I think Humbert has a moment of unsullied recognition of what Lolita has lost because of him, and Grace is as good a word as any. Doesn't Nabokov say that Humbert one day a year is let out of Hell, which he otherwise richly deserves? Something like that... No, here it is more precisely, thanks to omniscient Google: Nabokov is comparing Humbert to Hermann (in Despair) -- "Both are neurotic scoundrels, yet there is a green lane in Paradise where Humbert is permitted to wander at dusk once a year; but Hell shall never parole Hermann”
All the best
don stanley
>>> Anthony Stadlen <STADLEN@AOL.COM> 2/22/2012 7:24 AM >>>
In a message dated 22/02/2012 14:19:47 GMT Standard Time, Rsgwynn1@CS.COM writes:
Does Humbert ultimately receive some moment of Grace? I like to think he has, as he sits overlooking and overhearing the children near the end of the novel. It does move in a mysterious way, its wonders to perform.
Brian Boyd has long ago pointed to Nabokov's brilliance and insight in having Humbert seductively place this passage just where it is near the end of his narrative. Nabokov ruthlessly exposes readers who are seduced by the rhetoric of a child-rapist and murderer. This does not mean that Humbert's fleeting insight had no validity, but it was fleeting, and he did not have the integrity to act on it.
Anthony Stadlen
Anthony Stadlen
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Founder (in 1996) and convenor of the Inner Circle Seminars: an ethical, existential, phenomenological search for truth in psychotherapy
See "Existential Psychotherapy & Inner Circle Seminars" at http://anthonystadlen.blogspot.com/ for programme of future Inner Circle Seminars and complete archive of past seminars
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