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.