Subject
Re: Hairy Hermaphrodite: Humbert's Hand (fwd)
Date
Body
A boschian nightmare?
Sam
Samuel Schuman
Interim Chancellor and Dean
The University of Minnesota, Morris
Morris, MN 56267
schumans@caa.mrs.umn.edu
320-589-6015
-------------------------------------
From jhe@psulias.psu.edu Mon Oct 18 12:09:46 1999
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1999 14:35:22 -0400
From: Jeff Edmunds <jhe@psulias.psu.edu>
----------------- Message requiring your approval (29 lines) ------------------
>From Jeff Edmunds <jhe@psulias.psu.edu>:
Beth Sweeney asks
>"Finally, I did achieve an hour's slumber--from which I was aroused by
>gratuitous and horribly exhausting congress with a small hairy
>hermaphrodite, a total stranger."
>
>What's the literal meaning of this sentence? I had always assumed that
>Humbert was being bitten by a mosquito (it is August, after all), but my
>husband the biologist assures me that hermaphroditic insects are extremely
>rare. Nabokov, needless to say, knew his insects. Any ideas?
>
As a young male, whenever I come across (pun intended) a metaphor whose
meaning is not immediately apparent, I am inclined to find it sexual in
nature. (As Beth earlier pointed out Humbert might say, "my static.")
Without thinking about it too doggedly, I've always assumed the passage
cited above is a fancy way of Humbert's saying "Upon awakening, I masturbated."
Evidence: "aroused" has a sexual connotation; the "congress" (a synonym for
coitus) is described as "gratuitous" (which auto-eroticism tends to be),
and it strikes me as not too farfetched that Humbert's hand might be
descibed as "small" (relative to the size of a full-sized sexual partner),
"hairy" (it has been elsewhere called an "ape paw") and "hermaphroditic"--a
male hand playing here a roughly, very roughly, female role.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1999 15:00:31 -0400
From: Thomas Bolt <bolt@tbolt.com>
----------------- Message requiring your approval (38 lines) ------------------
"Finally, I did achieve an hour's
slumber--from which I was aroused
by gratuitous and horribly exhausting
congress with a small hairy
hermaphrodite, a total stranger."
Humbert is masturbating.
Humbert's hand is small (in
comparison with a person),
hairy (as H.H.'s hand must be),
and a hermaphrodite because it
is a male part doing double duty
as a female.
"aroused"--key word in the context--
"gratuitous and horribly exhausting":
His mood, the futility and squalor of
the act (not merely as a criticism of
the act, but in its failing to lift him
from the futility and squalor of his
situation. Even his thoughts of making
Lolita pregnant devolve into
narcissistic self-indulgence at the
expense of unborn granddaughters.)
...A total stranger...
His self-alienation--the self as *more*
of a prison, not less, at its most
self-indulgent.
Tom Bolt
bolt@tbolt.com
Sam
Samuel Schuman
Interim Chancellor and Dean
The University of Minnesota, Morris
Morris, MN 56267
schumans@caa.mrs.umn.edu
320-589-6015
-------------------------------------
From jhe@psulias.psu.edu Mon Oct 18 12:09:46 1999
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1999 14:35:22 -0400
From: Jeff Edmunds <jhe@psulias.psu.edu>
----------------- Message requiring your approval (29 lines) ------------------
>From Jeff Edmunds <jhe@psulias.psu.edu>:
Beth Sweeney asks
>"Finally, I did achieve an hour's slumber--from which I was aroused by
>gratuitous and horribly exhausting congress with a small hairy
>hermaphrodite, a total stranger."
>
>What's the literal meaning of this sentence? I had always assumed that
>Humbert was being bitten by a mosquito (it is August, after all), but my
>husband the biologist assures me that hermaphroditic insects are extremely
>rare. Nabokov, needless to say, knew his insects. Any ideas?
>
As a young male, whenever I come across (pun intended) a metaphor whose
meaning is not immediately apparent, I am inclined to find it sexual in
nature. (As Beth earlier pointed out Humbert might say, "my static.")
Without thinking about it too doggedly, I've always assumed the passage
cited above is a fancy way of Humbert's saying "Upon awakening, I masturbated."
Evidence: "aroused" has a sexual connotation; the "congress" (a synonym for
coitus) is described as "gratuitous" (which auto-eroticism tends to be),
and it strikes me as not too farfetched that Humbert's hand might be
descibed as "small" (relative to the size of a full-sized sexual partner),
"hairy" (it has been elsewhere called an "ape paw") and "hermaphroditic"--a
male hand playing here a roughly, very roughly, female role.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1999 15:00:31 -0400
From: Thomas Bolt <bolt@tbolt.com>
----------------- Message requiring your approval (38 lines) ------------------
"Finally, I did achieve an hour's
slumber--from which I was aroused
by gratuitous and horribly exhausting
congress with a small hairy
hermaphrodite, a total stranger."
Humbert is masturbating.
Humbert's hand is small (in
comparison with a person),
hairy (as H.H.'s hand must be),
and a hermaphrodite because it
is a male part doing double duty
as a female.
"aroused"--key word in the context--
"gratuitous and horribly exhausting":
His mood, the futility and squalor of
the act (not merely as a criticism of
the act, but in its failing to lift him
from the futility and squalor of his
situation. Even his thoughts of making
Lolita pregnant devolve into
narcissistic self-indulgence at the
expense of unborn granddaughters.)
...A total stranger...
His self-alienation--the self as *more*
of a prison, not less, at its most
self-indulgent.
Tom Bolt
bolt@tbolt.com