Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0004524, Tue, 26 Oct 1999 15:09:32 -0700

Subject
Crucial and surprising hairy hermaphrodite postscript (fwd)
Date
Body
Everybody,

Mary Bellino has just told me that the whole "hairy hermaphrodite" matter
was discussed on Nabokov-L almost three years ago, December 2-15, 1996--a
time when I was completing a fellowship at another institution and not
getting any postings from the list. Contact either Mary (at
iambe@javanet.com) or me for information on retrieving the earlier
comments. I don't know whether this is a case of history repeating itself
or great minds thinking alike, but at least it may explain that sense of
deja vu that some of you may have been feeling! Thanks, Mary, and
everyone else.

Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
English Department
Holy Cross College
ssweeney@holycross.edu


<<< Donald Barton Johnson <chtodel@humanitas.ucsb.edu> 10/25 1:56p >>>
From: Susan Elizabeth Sweeney <ssweeney@holycross.edu>

Thanks to everyone who responded to my query. I appreciate the readings
advanced by Tom Bolt, Marilyn Edelstein, and others. Certainly,
"gratuitous congress" has always implied masturbation to me; on the other
hand, "small" and "a total stranger," no matter how funny it is, doesn't
seem to refer to Humbert's hand. I am especially grateful for the
thoughtful comments of Kurt Johnson, whose book I had just begun reading
that very morning. Perhaps the best answer is his suggestion (expressed
somewhat differently in Marilyn's Freudian reading) that entomology and
human sexuality are both equally present here.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for their thoughts on this!

Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
English Department
Holy Cross College
ssweeney@holycross.edu