Vladimir Nabokov

Dr Blue in Lolita; Doctor Fell in Ulysses

By Alexey Sklyarenko, 3 September, 2020

In the Russian version (1967) of Lolita VN adds a sentence about Dr Blue (the doctor in the Elphinstone hospital):

 

Я не люблю вас, доктор Блю, а почему вас не люблю, я сам не знаю, доктор Блю. Не сомневаюсь, что его ученость значительно уступала его репутации. Он уверил меня, что у нее "вирусная инфекция", и, когда я упомянул о ее недавней инфлуэнце, сухо сказал, что это другой микроб и что у него уже сорок таких пациентов на руках (все это звучит, конечно, как "горячка" старых беллетристов).


[I don’t like you, Doctor Blue, and why I don’t like you, I don’t know myself, Doctor Blue.] Dr. Blue, whose learning, no doubt, was infinitely inferior to his reputation, assured me it was a virus infection, and when I alluded to her comparatively recent flu, curtly said this was another bug, he had forty such cases on his hands; all of which sounded like the “ague” of the ancients. (2.22)

 

The allusion is to the well-known nursery rhyme (an impromptu translation of the thirty-seven epigram of Martiall) by Tom Brown:

 

I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why – I cannot tell;
But this I know, and know full well,
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell.

 

In “Nausicaa,” Episode 13 of Ulysses (1922), Joyce mentions a palpable case of Doctor Fell:

 

And still the voices sang in supplication to the Virgin most powerful, Virgin most merciful. And Gerty, wrapt in thought, scarce saw or heard her companions or the twins at their boyish gambols or the gentleman off Sandymount green that Cissy Caffrey called the man that was so like himself passing along the strand taking a short walk. You never saw him any way screwed but still and for all that she would not like him for a father because he was too old or something or on account of his face (it was a palpable case of Doctor Fell) or his carbuncly nose with the pimples on it and his sandy moustache a bit white under his nose. Poor father! With all his faults she loved him still when he sang Tell me, Mary, how to woo thee or My love and cottage near Rochelle and they had stewed cockles and lettuce with Lazenby's salad dressing for supper and when he sang The moon hath raised with Mr Dignam that died suddenly and was buried, God have mercy on him, from a stroke. Her mother's birthday that was and Charley was home on his holidays and Tom and Mr Dignam and Mrs and Patsy and Freddy Dignam and they were to have had a group taken. No-one would have thought the end was so near. Now he was laid to rest. And her mother said to him to let that be a warning to him for the rest of his days and he couldn't even go to the funeral on account of the gout and she had to go into town to bring him the letters and samples from his office about Catesby's cork lino, artistic, standard designs, fit for a palace, gives tiptop wear and always bright and cheery in the home.

 

According to Humbert Humbert, he always admired l'œuvre ormonde du sublime Dublinois.