depraved bohemian slob who indulges in drugs and sexual perversion (pot, kettle, black). Gradus can be seen almost literally as Kinbote▓s Old World past catching up with him, but Quilty is a low-life New World boor, albeit intelligent, articulate, well-read, etc.
I mentioned these things to a friend, who recommended this discussion forum, so I joined. I would appreciate any insights or references to material that might shed light on the matter.
Thanks,
Jimmy Dee
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