Lolita Rewritten: Lolita Sees H.H. for the last time.

The doorbell rang, the dog barking in the distance and the cool September wind climbing through the window. I sat, my stomach tiny and full, wringing my hands for a moment before I decided that it was time to open the door. Humbert Humbert. My H.H. would be standing at the other side, sweaty and nervous, broad and older than ever. I looked barely pregnant, the bump in my stomach developed but small, like the ones you sometimes saw in magazines. Except, he wouldn’t see me that way. He’d see my hips, no longer in a straight line, curving my outline, and he’d be disgusted. My stomach would be protruding from me. I’d be larger than life in his eyes, no longer a girl, and he would no longer love me. Did I want him to love me? He had ruined me. 

I’d been so tired when I had written him. Tired from the pregnancy, tired from the barking dog and barking husband, tired. Richard saved me and taught me what it was like to really be loved, but we can’t pay for life with love. The funds were fading fast, draining itself almost over night, and the first person I thought of was the man who had taken care of me, and hurt me, and escaped from me. So, I grabbed my pen and I began to write. 

I opened the door and my Humbert Humbert, H.H. (was he ever mine?), stood at the door looking exactly like I’d left him. Except he had lost the glow that had once radiated from his skin like october sun, he had lost his stardust and was tarnished. Humbert Humbert had turned to rust. He was sweating, his eyes large, and he seemed so small. He looked at me as if he was to embrace me, but I turned away. My hand grasped my stomach, feeling a kick, and I knew that the last thing I could ever want was for him to touch me again. He wouldn’t be touching just me, not anymore, and just the thought of that was terrifying. 

 "We--e--ell!" I exhaled, fear feigned as wonder and welcome. 

"Husband at home?" he croaked, his fist in his pocket. He was looking behind me, searching for Richard as if he was hiding behind a corner with gun in hand. 

“Come in!” I said, flattening myself against the wall on tiptoe so Humbert could pass. I could not let him touch me. 

He studied my home with silent disdain, the sweat pooling at his temples, and I regretted inviting him in the moment his large, blundering feet creaked against my wooden floors. 

“Think about the money, Dolly,” I thought to myself. It occurred to me then that he would soon call me Lolita. 

My slippers skidded against the floor and I stood in the middle of the room, nervous and sick, my baby so still I was almost afraid that I had lost him.

“Richard is downstairs,” I said, and Humbert stared at me as if I’d just told him an unfairly funny dirty joke. 

“That’s not the fellow I want,” he said, his eyes familiar to the eyes that had lusted after me until I escaped them both.

“Not who?" I said

      "Where is he? Quick!" I wanted him to leave right then and there. I had to keep reminding myself about the money. I just needed his money so I could never need him again. 

"Look," I said, inclining my head to one side, shaking it and suddenly feeling so cold. "Look, you are not going to bring that up."

"I certainly am,"  he said, and looked as if he had found himself in the flashback of a memory. Except I would never be his. I was never his. He could not possess me anymore. 

The minutes flew by, and I answered his questions about Richard and about Cue as the numbness I had begun to known so well swept over me. It crept upon me the way it had once did when someone touched me and, I hoped, it was creeping upon me for the last time. 

H.H. kept asking me, sweating through his shirt, about the days after I had escaped him. I felt tears burning my eyes, a lump in my throat at the thought of everything that I had done to untangle myself from his grasp. I felt my baby kick, he was so strong and growing and I could not bear to have him hear even a whisper of the filth that sat like stagnant smoke in my past. I expressed this to Humbert, oh poor Humbert, and he nodded. 

I could no longer feel a thing, the numbness had flooded me so quickly, and I stood on two feet staring at this man that I had adored and feared for so long, and suddenly, felt nothing for him at all. The terror was gone. The adoration was gone. All that had once been slipped between us and out the window with the wind.

"Lolita," he said, and it was not until he spoke that I realized I had been holding my breath, "this may be neither here nor there but I have to say it. Life is very short. From here to that old car you know so well there is a stretch of twenty, twenty-five paces. It is a very short walk. Make those twenty-five steps. Now. Right now. Come just as you are. And we shall live happily ever after."

I stared at him blankly, my heart falling to the floor.

"You mean," I said, opening my eyes and again flattening myself against the wal "you mean you will give us that money only if I go with you to a motel. Is that what you mean?" I felt a kind of nausea I had never felt before.

"No," he said, "you got it all wrong. I want you to leave your incidental Dick, and this awful hole, and come to live with me, and die with me, and everything with me.” 

He kept calling Richard Dick and was shaking violently in his boots, his hair matted from so much sweat. 

"You're crazy," I said, rocking back and forth, hand on stomach.

"Think it over, Lolita. There are no strings attached. Except, perhaps--well, no matter." He wanted to say something more. I’m glad he didn’t. 

"Anyway, if you refuse you will still get your . . . trousseau."

"No kidding?" I asked. I felt elated and the numbness slipped away, along with everything else. 

He handed me this rather envelope, four hundred dollars in cash tucked inside, wrapped around a check for three thousand six hundred more. My heart was racing and now I was the one to sweat.

"You mean," I said, agony mixed with elation in my voice, "you are giving us four thousand bucks?" 

Humbert Humbert, H.H. (he was never mine), the man who had once been so strong, stood in front of me with his head cradling in his hands, weeping all the tears I had always been too numb to weep. I had told myself I would not touch him, yet, I found myself reaching towards him and lightly pressing my hand on his wrist. He felt cold and harsh, the rusted golden boy shriveling at my touch.

"I'll die if you touch me," he said, moving back from me as if I had burnt him. "You are sure you are not coming with me? Is there no hope of your coming? Tell me only this."

"No," I said said. "No, honey, no." 

And I meant it.

I had never called him honey before. 

The Refrigerator Awakes

       Upon reading The Refrigerator Awakes, written by Nabokov in 1942 and published in the New Yorker shortly after, the first thing that came to mind was a twinge of jealousy at the fact that–surprise– not only is Nabokov an excellent novelist but a poet as well. Jealousy aside, I had to read this poem a few times to really understand it– though I'm still not quite sure I really know what it means. However, after analyzing Lolita so throughly, I confidently found a dozen or so similarities in themes and language. First, we see an unknown speaker in this poem that reminded me of H.H. in the way that whoever they are, they are confident and speak eloquently. This speaker often uses alliteration and alludes to poets like Poe– much like Humbert Humbert does in Lolita.  The most striking H.H. allusion, I think, is in the first stanza that reads:

Crash!

And if darkness could sound, it would sound like this giant

waking up in the torture house, trying to die

and not dying, and trying

not to cry and immediately crying

that he will, that he will, that he will do his best

to adjust his dark soul to the pressing request

of the only true frost,

and he pants and he gasps and he rasps and he wheezes:

ice is the solid form when the water freezes;

a volatile liquid (see "Refrigerating")

Here, we are presented with a metaphor of darkness as a blundering giant that attempts to die, but cannot, and attempts to not cry, but cannot. He is sniveling, raspy, and wheezing– and no matter how hard he tries to achieve something, he is nothing but darkness, nothing but a dark soul and a monster. This reminds me of H.H. in that both this metaphorical giant and this fictional pedophile attempt (and fail) to keep their composure and no matter how hard they try, they are left with nothing but darkness. 
The rest of the poem, though, leaves any remnants of H.H. out, and the focus turns to the language. Though I am still trying to weed out exactly what this poem means, I can see that one must pay close attention to the language. I mean, it's hard not to. Sometimes in poetry, the language takes a back seat, but one has to be reminded that they are reading Nabokov....and that Nabokov never lets language do anything but sit behind the wheel. We get this image of darkness as a blundering, sobbing giant, of a refrigerator awakening, and in just these fifteen or so lines, a million different images are thrown at us all at once. It's a bit overwhelming. Nabokov uses phrases like " Nova Zembla, poor thing, with that B in her bonnet/ stunned bees in the bonnets of cars on hot road" and "Keep it Kold, says a poster in passing, and lo,/loads," that present to use a massive use of wordplay. Zembla has a B in her bonnet and stunned bees are in the bonnets of cars on hot roads. He uses "Kold" instead of "cold". Even if you have no idea what it means, it sticks out on the page like a sore thumb and provokes some sense of unexplainable emotion. Just that alone is an example of Nabokovian writing. Language is his most important weapon. 
Almost just like H.H. says, "you can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style." Here we are, presented again with this fancy prose and with sniveling giants and "starry-eyed couples in dream kitchenettes". Not to say that Nabokov is a murderer, obviously, but his protagonists and  poetic speakers are completely self aware of the language they're using. 
Another big theme that I can see in both Lolita and Nabokov's poetry, is this obstruction of reality and a  fantasy-like feel. This poem is enchanting and magical, there is a sense of mystic brought to us by Nabokov's use of the words "starry-eyed", giants, "stunned bees", and a man preserved in blue ice with his bride. it all reads like it came from a fairytale yet, like Lolita, nothing is really what it seems. It begins with darkness and ends with criminal night. Just like Humbert without his Lolita, just like Life. Nabokov yet again creates some sense of superimposed immortality. 

Crash!

And if darkness could sound, it would sound like this giant

waking up in the torture house, trying to die

and not dying, and trying

not to cry and immediately crying

that he will, that he will, that he will do his best

to adjust his dark soul to the pressing request

of the only true frost,

and he pants and he gasps and he rasps and he wheezes:

ice is the solid form when the water freezes;

a volatile liquid (see "Refrigerating")

is permitted to pass into evaporating

coils,

where it boils

which somehow seems wrong

and I wonder how long

it will rumble and shudder and crackle and pound

Scudder, the Alpinist, slipped and was found

half a century later preserved in blue ice

with his bride and two guides and a dead edelweiss;

a German has proved that the snowflakes we see

are the germ cells of stars and the sea life to be;

hold

the line, hold the line, lest its tale be untold

let it amble along through the thumping pain

and horror of dichlordisomethingmethane,

a trembling white heart with the frost froth upon it,

Nova Zembla, poor thing, with that B in her bonnet

stunned bees in the bonnets of cars on hot roads

Keep it Kold, says a poster in passing, and lo, 

loads,

of bright fruit, and a ham, and some chocolate cream, 

and there bottles of milk, all contained in the gleam

of that wide-open white

god, the pride and delight

of starry-eyed couples in dream kitchenettes,

and it groans and it drones and it toils and it sweats

Shackleton, pemmican, pegnuin, Poe's Pym--

collapsing at last in the criminal

night.

Literary Reviews and Lolita

In both the lit review "Lolita and The Dangers of Fiction" and "In Search of Aesthetic Bliss", both authors explore the idea of the imaginary world of Humbert Humbert. Roth, the author of "In Search of Aesthetic Bliss", discusses Nabokov's view of time, or lack there of. He says, in his autobiography Speak, Memory, "I don't believe in time." Though it can be hard at times to remember that Nabokov is, in fact, the creator of Humbert Humbert and that he is not as real as he can sometimes seem to be, it helps to understand that Nabokov has a hazy idea of time–which can explain H.H.'s distorted narrative and view of his experiences with Lolita.

Roth explains that, "In Lolita, Humbert attempts to create and superimpose upon 'reality'
a world of his own making to his own taste." So, therefore, Roth is attempting to explain that Humbert makes up his own reality in order to make himself seem like a more like-able creature rather than the emotionally disturbed, sardonic pedophile he really is. With Nabokov as the ghost writer behind Humbert Humbert, and H.H.'s superimposed reality, the entire story becomes fragments of false starts and hazy beginnings. Winston, the author of "Lolita and The Dangers of Fiction", says: "We are made into Humbert's judge and jury and are accordingly
addressed as 'your honor' and as 'ladies and gentlemen of the jury,' for
Humbert presents his legal and moral case to us.8 Beyond that, we are also
'the astute reader' (p. 274) who is called upon to appreciate Humbert's
artistry". So, Humbert imposes himself upon his readers in order to attempt to make them see him in the way he sees himself. His reality is completely distorted and he wants ours to be, too.

Another example of this distorted, superimposed reality, Roth touches on H.H.'s unwillingness to see that the resemblance between Quilty and him are uncanny, at least to Lolita. There is a literal arrow pointing to a picture of Quilty in Lolit's bedroom with scrawling cursive that reads "H.H." Whether this entire scene is even true in the first place is up for arguement, however the fact that H.H. deems himself more attractive than Quilty and the resemblance slight is an overt, extreme example of how madly H.H.'s view of reality is off. What else about this superimposed reality can be found in the text? This is something I wish to explore in further posts.

Gaming the Fiction

       The discussion on Tuesday really spoke to me in that I had never really sat down to think of Lolita as a game. However, upon further inspection, the entire novel consists of little matches that ultimately add up to the winning point– the end of the game, the climax if you will. The first match begins with Annabelle and the final match ends with the death of Quilty, and there are, of course, the rest of the matches in between. The "game" with Annabelle is arguably the only true game of lust- a young Humbert is in love with a girl of his age and they are constantly craving consummation. Of course, there is the idea that Annabelle may not have existed, but for the sake of this argument, she did. Their game is the adolescents vs. society, and ultimately they lose. They are defeated by the boys making fun of them as they attempt to ravage each other on the beach and they are defeated, finally, by Annabelle's sickness that leads to her death.
     The second game is Humbert's game of attempting to assimilate in to society. It is Humbert vs Humbert. He knows his unique carnal needs are wrong– so he tries to marry a woman like a normal man would do, and he chooses a woman who seems a bit childlike. However, Humbert is ultimately defeated by Valeria, because she is not the woman he thinks she is, and she leaves him because his urges have bubbled to the surface. The beginning of the novel is not really filled with triumphs for HH.
     When Humbert moves to Ramsdale, the matches and their outcomes begin to switch. The moment Humbert sets his eyes on Lolita, a new match begins. This is the hunter vs. his prey. The enchanter vs. the enchantress. In order obtain closeness to Lolita, Humbert begins the game of seduction– but not of Lolita but of her mother, Charlotte. Charlotte falls in love with Humbert, and Humbert convinces her to marry him. It is Humbert vs. Charlotte in his pursuit of Lolita, and just as he feels as if he is about to lose yet another match, Charlotte is struck by a car and Lolita is finally his. He has won! Or, he's won this match at least.
    The rest of the novels entirety is a game between Lolita and Humbert. First, Humbert must continuously keep Lolita entertained so that he can continue having the violent sex with Lo in which he has become addicted. Humbert must keep her happy, and this is a game that he is constantly losing. And then, there is the game against time. Lolita is not getting any younger, and neither is Lolita, so Humbert must consistently race time in order to keep his precious nymphet a precious nymphet while he can.
    The ultimate game, though, is Lolita's attempt to escape Humbert. This is a game that Humbert is not fully aware– or at least, pretends to not be in awareness. Lolita is not happy, her mother dies, and as Humbert says himself, she has nowhere else to go. Lolita ultimately wins this match, and flees with Quilty to rid herself of her life with her dear Hummy.
    Finally, Humbert spends his time searching for Lolita, and upon finding her, pregnant and in need of money, he tries to convince her to come with him. Of course she does not go, and the last of the novel is the match that all the other matches have been leading up to all along: Humbert Humbert vs. Tom Quilty. Humbert tracks him down, and kills him. Though Humbert lands himself in jail, he feels as if he has won and sits down to write this novel before his untimely death. Did Humbert ultimately win? That decision is up for the reader to decide and ultimately becomes a game of its own.

Topic: Memory

     I really want to dive more into the subject of the reliability of Humbert's memory. The more I read, the more I become suspicious as a reader. Humbert claims to remember verbatim journal entries and letters and conversations, but he can't remember what someone looked like or the details of a place. When he begins to recant his journey with Lo across America, he'll describe little places or the gestures of Lo throughout his experiences with her, but he'll completely forget where they went one day.

    For example, he describes a town as "pregnant with inky rain" (152) and then says, "I have a clear frank account of the itenerary we followed" (153) but then goes on to say, "I am afraid I did not keep any notes" (154). If he didn't keep any notes, it seems almost impossible that he could make such a largely outlandish statement that he remembers everything about their journey. Like I mentioned in my last post, the way Lolita talks is also under question.

Throughout the rest of the novel, I want to find passages that seem unreliable and compare them to ones that are in fact very believable and try to come to a conclusion about whether or not I, as a reader, believe Humbert, the fictional writer.

Humbert and Memory

      I've consistently been suspicious of H.H.'s memory since first beginning Lolita, and now that the novel has progressed and is reaching the climax of the story, my suspicions have gotten worse. The first thing that makes me suspicious is Humbert's use of dialogue between him and his darling Lo. The conversations are so vivid, and so detailed, with constant detail about her gestures and facial expressions. However, the reader must continuously remember that this is a framed novel and that Humbert is supposed to be recounting this story from jail. He claims to have a photogenic memory, which is fine, but this outlandish statement is what makes me, the reader, believe that Humbert is not reliable.
     The way Lolita speaks to Humbert, or at least the way Humbert remembers it, is very odd and changes often. One moment, she speaks to him the way a twelve year old would speak to someone and the next, she is speaking like a 20th century novelist. Plus, there are so many similarities with the way she speaks and the way Humbert writes. For example, there is one moment on page 113 where Lo comments on the encounter with the traffic officer. She says, "'Bad, bad girl," said Lo comfortably. 'Juvenile delickwent, but frank and fetching. That light was red. I've never seen such driving.'" Lo says "delickwent" instead of delinquent which is to suggest she cannot pronounce the word, a very childlike and believable suggestion. However, she then goes on to say "frank" and "fetching" and says "I've never seen such driving" which completely gives her a sense of maturity that pronouncing "delickwent" does not suggest. Therefore, this makes me wonder how reliable Humbert's version of the story really can be. Is he just forgetting certain conversations and adding in fillers because he wants the jury to forgive him of his sins? Or, is this story completely false? It seems as if Humbert is leaving it up to the reader to decide.

Humbert Humbert's Journal

          H.H's Journal entries, that he does not actually possess when he is "writing" Lolita in jail, are very curious. He claims to remember them verbatim, which makes me, the reader, suspicious about this sudden outstanding memory. If Humbert can remember his journal entries that he wrote long ago word for word, why is it, then, that he cannot remember certain details and certain moments of his past?

       Humbert's journal entries mirror his overall style. However, the journals seem more complex and metaphoric than the rest of the novel. It is almost more rant-y than the rest of Humbert's writing, and he tends to write in third person half the time. H.H. will go on personal rants about his beloved Lolita, interjecting moments of elation that had not been included before. This, in my opinion, is where the book reaches a sort of climax, because this is where we really see the beloved Lo come alive. We see her vividly and we see her move and breathe and live for the first time. This is, arguably, the moment that Lolita actually becomes a character rather than a passive fairytale, which may be the reason Nabokov incorporated these journal entries into the narrative of Humbert Humbert in the first place. However, it still brings in to question the reliability of his memory. Suddenly, any moment in which H.H. can't "recall" something becomes an elaborate lie to trick the reader. Yet, it could also be another way for Humbert Humbert to clarify how powerful his love for Lolita is.

H.H.'s journal entries mark a pivotal moment in Lolita, because it is the first moment that Humbert not only shows weakness, but true passion and vendetta for his beloved nymphet.

Unreliable Memory

The passage on page fifteen about Humbert Humbert's time as a young man reads as follows, and, to me, is extremely intriguing:

   "The days of my youth, as I look back on them, seem to fly away from me

in a flurry of pale repetitive scraps like those morning snow storms of used

tissue paper that a train passenger sees whirling in the wake of the

observation car. In my sanitary relations with women I was practical,

ironical and brisk. While a college student, in London and Paris, paid

ladies sufficed me. My studies were meticulous and intense, although not

particularly fruitful. At first, I planned to take a degree in psychiatry

and many manquè talents do; but I was even more manquè than

that; a peculiar exhaustion, I am so oppressed, doctor, set in; and I

switched to English literature, where so many frustrated poets end as

pipe-smoking teachers in tweeds. Paris suited me. I discussed Soviet movies

with expatriates. I sat with uranists in the Deux Magots. I published

tortuous essays in obscure journals."

The beginning of this short paragraph struck me the most, because H.H. notes that the days of his youth "fly away" from him. This makes me wonder about the reliability of his memory. The days of his youth come to him like a blur, but yet, he can recite verbatim the journal entries that were written during the early days of his time with Lolita. It's arguable that maybe H.H is trying to make a point that his life without Lolita was banal and unworthy of remembering, but even still he can remember with vivid imagery his Annabel and the time with his "wretched" first wife whom he did not love at all. Just the first sentence of the above paragraph raises some suspicion about his memory. It's almost as if, by saying he remembers vividly anything that happened with Lolita, he is justifying everything that he did. Because he cannot remember everything before. Because his memory has been blinded by love. In this passage, Humber then goes on to explain that he switched to English literature and wrote "tortuous essay's" as if to paint a picture of his youth without really having to talk about it. His life without an Annabel, and then without Lolita, is nothing but discussing Soviet movies and sitting with uranists in the Deux Magots. It makes me wonder whether there is any reliability in his memory other than to recount things in order to justify everything that happened afterwards. 

The Enchanter

      Reading the Enchanter as a predecessor to Lolita was quite the interesting experience. Because I've read Lolita once before, I couldn't help but marvel at how much the story changed from this novella to its more mature novel. I couldn't help but be incredibly surprised at how much active voice can triumph over passive voice in this instance, especially when pertaining to this kind of perverse topic. I mean, both versions of the story deal with a hemophiliac, which is uncomfortable in it's own right, but I'd like to argue that the Enchanter far trumps Lolita in its perversity and overall creepiness. When I read Lolita a few years ago, though appalled by Humbert Humbert's actions, I found myself enticed by the language and active voice of the protagonist. However, though The Enchanter was still full of luxurious prose, I found myself not enticed but incredibly repelled and appalled. The actions of this underdeveloped, unnamed protagonist suddenly doubled in perversity and doubled in being extremely uncharismatic and monstrous. All the charm and wit and charisma of Humbert Humbert had not yet arrived to Nabokov, and this is something that is made quite obvious to the reader. Needless to say, if Nabokov had stopped the story here, one could argue (and will argue) that it would not be the literary classic it is today but instead, a perverse, perverted piece of literature read only for the purpose of making readers squirm. And squirm I did. I've never felt so uncomfortable reading anything in my entire life.

Which brings me to the molestation scene. I can't remember vividly how it went in Lolita, but I definitely don't think that version made the impression this scene did on me.

  "Finally making up his mind, he gently stroked her long, just slightly parted, faintly sticky legs, which grew cooler and a little coarser on the way down, and progressively warmer farther up. He recalled, with a furious sense of triumph, the roller skates, the sun, the chestnut trees, everything– while he kept stroking with his fingertips, trembling and casting sidelong looks at the plump promontory, with it's brand-new downiness, which, independently but with a familial parallel, embodied a concentrated echo of something about her lips and cheeks" (71).

    This passage alone is enough to make anyone feel uncomfortable, though it is just the beginning and could be defined as tame compared to the rest of the scene– especially once one realizes that they are not reading a scene from a horrible Harlequin romance novel but in fact what is beginning to become a sexual encounter with a pre-pubescent girl. There is no doubt that is is well written, and there is no doubt that Nabokov is trying to make his reader uncomfortable. And he succeeds. He succeeds in ways I'm sure he did not think possible. This scene, in my opinion, was the reason he scrapped this novella and went on to write Lolita. Because, though Lolita crosses the boundaries of social norms, this scene pushes those boundaries too far.
     

Response #1

Hello, I am completely aware how late this post is and you can begin your persecution for such lateness now. I completely forgot about it. But, better late than never, right?

Anyway, Nabokov's personality excerpt from Strong Opinions comes off as a bit crass and as if he is trying extremely hard to answer all of his questions without actually answering them. It seems that in fact, yes, his personality as a writer is almost a completely different distinction from his personality as a person. Nabokov as a writer is meticulous with an eye for beautiful prose while Nabokov as a regular human being seems a bit introverted and egotistical. He wished to be perceived as a mystery to an outside world, and this interview catalogued that perfectly. However, his literary values are shown to be so intense as if they were their own religion and so meticulous. Even half of his interview answers were written and, most likely, erased and rewritten several times. What struck me most about this interview– and, also, what made me laugh about it– was Nabokov's complete deterrence to directly answering any questions. He was constantly going on and on, bringing the interviewer in circles. Also, he is constantly trying to define himself as an individual. When asked who his literary idols are, he responds that he doesn't in fact look up to anyone, and again goes on about individuality.
Very strange. But very unique all the while.

It is evident from these readings that Nabokov has a passion for literature that is continuously ignited, and his well worded, beautifully written interview answers are there solely to prove it.