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Re: SIGHTING: Nabokov in Berlin
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JM: Not every reader agrees that Humbert Humbert is sincere when he describes how repentant he feels for having recklessly destroyed a young girl's life. However, he isn't always intent on promoting his vice, reliving it pleasurably by his confession nor evoking the compassion of his imagined jurors We may also find in him the need to achieve redemption through art ("I am thinking of aurochs and angels...the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita.") and this is much more real than the simple "key" Leslie Chambers finds in Nabokov's "Light-heartedness and a tendency to fairytale."*
btw: I hope the List-participants noticed the coincidence that presented itself after I came across Dr. Johnson's sentence about the road to hell. One of his forerunners was the eminent Dr.John Ray, a scientist who has nothing in common with "Lolita's" psychiatrist, John Ray Jr !
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* - Another quote is strikingly genuine, but here H.H despairs of "redemption": "I was unable to transcend the simple human fact that whatever spiritual solace I might find, ... nothing could make my Lolita forget the foul lust I had inflicted upon her...I see nothing for the treatment of my misery but the melancholy and very local palliative of articulate art." Perhaps even in the first quote (above) HH despairs of the spiritually transformative powers of art?
However, contrary to Chambers's "key" proposition - but perhaps present in what she recognizes as an "additional spin", ie, his gift of seeing everything symbolically - [http://www.slowtravelberlin.com/2011/01/03/nabokov-in-berlin/ ], Nabokov is often deadly serious in his compassion for certain devastating human failings and in his regret. He is not merely, as she seems to indicate, trying to aestheticize evil.
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btw: I hope the List-participants noticed the coincidence that presented itself after I came across Dr. Johnson's sentence about the road to hell. One of his forerunners was the eminent Dr.John Ray, a scientist who has nothing in common with "Lolita's" psychiatrist, John Ray Jr !
........................................................................
* - Another quote is strikingly genuine, but here H.H despairs of "redemption": "I was unable to transcend the simple human fact that whatever spiritual solace I might find, ... nothing could make my Lolita forget the foul lust I had inflicted upon her...I see nothing for the treatment of my misery but the melancholy and very local palliative of articulate art." Perhaps even in the first quote (above) HH despairs of the spiritually transformative powers of art?
However, contrary to Chambers's "key" proposition - but perhaps present in what she recognizes as an "additional spin", ie, his gift of seeing everything symbolically - [http://www.slowtravelberlin.com/2011/01/03/nabokov-in-berlin/ ], Nabokov is often deadly serious in his compassion for certain devastating human failings and in his regret. He is not merely, as she seems to indicate, trying to aestheticize evil.
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/