Close reading: Speak, Memory: Chapter 8, Section 4

The last passage of this section, #4 of chapter 8, is particularly interesting to me, primarily because I am having a hard time making sense of it. 

"...he was, really, a very pure, very decent human being, whose private principles were as strict as his grammar and whose bracing diktanti I recall with joy: kolokololiteyshchiki perekolotili vikarabkavshihsya vihuholey, "the church-bell casters slaughtered the desmans that had scrambled out." Many years later, at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, I happened to quote that tongue twister to a zoologist who had asked me if Russian was as difficult as commonly supposed. We met again several months later and he said: "You know, I've been thinking a lot about those Muscovite muskrats: why were they said to have scrambled out? Had they been hiding or hibernating, or what?"

So, for a couple reasons, this passage is odd: diktanti means "dictation"; assuming that Lenski, Nabokov's tutor, is dictating this strange scene to him, it is meant to hold some kind of advisory significance. This brings one to the question of what this line is figuratively trying to say, as, literally, it says if you are a rodent, don't run out of the church bell when it is sounded because you will be killed. It may be a commentary on violence and religion; even though most religion preaches against unnecessary violence, those sounding the bell--the symbol of the church's presence--still senselessly kill mice or muskrats who are fleeing from them. The fact that it is a "bracing" dictation is what brings me to the conclusion that it is a warning to Nabokov from his tutor. It may also be taken less literally and more broadly, simply expressing to young Nabokov the sense of violence which permeates everyday life. The fact that Nabokov highlights the zoologist’s quote at the end of the section seems to purposely draw attention to his missing the point—but for what intention, I don’t know. It does not seem that Nabokov is poking fun or trying to make the zoologist sound stupid. Perhaps he is trying to make the reader see that “normal” people observe certain things so intently that they miss they real meaning behind a parable or a “dictation.” He may be trying to highlight his own talent with puzzles here by highlighting someone else's complete misreading of them.

Charlotte's Suicide (pgs. 95-97)

I barely heard the door open; I had become so engrossed in the letter writing--my final goodbyes, of course, warranted this focus--that I barely heard him enter. He stood in the doorway, that putrid, despicable man, calling after me as if I was the light of his European life, really and truly, and I could not bare to hear in that joyous sounding note any hint of genuineness. It was all over. I couldn't bare to live with him, not anymore, knowing the lies that guided this life.

"Charlotte, dear..." His second call was crucifying. I hadn't wanted to, but with this second intrusion I turned and shot him the dirtiest look I could muster, seeing through him; there was nothing to see there, not even the shell of a man. He would never realize the pain he'd caused. There was no way to change things. I rifled off in agony. 

"The Haze woman, the big bitch, the old cat, the obnoxious mamma, the--the old stupid Haze is no longer your dupe." Not your worthless puppet anymore. "She has--she has..." I felt the tears rolling down my face and quivered in defeat.

He sputtered and flubbered at me. "What--dearest--what are you speaking about? Charlotte, darling, I--there is--"

"You're a monster. You're a detestable, abominable, criminal fraud." I couldn't get the burning lust of his for that little bitch out of my mind--it incurred painful images, indescribable. "If you come near--I'll scream out the window. Get back!"

"Darling, honestly, whatever you may be thinking right now--rest your nerves and look me in the eyes. There will be time for--"

"I am leaving tonight. This is all yours. Only you'll never, never see that miserable brat again. Get out of this room."

This seemed to wound him, but healed me none. I thought hard through the clouds of hysteria if there was anything I had failed to take care of before leaving this home behind. The letters had been written to family, friends, politely explaining the sudden move--it was for the best, of course, to be nearer to Dolores's camp in case of any emergency matters--and I had written a letter to the folks at the camp explaining this, as well, and I had begun packing, and I would not stop one second more to look at that painful oaf. I heard his feet ascending the stairs. Oh, and our vacation! Our little getaway to the Enchanted Hunters. I had made it in such excitement--excitement since defiled and destroyed. I found the number of the hotel and dialed it so rapidly I nearly missed the last number. It had to be done--everything, erased.

After I had been on the phone, avoiding any confrontation with the people at the hotel--I did not want to reveal any suffering at the cancellation--I could not help but get up and pace the parlor. What would I do, what could I do? There was nothing for me here anymore. In fact, there was nothing for me anywhere. That little stain, that sniveling daughter of mine had ruined everything. First, Henry was taken from me, and now what replaced his love was tainted and worn down beyond any recognition of its first sparks. I packed my bags in blind resignation but, in reality, I wanted absolutely no close proximity with Lo ever again. I didn't see any way I could live with her or look her in the face and not think about that disgusting eastern brute upstairs, now descending... I could hear him in the kitchen and sat down at my desk again. I felt light-headed--I needed to breathe. 

After a short time which was lost in hysteric clouds, I could feel his eyes behind me. They were boring into my skin, and I felt ugly. I felt nothing but filth at the knowledge of his gaze. I felt like shit--like death--like nothing at all. Emptiness could not describe. My hand moved without conscious thought, drilling lines into the paper and into the desk.

He babbled something, some poor excuse, into the air of the parlor, but my ears could not receive it. My mind was made up and there was little to do now but follow the guide of instinct. 

His presence was gone again. It would be gone forever soon, and I could sleep. No more Humbert, no more Dolores. No more lies. No more book club, no more pretension. No more anything. Nothing but sleep. Final and grateful sleep. 

Things sounded in the kitchen again, but they were far off and echoed as if the earth itself creaked in a cavern somewhere. I stood up and let my feet walk me to the front door. The road buzzed and whirred and called my name through the screen. Gently and without hesitation, I felt my hands guiding the door forward and my legs carrying me down the steps. The blacktop of the road felt faint.

No more, no more, no more. Something came towards me, so I breathed.

"A Literary Dinner"

"A Literary Dinner" (152) is, as a whole, a sort of commentary. It opens with an invitation from a certain Dr. James's wife to the narrator to eat her husband. Knowing Nabokov's habit of creating puzzles in his writing, one can immediately make astute observations: the doctor is an educated, well-traveled man--the narrator finds this out when he "consumes" the doctor and relives his travels ("I ate--and in Egypt the sunsets were swell;/ The Russians were doing remarkably well"). It appears, though, that the doctor has trouble remembering who he met on these travels, and a few lines later, the narrator clues us in that "[the wife's] hobby was People, [the doctor's] hobby was Life," suggesting that the doctor's wife was more well-versed in social manners, while the doctor was best at observing the physical setting. The brain is said to be "nut-flavored" and "crisp," suggesting the narrator enjoys eating it; this organ, of course, is the one which has processed the bulk of the doctor's travels and is likely flavored very well with culture, figuratively speaking. The heart, however, "resembled a shiny brown date"--that is, it looks like a big raisin. This suggests that the heart has not been properly prepared and has simply shriveled up. The narrator does not seem to eat the heart, and he "stowed all the studs on the edge of [his] plate"--suggesting that there are other hard or metal components of the doctor's body which he does not eat.

The poorly prepared heart could suggest several things--that the doctor did not utilize it properly during his waking life; that it was overworked but not sincerely; that doctors simply do not possess the sort of passion that could properly "cook" a heart; what Nabokov means by this metaphor is not entirely clear, but the suggestion that the brain is well-used and the heart is not is there.

What strikes me as Nabokovian of this poem is the characters' focus on aesthetics and appearances--the doctor has read the "great book of the week," has travelled to many places and seems to appear "cultured"; the wife, in turn, is trying to preserve good manners while asking the narrator to devour her husband ("her face making room/for one of those pink introductory smiles"). As far as Lolita goes, this preservation and pumping up of image reflects, for me, the preoccupation with proper behavior in Charlotte, as well as Humbert's failure to maintain his image as a father figure. The (presumably) American preoccupation with being "cultured" and "European" (or just "eastern" in general) reminds me of the American fascination with Humbert as a foreigner in Lolita, as well. Finally, there is a blanketing feeling of needing to see through the obscenity and (in the poem's case) unreality of pseudo-cannibalism to discover the deeper commentary in the poetry--while in Lolita the reader must see through the tale of a child molester to garner any further understanding of the text as a piece of literature.

Nabokov's Game of Morality

"Humbert Humbert continually forces us to maintain a double perspective by calling on us to pass moral and legal judgment upon him as a man and aesthetic judgment upon him as an artist" (Winston, 421). Mathew Winston has a good point--readers are stuck in this dual position for the duration of Lolita, and it can be easy as human beings, empathetic and vulnerable as we are, to lose the dividing line between child molester and lover, often feeling some sort of remorse for the sad end of Humbert's love-game. By using Winston's central idea, that the criminal and writer share similar minds (421), one understands the constant confusion their morals experience when reading Humbert's actions. It can be said that Nabokov is seeking to draw our attention to these similarities, though why that draw is made is hard to set in stone. One can easily say that Humbert recites the past in a literary way because both writer and criminal share the same emotional drives, but it seems that Nabokov has made Humbert more conscious of his recitation than the normal lunatic. In rewriting the events that comprise Lolita, Humbert seeks to evoke certain emotions in us which trigger empathy, in turn drawing attention to the semantics of morality; what we view as "right" and "wrong" and why exactly we view it that way.

Cartoony Hum: The Road to Lolita + In Search of Aesthetic Bliss

In reading "The Road to Lolita, or the Americanization of an Emigre," there is much talk of the trite in relation to the novel--comic books and comic book culture being a large part of both the novel's world (or setting) and the world which influenced Nabokov's writing. Though the article makes it clear that Nabokov favors the word over the image, and he is not a fan of photojournalism, there is a similarity between his manipulative style of fiction and the manipulative art of comic book writing. There seems to be a much closer work-to-author relation in Nabokov's style of "puzzle-fiction"; the literary work which has an acute awareness of its manipulative abilities and plays them to the fullest extent. The comic book plays hard on the reader's perception, as well, making use of the art of images, the art of words, and the art of references. I think in a way that Lolita itself could be seen as adapted from a comic strip: it is full of cliches, pop culture references, odd characters who would be visually very unique if cartooned. Nabokov not only utilizes pop culture as a crutch for the book's world--it seems he has taken much influence from the world of pop culture which he "loathes." In many ways, Humbert's justifications play on comic book imagery, as well--they are cartoonish in their dramatic tendencies and their cliches, and they seem to be made to appeal to a large, "common" audience who would likely read the Sunday "funnies."

Just as comics create a constant awareness of the author's authorial manipulation, as written in "In Search of Aesthetic Bliss," "Nabokov forces his reader to be aware at all times of Nabokov shaping and manipulating and mocking his characters, and his reader." The comic utilizes frames, the gutter (the space between frames), and exaggerated and cartoonish illustrations all to mar the reader's perception of the story itself. Similarly, Humbert uses the Foreword by "John Jay Jr.," Humbert's constant intrusion in his account, and the drama of his language to sway the reader's perceptions and morals into a particular vein of thinking.

Another interesting point in "In Search..." actually comes from Appel: "[Humbert's] desire to find fantasy in reality and his perseverance in the face of insurmountable obstacles is so insistent that, despite the fact..." (this sentence seems to be cut off, unfortunately). However, the sentiment here is that Humbert is gaining the reader's empathy through his cartoonish longing and sincerity. His blind perseverance and his search for something "real," despite constant reminders that he is losing ground on his fantasies, gives the reader and thus the "jurors" in his case an empathetic feeling which comes from his cartoon-like stubbornness.

The Last Grasps of Empathy for H.H.

As Lolita continues to become a character of her own, there are subtle signs and obvious occurrences which signal Humbert’s losing her, both mentally and physically, that aid in establishing justification for his actions. In the beginning of chapter 18, when Humbert describes his  “hallucinations,” he attempts to blame their occurrence on outside interference—“I do not know what she or he, or both had put into my liquor but one night I felt sure somebody was tapping on the door of our cabin”—shying away from his own overwhelming paranoia. Humbert’s mere mention of someone fooling with him gives the reader some sense of empathy towards Hum, whose poor planning and blind love leave him feeling infringed upon by the outside world; one which seems constantly out to get him, and surely the common reader can relate to his feeling—if not criminally, emotionally.  Even though he is deserving of the stress, and obviously destined to lose his Lolita rightly, the reader feels empathy for the man that is losing his grip on his love.

Again, in the nature overwhelming feelings, the empathetic reader truly feels the heartbreak in the scene where Humbert consoles Lolita to come back with him, away from Dick Schiller, to live with him for the rest of her life, and her simple reply is, “No, honey, no.” This scene may be the only one in the entire novel where the reader feels blind sadness right alongside Humbert, as he “[breaks] into the hottest tears [he] had ever shed.” When Humbert, in the wake of Lo’s answer, only notices that “She had never called [him] honey before” (279), the reader truly understands his maniacal blindness, his pure infatuation and the utmost dwellings of his passion. Though he is a child molesting cynic riddled with lunacy, the universal sentiments of heartbreak soften the blows of his crimes and have the reader reconsidering really how poor his initial intentions for Lolita were.

Touching upon the final section—the hunt and final execution of Clare Quilty—we are again visited by obvious signs of Humbert’s mental deterioration. When venturing to Grimm Road to find  and kill Quilty, Humbert describes the day: “…the sun was visible again, burning like a man, and the birds screamed in the drenched and streaming trees.” This memory exudes a severe sense of delusion; one which, if the account works as fodder for the jury, could easily help sway them into believing Humbert’s actions were performed on account of insanity rather than pure, malevolent hatred. He also matter-of-factly informs the reader that “[he] had overdone the alcoholic stimulation business” (293), further backing the sentiment of mental impairment which flows through this scene and those following where, with trust Chum, Humbert will chase Quilty around his house trying to finish him. He goes on, on the following page, describing his attempts to avoid any unfortunate accident in his quest for murder: “Consequently, for at least five minutes I went about—lucidly insane, crazily calm, an enchanted and very tight hunter—turning whatever keys in whatever locks there were and pocketing them with my free left hand” (294). Humbert describes himself as crazy, a lunatic—and his actions here certainly exemplify those self-assigned adjectives. So, as readers and as “jurors,” we are certainly in the position to question: Was Humbert really acting in all capacities of his right mind at the time of the murder? This leaves room for doubt and, in turn, room for justification.

Humbert, You Dog: 7 Canine Appearances in Lolita

--Dogs play some part in Humbert's psyche, as he remembers them from his childhood: "I grew, a happy, healthy child in a bright world of illustrated books, clean sand, orange trees, friendly dogs, sea vistas and smiling faces" (10).
--The limousine driver carting Humbert to Charlotte's house nearly runs over a dog: "Speaking of sharp turns: we almost ran over a meddlesome suburban dog (one of those who lie in wait for cars) as we swerved into Lawn Street" (36).
--When Humbert tells Lo to "Take it easy": "(Down, poor beast, down.) Also, though the reference is not obviously canine, I think it is worth mentioning in light of the first near-roadkill experience: "Presently, making a sizzling sound with her lips, she started complaining of pains, said she could not sit, said I had torn something inside her. The sweat rolled down my neck, and we almost ran over some little animal or other that was crossing the road with tail erect" (141).
--Humbert refers to himself as "nature's faithful hound" (135).
--Humbert does once refer to Lo as a "little bitch"--"She would be, figuratively speaking, wagging her tiny tail, her whole behind in fact as little bitches do" (164).
--Immediately after, Humbert's description of Lo sitting in his lap rings a canine bell--"I liked the cool feel of armchair leather against my massive nakedness as I held her in my lap" (165).
--Humbert complains when Lolita plays with a dog, not him--ironically after considering the last quote--"There she was playing with a damned dog, not me" (236).

Like the dead, the dogs are abundant in Lolita and seem to be a pertinent theme to touch upon; in what depth, I am not sure, though it may be smart to pay attention to the way Humbert illustrates himself and Lo as dogs most often, but not too many other (if any) people.