Subject
Query: LOLITA's Dolores Quine (fwd)
Date
Body
EDITOR'S NOTE. I am resending the posting at bottom (along with my initial
prefatory editorial note) because I inadvertently omitted the name and
address of the sender: Cheryl Jones <chjones@ouray.cudenver.edu>. There
have been several responses to her query which indeed touches on questions
that merit thorough discussion.
----------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 10:24:17 -0800 (PST)
EDITOR'S NOTE. I would like to take the occasion of the query below to
point out that the 1995 issue of NABOKOV STUDIES contains three important
articles with radical implications for most interpretations of LOLITA.
Alexander Dolinin and Julian Connolly in their articles present strong
evidence that the novel's latter episodes, i.e., HH's final visit to Lo
and his murder of Quilty are literally hallucinatory. If VN's final
datings in the novel are correct, the argument is a very strong one. In
the same issue of NABOKOV STUDIES Brian Boyd presents a counter-argument
stating that VN erred in his dates and that the visit and murder actually
take place. Any scholar who writes about LOLITA without being aware of
these articles is at risk.
--------------------------------
Is anyone familiar with any published presentations of the following
theory regarding the plot (remember plot?) of Lolita? If not, does
anyone care to comment on it? I'm just curious.
Near the end of the novel, after Humbert has been driving on the
wrong side of the highway for some time, he sees a road-block ahead and,
"With a graceful movement I turned off the road, and afgter two or three
big bounces, rode up a grassy slope, among surprised cows, and here I
came to a gentle rocking stop. A kind of thoughtful Hegelian synthesis
linking up two dead women." I can't help thinking Humbert's car made
"two or three big bounces" because he ran over a female pedestrian,
specifically Dolores Quine, the famous Broadway actress mentioned in
Who's Who in the Limilight. (Humbert points out that the page in Who's
Who on which D. Quine is found contains "one of those dazzling
coincidences that logicians loathe and poets love.")
HH mentions another car accident earlier in the novel. After Lo
has escaped and the cryptogrammic paper chase is over, a new chapter
begins: "This book is about Lolita; and now that I have reached the part
which (had I not been forestalled by another internal combusion martyr)
might be called 'Dolores Disparue,' there would be little sense in
analyzing the three empty years that followed." If this internal
combustion martyr is D. Quine, Humbert's use of "forestalled" would make
sense in two ways: he has already implied that the title "Dolores
Disparue" belongs to D. Quine, so it is not available for Lo, and Lo's
disappearance ended because he ran over Dolores Quine.
Cheryl Jones
prefatory editorial note) because I inadvertently omitted the name and
address of the sender: Cheryl Jones <chjones@ouray.cudenver.edu>. There
have been several responses to her query which indeed touches on questions
that merit thorough discussion.
----------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 10:24:17 -0800 (PST)
EDITOR'S NOTE. I would like to take the occasion of the query below to
point out that the 1995 issue of NABOKOV STUDIES contains three important
articles with radical implications for most interpretations of LOLITA.
Alexander Dolinin and Julian Connolly in their articles present strong
evidence that the novel's latter episodes, i.e., HH's final visit to Lo
and his murder of Quilty are literally hallucinatory. If VN's final
datings in the novel are correct, the argument is a very strong one. In
the same issue of NABOKOV STUDIES Brian Boyd presents a counter-argument
stating that VN erred in his dates and that the visit and murder actually
take place. Any scholar who writes about LOLITA without being aware of
these articles is at risk.
--------------------------------
Is anyone familiar with any published presentations of the following
theory regarding the plot (remember plot?) of Lolita? If not, does
anyone care to comment on it? I'm just curious.
Near the end of the novel, after Humbert has been driving on the
wrong side of the highway for some time, he sees a road-block ahead and,
"With a graceful movement I turned off the road, and afgter two or three
big bounces, rode up a grassy slope, among surprised cows, and here I
came to a gentle rocking stop. A kind of thoughtful Hegelian synthesis
linking up two dead women." I can't help thinking Humbert's car made
"two or three big bounces" because he ran over a female pedestrian,
specifically Dolores Quine, the famous Broadway actress mentioned in
Who's Who in the Limilight. (Humbert points out that the page in Who's
Who on which D. Quine is found contains "one of those dazzling
coincidences that logicians loathe and poets love.")
HH mentions another car accident earlier in the novel. After Lo
has escaped and the cryptogrammic paper chase is over, a new chapter
begins: "This book is about Lolita; and now that I have reached the part
which (had I not been forestalled by another internal combusion martyr)
might be called 'Dolores Disparue,' there would be little sense in
analyzing the three empty years that followed." If this internal
combustion martyr is D. Quine, Humbert's use of "forestalled" would make
sense in two ways: he has already implied that the title "Dolores
Disparue" belongs to D. Quine, so it is not available for Lo, and Lo's
disappearance ended because he ran over Dolores Quine.
Cheryl Jones