Things got a little crazy in Lolita-land in late 2005 when Michael Maar published The Two Lolitas, a nuclear bomb of a book that brought to light a previous Lolita—a short story written in 1916 by a Berlin journalist working under the name of Heinz von Lichberg. This short story, which you can read here, was without a doubt, regardless of how you look at it, the inspiration for Nabokov's later classic. Although Lichberg is largely a hack, the central Lolita theme we are familiar with is all too present: a cultured middle-aged man falls for a young girl (named Lolita) who in the end has a baby and dies.

Nabokovians, surprise surprise, were quick to jump to Nabokov's defense. That he lived in Berlin while Lichberg did is of no consequence, they say: it is simply coincidence. But what about the fact that his book shares both the title and the central plot with a short story written by Lichberg? Well, says the intelligencia, it turns out that Nabokov, in addition to being a synesthete, was a cryptomnesiac. He had read the short story, they say, but then completely forgot it (for after all it was of poor artistic quality and utterly forgettable). It was only years later that certain elements of the story, including the plot and exact title, crept into the conscious side of Nabokov's brain from his subconscious side, where they had been hiding all along, and presented themselves to him as original thoughts. It wasn't plagiarism, see, it was cryptomnesia—and what author, or human for that matter, hasn't forgotten ideas or memories only to remember them later as their own?

Now, I don't claim that Nabokov plagiarized the lame little story written by the Nazi Lichberg in 1916. The story is less than 20 pages long. Nabokov's novel of the same title is more than 300. It is not plagiarism when one takes a poorly whistled tune overheard on the street and turns it into an opera. This distinction—that I disagree with the cryptomnesia theory, that I disagree that it was coincidence, and that I disagree that he plagiarized it—is important. These are not the only three possible theories, and one need not choose from among them. There is at least a fourth: that Nabokov read the story, remembered it (perhaps even owned a copy), and, struck by inspiration, used it as a sculptor uses scrap metal. This, I believe, is the proper approach to understanding not only the Nabokov-Lichberg dilemma, but to understanding truly, at last, the novel Lolita.

THE THEORY

In Lolita, Nabokov, on nearly every page, in traditional Nabokovian fashion, openly admits his debt to Lichberg. With this in mind, go back now and reread it. I can't fathom how you'll finish the book, or even the first chapter, unconvinced that I'm correct. These admissions are crafty, cryptic, but they should jump straight off the page for the searching eye.

If for some reason these admissions don't reveal themselves to you, here are a couple hints to get you going: pay special attention to Humbert's fascination with doubles (even his name is a double), and rethink what he is saying when he talks of "a precursor" and "a certain initial girl-child". Etc.

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