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Re: QUERY: Lolita's subjectivity (and solipsise/ solipsism)
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James Studdard: "I did learn that the word solipsism is from the Latin---solus, meaning alone and ipse meaning self. I found solipsism, noun, solipsist, noun, solipsistic, adj and solipsistically, adv, but alas, no solipsises. I want to get the full benefit of your post and not mis-interpret your meaning."
SES: "... it may be useful to discuss further -- further than Appel does, for example -- what it means for HH to say that 'Lolita had been safely solipsized' " (AnL p. 60).
Jansy: Beth's answer to J.Studdard's question is competently complete ( and, very generously, she found a way to reduce a mispelt "solipsize"!).
Appel wrote (AnL p.365): "...The verbal form of solipsist is of course H.H.'s coinage - a most significant pormanteau suggesting that Lolita has been reduced in more than size... H.H. addresses the nymphet's solipsized condition: "What I had madly possessed was not she, but my own creation..." and I have no idea if there was an intended word-play with "size" in Appel's note, but VN himself seems to have played with the word "Sol", i.e, "Sun" when he added, after "solipsized": "the implied sun pulsated in the supplied poplars"
HH wrote (AnL, p. 60-61): " I entered a plane of being where nothing mattered, save the infusion of joy brewed withing my body...I felt I could slow down in order to prolong the glow. Lolita had been safely solipsized. The implied sun pulsated in the supplied poplars...In my self-made seraglio, I was a radiant and robust Turk...the longest ecstasy man or monster had ever known."
As Appel aptly noted, the "solipsized Lolita" refers to the moments in which H.H. can only perceive the young girl as a nymphet, chiefly during erotic ecstasies. Nevertheless we can find other, more discreet raptures, with the same "solipsistic" ( or fetichistic) elements:
1."But all that was nothing, absolutely nothing, to the indescribable itch of rapture that her tennis game produced in me - the teasing delirious feeling of teetering on the very brink of unearthly order and splendor.Despite her advanced age, she was more of a nymphet than ever... Winged gentlemen!";
2."this "Haze, Dolores" (she!) in its special bower of names, with its bodyguard of roses - a fairy princess between her two maids of honor. I am trying to analyze the spine-thrill of delight it gives me, this name among all those others."
Now in answer to J. Studdard's remark concerning "a trend of conclusions that solipsises Lolita.":
I was referring to interpretations that see as predominant the theme of HH's disrespect and ignorance about a girl's dreams, hopes, fears, tears,etc, or his utter inability to grant an independent life and voice to his creation. Such interpretations tend to ignore the more poignant moments in which VN outlines an abused child's (any abused voiceless child's!) terrors, traumas and impairment. This VN achieves by transforming "absence" into glaring presence both by his real regret or by his cold appraisal of the consequences of his lecherous & controlling acts.
In my opinion the reader doesn't need to "know or to guess who the actual (fictional) Dolores Haze might be" because her "absence" is, by itself, an extremely effective literary instrument, a resource that lies way beyond any kind of sociological, moralistic or psychological analysis.
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SES: "... it may be useful to discuss further -- further than Appel does, for example -- what it means for HH to say that 'Lolita had been safely solipsized' " (AnL p. 60).
Jansy: Beth's answer to J.Studdard's question is competently complete ( and, very generously, she found a way to reduce a mispelt "solipsize"!).
Appel wrote (AnL p.365): "...The verbal form of solipsist is of course H.H.'s coinage - a most significant pormanteau suggesting that Lolita has been reduced in more than size... H.H. addresses the nymphet's solipsized condition: "What I had madly possessed was not she, but my own creation..." and I have no idea if there was an intended word-play with "size" in Appel's note, but VN himself seems to have played with the word "Sol", i.e, "Sun" when he added, after "solipsized": "the implied sun pulsated in the supplied poplars"
HH wrote (AnL, p. 60-61): " I entered a plane of being where nothing mattered, save the infusion of joy brewed withing my body...I felt I could slow down in order to prolong the glow. Lolita had been safely solipsized. The implied sun pulsated in the supplied poplars...In my self-made seraglio, I was a radiant and robust Turk...the longest ecstasy man or monster had ever known."
As Appel aptly noted, the "solipsized Lolita" refers to the moments in which H.H. can only perceive the young girl as a nymphet, chiefly during erotic ecstasies. Nevertheless we can find other, more discreet raptures, with the same "solipsistic" ( or fetichistic) elements:
1."But all that was nothing, absolutely nothing, to the indescribable itch of rapture that her tennis game produced in me - the teasing delirious feeling of teetering on the very brink of unearthly order and splendor.Despite her advanced age, she was more of a nymphet than ever... Winged gentlemen!";
2."this "Haze, Dolores" (she!) in its special bower of names, with its bodyguard of roses - a fairy princess between her two maids of honor. I am trying to analyze the spine-thrill of delight it gives me, this name among all those others."
Now in answer to J. Studdard's remark concerning "a trend of conclusions that solipsises Lolita.":
I was referring to interpretations that see as predominant the theme of HH's disrespect and ignorance about a girl's dreams, hopes, fears, tears,etc, or his utter inability to grant an independent life and voice to his creation. Such interpretations tend to ignore the more poignant moments in which VN outlines an abused child's (any abused voiceless child's!) terrors, traumas and impairment. This VN achieves by transforming "absence" into glaring presence both by his real regret or by his cold appraisal of the consequences of his lecherous & controlling acts.
In my opinion the reader doesn't need to "know or to guess who the actual (fictional) Dolores Haze might be" because her "absence" is, by itself, an extremely effective literary instrument, a resource that lies way beyond any kind of sociological, moralistic or psychological analysis.
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm