Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita
This is an excerpt from the paper...
Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita was a controversial novel when it was first published because of its story--the criminal abduction and rape of a twelve year-old girl by her stepfather--and, even more, because of its presentation in the form of a love story. Critics have struggled to develop interpretations and explanations of the author's intentions that account for the strange combination of an extremely brutal subject and Nabokov's elegant writing. Unfortunately, at least with the two scholars studied here, the critical thought expended on the novel seems to have missed the point almost completely. Brian D. Walter and Trevor McNeely--two writers chosen at random from the scholarly literature--approach the novel with an earnestness that is not equaled by their ability to understand the book. Neither of these writers ever manages to be consistent in viewing the narrative, and the introduction, as the words of characters in a book. And neither of them seems to have the slightest idea that the book is extremely, though very blackly funny. Both these problems impede their criticism. In a 1964 interview Nabokov said, "I shall never regret Lolita . . . she was like the composition of a beautiful puzzle--its composition and its solution at the same time, since one is a mirror view of the other" (quoted in McNeely 182). McNeely infers from this, and other remarks, that if a riddle was "central to the book's conception," this must have implications for "interpreters" as well (182
. . .
bokov's) about Dante and Petrarch is meant to make the reader laugh. Humbert's self-deception, his horrible posing as a sad lover, his ridiculously inflated prose, and his lies are meant to be hilarious--and they are. The horror of what he is doing comes through to him in small flashes but Humbert manages to repress them time after time. His confession of guilt--contrasted with his lovingly gilded prose--is meant to be dismissed. Dismissed, of course, and compared in its tone and vocabulary with the style of the rest of the 'document' which the reader is reading.
It is even more surprising that McNeely fails to regard the words of the narrator as Humbert's since the whole is presented in the form of a "found" work being presented by an editor who holds it out to the public at arm's length. But Walter is equally unable to get this point. Walter argues that Lolita represents "Nabokov's personal embodiment of an old romantic theme, specifically the poet's attempt to embrace the irrational as manifested" in the story of the poet's destruction in the course of his pursuit of the destructive, amoral woman (Walter 123). While this is certainly true to an extent, Walter also argues that in his best work Nabokov's "motivating obse
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
Beatrice Laura, Dante Petrarch, Abraham Lincoln, Trevor McNeely--two, PhD Walter, Humbert Humbert's, Walter Walter, Nabokov's Lolita, Nabokov Jr, Ray Humbert's, ray's introduction, dante petrarch, walter argues, transcends expiatory aspects, wayward child, beatrice laura, aspects walter, laugh humbert's, 140 passage, transcends expiatory, supposed poetry, expiatory aspects walter,
Approximate Word count = 1971
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
More Essays on Vladimir Nabokov Lolita
|
Customer Service
to Over
32,000 Professionally Written Papers!!!
