Impressions
My first impressions of Lolita (after 79 pages) are leaving me very intruiged, as I'm similarly disgusted and fascinated by Humbert Humbert, but I admit this doesn't quite seem like what all the introductory material had promised.
We've been told endlessly that Humbert is an untrustworthy liar, who keeps up a constant mask. I admit his writing style is overblown, probably to hide his real feelings, and there have been a couple of small lies he's let out (he claims to be shy in romantic relationships, for example), but I'm not seeing the massive unreliability that I was brought to expect.
There were also many comments in the introduction about Nabokov's intrusions, little comments and the like that shatter the realism of the story. I've only seen one of those, and overall if Nabokov was aiming for a style that opposed realism, then perhaps he shouldn't he shouldn't have written realism.
While Lolita is undeniably great, I think that the commentary of Alfred Appel is a little... overly-enthusiastic. Humbert is definitely a liar, and his true intentions are shadowy, but if this is the height of Modernism, then Faulkner and T.S. Eliot are Post-Post-Modernism. I'd probably see Appel's point if I could stand to pay more attention to his footnotes, but when I see an analysis of the Latin roots of each syllable in Lolita's name, I can't take it seriously. I'm sure he makes some good points, but half that time he just comes off as a ponce.
I must just be missing something, because a thousand PhD.s can't be wrong.
We've been told endlessly that Humbert is an untrustworthy liar, who keeps up a constant mask. I admit his writing style is overblown, probably to hide his real feelings, and there have been a couple of small lies he's let out (he claims to be shy in romantic relationships, for example), but I'm not seeing the massive unreliability that I was brought to expect.
There were also many comments in the introduction about Nabokov's intrusions, little comments and the like that shatter the realism of the story. I've only seen one of those, and overall if Nabokov was aiming for a style that opposed realism, then perhaps he shouldn't he shouldn't have written realism.
While Lolita is undeniably great, I think that the commentary of Alfred Appel is a little... overly-enthusiastic. Humbert is definitely a liar, and his true intentions are shadowy, but if this is the height of Modernism, then Faulkner and T.S. Eliot are Post-Post-Modernism. I'd probably see Appel's point if I could stand to pay more attention to his footnotes, but when I see an analysis of the Latin roots of each syllable in Lolita's name, I can't take it seriously. I'm sure he makes some good points, but half that time he just comes off as a ponce.
I must just be missing something, because a thousand PhD.s can't be wrong.
posted by Andy at 4:19 PM
2 Comments:
I should say, in fairness to Mr. Appel and our own Dr. H, the truth is probably that the lack-of-realism and Humbert's lies are in the novel, but on a much more subtle level than I can see. I don't doubt that these analyses are accurate, simply that they are not as plan as Appel implied, or perhaps not as abundant. And I still think he's a ponce.
Yeah, but you are on record as hating postmodernism. Nabokov is playing with the constraints of realism. He has to write realism in order to suck you in. Of course, that being said, he's a fabulous writer in a realistic mode. The characters in Lolita live and breath with a depth that very few writers (native born or not) accomplish. But we must always remember that all the characters are creations/recreations of HH. H.H. is a spectacular artist, a magnificent storyteller. Its nabokov's genius to let us see that process unfold.
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