frances assa: "And of course Tristana, like Dolores, means
sadness."
jansy mello: Yes, suffering (Dolores) and sadness
(Trist-ana). It also suggests Tristan, Iseult's lover - a medieval legend with
which VN was certainly familiar, although I'm doubtful that he'd ever heard of,
or considered, Galdós's novel.
Nabokov's "perverse" plots are in a sharp contrast to the shivers his
style provokes in me. I cultivate the sensation that he's chosen all sorts
of crimes to divert the general reader's attention to what, to him, was central
to his art ("enchantment" instead of "yard-spinning"*).
He once said that it was not he who was famous, but Lolita...And I think
that this observation is also applicable to Humbert Humbert
(who, inspite of his solipsistic standpoint, presented her to the
world.)
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* The duplicitous meaning of "enchanter" is significant,
no?