Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0000287, Fri, 8 Jul 1994 08:29:34 -0700

Subject
LOLITA geography queries
Date
Body
Editor's Note: Dieter E. Zimmer is the editor of the VN's Collected Works
in German. Published by Rowohlt, volume twelve of the heavily annotated
series will appear this summer. The invaluable annotations contain some
information not available elsewhere. Mr. Zimmer is now preparing the
annotations for LOLITA and asks for information on the following points.
Replies may be sent directly to Mr. Zimmer or to me for forwarding. If
to me, please indicate whether you wish your material to appear on
NABOKV-L or to be sent only to Dieter Zimmer. DBJ
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Date: 08 Jul 94 04:59:05 EDT
From: "Dieter E. Zimmer" <100126.2576@compuserve.com>

I am revising my notes to *Lolita* (130 pages, relying very much
on Proffer and Appel -- and, of course, giving them credit). But there are
additions. For instance, I identified Lolita's pop idols (and calculated
that their average age in 1947 was that of H.H.). And I drew the map of
H.H.'s travels, something the "Nabokovian" half-mockingly proposed for a
possible Ph.D. thesis. Now my map still has a few uncertain spots, and
perhaps I could use the Forum to elucidate them. After all, American
scholars are much closer to the action than someone who largely has to rely
on Triple-A tour books and the like.

(1) *Lolita* p157: "Crystal Chamber in the longest cave in the world."
Which cave is it? It should be somewhere in the West, judging by its
position in the sequence. (Mammoth Cave in Kentucky is mentioned somewhere
else; and from a plan of Carlsbad Caverns I inferred it could not be them.)
(2) *Lolita* p157: "Conception Park, in a town on the Mexican border..." Is
it possible to say which town?
(3) *Lolita* p157: "Shakespeare, a ghost town in New Mexico..." My maps and
travel guide books don't have such a place.
(4) *Lolita* p158: "A zoo in Indiana where a large troop of monkeys lived
on concrete replica of Christopher Columbus' flagship." Perhaps somebody
happens to know where that zoo is.