WEBVTT 00:02.029 --> 00:04.749 Professor Amy Hungerford: Today it is my 00:04.752 --> 00:07.582 very great privilege and pleasure to introduce Andrew 00:07.584 --> 00:09.494 Goldstone, a TF in this course. 00:09.490 --> 00:14.390 Andrew is going to provide for you today the only relief you 00:14.388 --> 00:18.288 will get all term from my voice, so enjoy it! 00:18.290 --> 00:22.260 On the syllabus it says that I would be presenting a lecture on 00:22.263 --> 00:23.933 censorship in this slot. 00:23.930 --> 00:24.810 Andrew Goldstone: That's been suppressed, 00:24.809 --> 00:25.739 actually.Professor Amy Hungerford: It's been 00:25.741 --> 00:27.061 suppressed. That's right. 00:27.060 --> 00:32.820 So, I will talk about censorship somewhat in my last 00:32.821 --> 00:37.591 lecture on Lolita, and in preparation for 00:37.586 --> 00:41.456 that, for next week I'd like you to finish the novel and then 00:41.458 --> 00:44.048 read his essay, "On a Novel Entitled 00:44.054 --> 00:48.434 Lolita." It should be bound at the back of your book. 00:48.430 --> 00:50.880 Andrew is a fourth-year student in the Ph.D. 00:50.880 --> 00:53.310 program in English, and he is writing a 00:53.305 --> 00:57.125 dissertation on the autonomy of the work of art in modernism: 00:57.134 --> 01:00.694 on that as a problem, on that as a subject to be 01:00.689 --> 01:05.209 questioned and understood in a deeper way than it has been up 01:05.210 --> 01:07.710 until now. It's a wonderful dissertation. 01:07.709 --> 01:10.709 It prepares him very well for the lecture he's going to give 01:10.709 --> 01:12.669 you today. So: Andrew.Andrew 01:12.667 --> 01:14.237 Goldstone: Thanks, Amy. 01:14.239 --> 01:18.149 So, on Monday we had three main themes that were used to 01:18.154 --> 01:20.294 introduce this novel to you. 01:20.290 --> 01:24.150 First is the idea that the novel invites ethical questions 01:24.153 --> 01:28.293 but also holds them off through parody in the same way that it 01:28.287 --> 01:32.347 uses the tropes of romanticism and romantic love and parodies 01:32.354 --> 01:34.554 them. Secondly, we looked at 01:34.547 --> 01:38.167 Humbert's techniques of rhetorical seduction and related 01:38.166 --> 01:41.786 that to a kind of intellectual problem that Nabokov sets 01:41.785 --> 01:45.595 himself of trying to make you identify with this villainous 01:45.601 --> 01:48.311 character. And that leads to the third big 01:48.313 --> 01:50.933 question we looked at, which is the place of Nabokov 01:50.934 --> 01:52.994 in this novel amidst the many layers, 01:52.989 --> 01:55.289 whether he crosses them or confuses them. 01:55.290 --> 01:58.800 And that's the question that I'm mostly going to focus on 01:58.798 --> 02:00.738 today. I'm going to bracket the 02:00.742 --> 02:03.152 ethical question, leave that for Monday's 02:03.145 --> 02:06.685 lecture, and the way I want to approach this question of the 02:06.690 --> 02:10.050 style in the novel and the question of aestheticism is by 02:10.054 --> 02:13.664 placing Nabokov in the context of literary modernism. 02:13.659 --> 02:17.339 So, I'm going to outline for you a little bit what I mean by 02:17.335 --> 02:20.635 that term, and then I'm going to look at some specific 02:20.637 --> 02:23.127 predecessors that Nabokov refers to, 02:23.130 --> 02:24.850 and the way he uses them. 02:24.849 --> 02:28.959 And then, at the very end, I'm going to try to connect 02:28.961 --> 02:32.841 that to Nabokov's exile and the themes of exile. 02:32.840 --> 02:36.260 So, let's start with an example. 02:36.259 --> 02:40.569 If you look on page 15, Humbert describes his 02:40.570 --> 02:43.510 adolescence, his education: 02:43.510 --> 02:47.460 02:47.460 --> 02:51.630 At first I planned to take a degree in psychiatry as 02:55.650 --> 02:58.310 than that; a peculiar exhaustion--I am so 02:58.313 --> 03:01.773 oppressed, doctor--set in, and I switched to English 03:01.770 --> 03:04.570 literature, where so many frustrated poets 03:04.567 --> 03:07.027 end as pipe-smoking teachers in tweeds. 03:07.030 --> 03:09.840 [Well, that's why I'm in graduate school!] 03:09.837 --> 03:12.617 Paris suited me. I discussed Soviet movies with 03:12.618 --> 03:15.088 expatriates. I sat with uranists in the Deux 03:15.094 --> 03:17.194 Magots. I published tortuous essays in 03:17.185 --> 03:18.155 obscure journals. 03:18.159 --> 03:21.429 I composed pastiches: [Humbert's poem]: 03:21.425 --> 03:25.975 "Fraulein von Kulp may turn her hand upon the door. 03:25.980 --> 03:27.660 / I will not follow her. 03:27.660 --> 03:31.880 / Nor Fresca. / Nor / that Gull." 03:31.879 --> 03:34.269 So, this is a spoof of a poem by T.S. 03:34.267 --> 03:37.777 Eliot which I've given you a piece of on your handout, 03:37.783 --> 03:40.373 so let's look at that for a second, 03:40.370 --> 03:43.720 Eliot's 1920 poem, Gerontion. I'm just 03:43.717 --> 03:47.967 going to read a little bit of this so that you have the flavor 03:47.971 --> 03:51.181 of the thing that Nabokov is burlesquing: 03:51.180 --> 03:54.580 Here I am, an old man in a dry month, 03:54.580 --> 03:57.760 Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain. 03:57.759 --> 04:01.339 I was neither at the hot gatesNor fought in the warm 04:01.340 --> 04:04.530 rainNor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a 04:04.530 --> 04:07.200 cutlass, Bitten by flies, fought. 04:07.199 --> 04:09.279 My house is a decayed house. 04:09.280 --> 04:12.080 And the poem goes on, and this is the tone of a poem. 04:12.080 --> 04:15.530 It's a poem of crisis, a poem of a kind of hollow 04:15.527 --> 04:18.757 speaker, someone who emerges as, more or less, 04:18.759 --> 04:21.879 buried alive. And this is supposed to reflect 04:21.884 --> 04:24.714 both personal crisis and a historical crisis. 04:24.709 --> 04:30.359 And it comes to a moment where the possibility of rejuvenation 04:30.357 --> 04:35.257 is described as devoured by a series of caricatures of 04:35.263 --> 04:38.483 Europeans, and that's this second part on 04:38.482 --> 04:40.722 your handout, the people that devour 04:40.724 --> 04:43.544 rejuvenation. So: By Hakagawa, 04:43.542 --> 04:47.142 bowing among the Titians; By Madame de Tornquist, 04:47.142 --> 04:49.852 in the dark roomShifting the candles; 04:53.281 --> 04:54.941 hall, one hand on the door. 04:54.940 --> 04:56.790 Vacant shuttlesWeave the wind. 04:56.790 --> 05:00.510 I have no ghosts, An old man in a draughty 05:00.511 --> 05:03.571 houseUnder a windy knob. 05:03.569 --> 05:09.799 What in Eliot is crisis, in Nabokov is just a joke. 05:09.800 --> 05:12.550 In other words, these terrifying figures in 05:12.545 --> 05:16.725 Eliot--Fraulein von Kulp--are just some of Humbert's nymphets. 05:16.730 --> 05:18.400 A fraulein is just a young woman; 05:18.399 --> 05:21.409 Fresca, another Eliot character: the fresh woman, 05:21.410 --> 05:23.230 right, a young woman again. 05:23.230 --> 05:26.090 So, I called this a burlesque of Eliot's modernism. 05:26.089 --> 05:29.729 It takes something meant to be really serious, 05:29.729 --> 05:32.479 and turns it in to a dirty joke. 05:32.480 --> 05:36.130 And that's the first way Nabokov will relate to literary 05:36.132 --> 05:38.652 modernism. That's quite interesting, 05:38.651 --> 05:41.861 that he takes this approach, because Eliot in some ways 05:41.858 --> 05:45.358 comes very close to the kind of ideas about art that Nabokov 05:45.361 --> 05:48.681 himself holds. Eliot says poems should be 05:48.682 --> 05:51.362 autotelic. That means they should be an 05:51.358 --> 05:52.668 end unto themselves. 05:52.670 --> 05:56.240 Nabokov will say in that afterword you're going to read, 05:56.242 --> 05:59.692 "the novel has as its only purpose to afford aesthetic 05:59.685 --> 06:02.265 bliss." So, the parody is of something 06:02.266 --> 06:03.506 very close to home. 06:03.509 --> 06:08.989 And this poem that I've given you will come back on page 134. 06:08.990 --> 06:11.560 You don't have to turn to that now, but you should think about 06:11.560 --> 06:15.020 that return. It's much more serious and 06:15.022 --> 06:16.682 strange. Okay. 06:16.680 --> 06:18.390 So that's enough on Eliot. 06:18.389 --> 06:21.889 Now I want to really clarify for you what I mean by 06:21.893 --> 06:23.453 this term "modernism." 06:23.449 --> 06:26.509 It just means the art and literature of the early 06:26.511 --> 06:29.511 twentieth century, especially the "high art," 06:29.509 --> 06:31.779 although its roots are definitely in the nineteenth 06:31.779 --> 06:34.139 century, especially the French nineteenth century, 06:34.140 --> 06:35.570 fiction and poetry. 06:35.569 --> 06:40.649 In English it begins with the late novels of Henry James 06:40.648 --> 06:45.818 around 1900, in poetry with Eliot and with Ezra Pound. 06:45.819 --> 06:51.309 In prose its main exemplars in English would be James Joyce, 06:51.308 --> 06:54.578 Virginia Woolf. And you should know about this 06:54.584 --> 06:56.904 movement that it had very rapid success. 06:56.899 --> 06:59.639 So, although its first centers are London and Paris, 06:59.642 --> 07:02.442 it's already taught as classic literature in American 07:02.439 --> 07:06.329 universities before the war; it's already classic. 07:06.329 --> 07:08.639 So, now, here's just a list for you: 07:08.642 --> 07:12.082 eight features of literary modernism that are all important 07:12.080 --> 07:14.890 to Nabokov. Eight features of literary 07:14.893 --> 07:19.113 modernism: An obsession with the idea of art's autonomy, 07:19.110 --> 07:22.170 the idea that art is its own law, that it responds to no 07:22.167 --> 07:25.777 other laws, that it has no other purpose than its own purposes. 07:25.779 --> 07:28.119 In other words, art for art's sake. 07:28.120 --> 07:30.320 That's Eliot's autotelic poem. 07:30.319 --> 07:34.689 The only purpose of the work of art is to afford aesthetic 07:34.687 --> 07:37.127 bliss. Second, a sense of crisis, 07:37.133 --> 07:41.153 a radical break in culture, an overturning of conventional 07:41.154 --> 07:45.464 artistic forms that goes with a sense that civilization itself 07:45.456 --> 07:47.216 is being overturned. 07:47.220 --> 07:51.200 Third, the idea that the paradigm of experience is 07:51.203 --> 07:55.023 artistic experience, that the norms for everyone 07:55.024 --> 07:59.174 should be artistic norms of careful perception, 07:59.170 --> 08:02.280 deep reflection, that the idea that culture 08:02.283 --> 08:05.923 itself is the saving, most important activity that 08:05.916 --> 08:07.766 people can engage in. 08:07.769 --> 08:10.629 Fourth--and this goes along with that--a rejection of 08:10.632 --> 08:13.002 convention, especially sexual convention, 08:13.000 --> 08:15.130 sexual morality, and that's the obvious 08:15.128 --> 08:17.708 connection to this book, the very deep roots of 08:17.705 --> 08:19.805 modernism. However, at the same time 08:19.813 --> 08:22.833 there's an idea that the artist is a kind of technician, 08:22.829 --> 08:26.869 someone whose values are craft, form and style rather than 08:26.871 --> 08:30.631 message, personal expression or wisdom of any kind. 08:30.629 --> 08:34.499 Sixth, this is a term from the critic Joseph Frank: 08:34.498 --> 08:37.588 spatial form, the idea that in place of a 08:37.593 --> 08:42.003 linear narrative you have a system of cross-references and 08:42.004 --> 08:46.264 repeated motifs that give the structure of works. 08:46.259 --> 08:50.399 In place that is only visible, in other words on rereading, 08:50.400 --> 08:52.400 only visible on rereading. 08:52.399 --> 08:54.849 And then, this anticipates my last 08:54.847 --> 08:58.417 points: Modernism is self-consciously international. 08:58.419 --> 09:01.179 In other words, it will look to international 09:01.184 --> 09:04.454 tradition and has as its ambition to be a culture not 09:04.452 --> 09:07.722 just for one nation but for many, maybe for all. 09:07.720 --> 09:11.830 It goes along with this eighth characteristic that's important: 09:11.827 --> 09:15.137 the artist is seen as a kind of spiritual exile, 09:15.139 --> 09:18.479 someone who is alienated from a home society and a home culture, 09:18.477 --> 09:21.017 whether or not he or she has actually left it, 09:21.020 --> 09:24.910 as Nabokov did. So this is what I mean by 09:24.906 --> 09:26.686 International High Modernism. 09:26.690 --> 09:30.740 You should add to this list of writers especially Faulkner and 09:30.743 --> 09:34.533 Hemingway, and you should remember that there's a parallel 09:34.531 --> 09:37.811 American tradition, the realist tradition that we 09:37.809 --> 09:41.369 saw Richard Wright referring to: that is Theodore Dreiser, 09:41.370 --> 09:43.660 Sinclair Lewis, and then going back to the 09:43.660 --> 09:46.230 nineteenth century, writers like Mark Twain. 09:46.230 --> 09:50.290 I had a teacher who used to compare Lolita to Huck 09:50.292 --> 09:52.422 Finn. They are two novels about 09:52.424 --> 09:55.454 traveling across America and an unconventional couple. 09:55.450 --> 10:00.450 Right? So, anyway. 10:00.450 --> 10:03.230 Okay. But now, that modernist 10:03.228 --> 10:05.668 tradition is something that Nabokov owes a lot to, 10:05.674 --> 10:08.374 but he always tries to distinguish himself from it. 10:08.370 --> 10:10.210 For Nabokov, the highest value is 10:10.206 --> 10:12.626 originality. He says this in his last 10:12.629 --> 10:14.789 Russian novel, The Gift. 10:14.790 --> 10:18.040 Or, he doesn't say it; his autobiographical hero says 10:18.042 --> 10:21.942 it: "Any genuinely new trend in art is a knight's move, 10:21.936 --> 10:25.246 a change of shadows, a shift that displaces the 10:25.252 --> 10:26.532 mirror." Okay. 10:26.534 --> 10:29.574 Any genuinely new trend is a knight's move. 10:29.570 --> 10:32.780 I just remind you, in chess the knight doesn't 10:32.777 --> 10:34.627 move in a straight line. 10:34.629 --> 10:38.019 It starts out in a straight line and then it hops off on a 10:38.024 --> 10:40.224 diagonal. Unlike any other piece, 10:40.220 --> 10:42.430 it skips over pieces in the way. 10:42.429 --> 10:44.799 So the knight, far from going on a straight 10:44.803 --> 10:46.163 course, surprises you. 10:46.159 --> 10:49.289 You might think of walking in here expecting Professor 10:49.293 --> 10:52.253 Hungerford on censorship and getting me instead. 10:52.250 --> 10:55.930 But this is a very important idea for Nabokov both as a way 10:55.932 --> 10:59.172 of treating predecessors and as a way of writing. 10:59.169 --> 11:03.429 And I want to show you that way of writing very early in the 11:03.431 --> 11:05.021 book on page 10 now. 11:05.020 --> 11:06.060 Let's take a look at that. 11:06.060 --> 11:13.160 11:13.160 --> 11:18.840 This is at the top of the page: My very photogenic mother 11:18.838 --> 11:22.828 died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was 11:22.825 --> 11:24.705 three, and, save for a pocket of 11:24.714 --> 11:27.514 warmth in the darkest past, nothing of her subsists within 11:27.505 --> 11:30.825 the hollows and dells of memory, over which, if you can still 11:30.830 --> 11:33.650 stand my style (I am writing under observation), 11:33.649 --> 11:36.789 the sun of my infancy had set: 11:36.789 --> 11:38.589 Okay. So this is a knight's move: 11:38.590 --> 11:41.740 from traumatic event of the mother's death--should be the 11:41.740 --> 11:45.140 center of the sentence; it's just dismissed--hopped 11:45.142 --> 11:48.492 beyond into this stylistic wash, a golden haze. 11:48.490 --> 11:52.220 And he goes on to describe the sensations of early childhood. 11:52.220 --> 11:56.020 So, the strategy of the knight's move is to frustrate 11:56.021 --> 11:59.311 your expectations, to leap over the apparently 11:59.311 --> 12:03.841 important events into something else characterized by a kind of 12:03.844 --> 12:06.674 aesthetic play, and these parentheses are a 12:06.671 --> 12:07.581 real icon of that. 12:07.580 --> 12:10.900 A critic has counted 450 sets of them in this novel, 12:10.904 --> 12:13.714 the parentheses, an important example of the 12:13.706 --> 12:16.216 knight's move. And I want to show you 12:16.215 --> 12:19.135 another kind of knight's move, and to do that I'm going to 12:19.144 --> 12:22.074 talk just for a moment about Nabokov's relationship to the 12:22.072 --> 12:23.462 French writer, Proust. 12:23.460 --> 12:27.930 Proust is the great aestheticist of modernism, 12:27.932 --> 12:31.512 the novelist who writes about art, 12:31.509 --> 12:35.089 who holds up art as a value, as well as giving a theory of 12:35.089 --> 12:38.229 memory--memories are important in Lolita; 12:38.230 --> 12:41.570 that really comes from Proust--a theory of memory that 12:41.565 --> 12:44.455 has a lot to do with the work of the artist. 12:44.460 --> 12:48.450 Nabokov, in 1966 he said this: "The greatest masterpieces of 12:48.450 --> 12:51.630 twentieth-century prose"--this is convenient; 12:51.629 --> 12:53.849 take this down--"are, in this order: 12:53.846 --> 12:55.746 Joyce's Ulysses, Kafka's 12:55.745 --> 12:58.145 Transformation"--that is, The 12:58.151 --> 13:00.181 Metamorphosis--"Bely's St. 13:00.178 --> 13:03.468 Petersburg," a pretty obscure Russian avant-garde 13:03.470 --> 13:07.270 novel, "and the first half of Proust's fairy tale, 13:07.269 --> 13:11.039 In Search of Lost Time." I'm not sure the fairy tale 13:11.038 --> 13:14.808 should remind you of that first meeting between Humbert and 13:14.806 --> 13:17.336 Lolita that we looked at on Monday, 13:17.340 --> 13:19.420 described in fairy tale terms. 13:19.419 --> 13:21.719 But actually, the thing I want to think about 13:21.715 --> 13:23.745 is a crude pun there, a "fairy" tale. 13:23.750 --> 13:26.940 Proust is himself gay. 13:26.940 --> 13:29.500 One of his big subjects is homosexuality, 13:29.501 --> 13:32.961 and Nabokov's reaction to this is really homophobic. 13:32.960 --> 13:36.890 This is not just about Nabokov's personal prejudice. 13:36.889 --> 13:41.839 It's about a relationship to predecessors who are seen as too 13:41.844 --> 13:43.724 similar. The danger for 13:43.723 --> 13:47.293 Nabokov--remember that his value is originality--the danger is 13:47.294 --> 13:51.104 that he will fall too in love with something too like himself. 13:51.100 --> 13:54.370 He has to hold off this possibility of being too 13:54.365 --> 13:58.185 attracted to these male predecessors who are too similar 13:58.185 --> 14:00.745 to him. This should cue you to think 14:00.748 --> 14:04.598 about the theme of doubling in this novel, to think about the 14:04.602 --> 14:07.302 possibility of desire between men here, 14:07.299 --> 14:10.629 to think about the word "queer," the treatment of Gaston 14:10.631 --> 14:13.661 Godin, that funny French character in Beardsley, 14:13.659 --> 14:17.469 to think about Humbert's constant protestations that he's 14:17.470 --> 14:21.640 attractive to all women, about his supposed virility. 14:21.639 --> 14:28.879 And it should just make you wonder whether pedophilia is in 14:28.879 --> 14:35.369 itself a kind of knight's move from homosexuality. 14:35.370 --> 14:37.840 In other words, is there another form of 14:37.840 --> 14:41.830 perverted desire hiding behind the one that's in front of us? 14:41.830 --> 14:47.020 Just a suggestion: look on page 20, 14:47.023 --> 14:54.663 still in Humbert's early life, near the bottom: 14:54.659 --> 14:57.959 It happened for instance that from my balcony I would 14:57.957 --> 15:01.417 notice a lighted window across the street and what looked like 15:01.424 --> 15:04.554 a nymphet in the act of undressing before a co-operative 15:04.551 --> 15:06.181 mirror. Thus isolated, 15:06.182 --> 15:08.412 thus removed, the vision acquired an 15:08.412 --> 15:12.432 especially keen charm that made me race with all speed toward my 15:12.428 --> 15:15.818 lone gratification. So, we have a kind of image 15:15.818 --> 15:18.118 there of the autonomous aesthetic pleasure, 15:18.117 --> 15:20.077 right, the pleasure of imagination 15:20.075 --> 15:22.785 that's taken alone, according to one's own thoughts 15:22.787 --> 15:26.137 rather than in some broader, more social form. 15:26.139 --> 15:29.429 But abruptly, fiendishly, the tender pattern 15:29.434 --> 15:33.604 of nudity I had adored would be transformed into the disgusting 15:33.603 --> 15:37.443 lamp-lit bare arm of a man in his underclothes reading his 15:37.436 --> 15:40.256 paper by the open window in the hot, 15:40.259 --> 15:44.159 damp, hopeless summer night. 15:44.159 --> 15:48.569 So, the object of this wonderful aesthetic reverie, 15:48.570 --> 15:52.540 the nymphet, turns out to be an adult male. 15:52.539 --> 15:56.959 And I just want you to ask yourself why that could be. 15:56.960 --> 16:00.590 But, Nabokov's relationship to this modernist past is not 16:00.588 --> 16:03.308 just the burlesque that he visits on Eliot, 16:03.309 --> 16:06.319 is not just this complicated attraction and 16:06.318 --> 16:09.898 dis-identification that he works on with Proust. 16:09.899 --> 16:13.299 An element of admiration is also present, 16:13.304 --> 16:17.904 and that's really part of his relationship to Joyce. 16:17.899 --> 16:21.949 Remember that he names Joyce as the greatest master of 16:21.952 --> 16:23.942 twentieth-century prose. 16:23.940 --> 16:28.120 I'm just going to name for you four features of Joyce's style 16:28.115 --> 16:31.655 that are important to Nabokov: stylistic virtuosity, 16:31.664 --> 16:34.244 the ability to imitate any style; 16:34.240 --> 16:37.250 at the same time, a scrupulous attention to the 16:37.247 --> 16:40.317 banality of everyday life and all its detail; 16:40.320 --> 16:45.060 yet, the third characteristic, the constant use of a 16:45.064 --> 16:47.394 superimposed structure. 16:47.389 --> 16:50.049 So, in Ulysses, famously, Joyce puts the 16:50.054 --> 16:53.534 narrative of the Odyssey on top of a day in Dublin, 16:53.529 --> 16:57.599 or in Joyce's earlier novel, A Portrait of the Artist as 16:57.601 --> 17:01.461 a Young Man, a linear narrative in which a young boy 17:01.461 --> 17:04.901 grows up is structured as a series of structurally 17:04.900 --> 17:08.970 paralleled chapters in which moments in each one correspond 17:08.971 --> 17:11.991 to the ones in successive chapters. 17:11.990 --> 17:16.780 And this comes with a kind of suggestion that that banal 17:16.783 --> 17:20.883 reality is redeemed by the artist's activity. 17:20.880 --> 17:23.180 Fourthly, Joyce loves puns. 17:23.180 --> 17:25.890 So does Nabokov. This is incredibly important, 17:25.894 --> 17:29.224 and there's a direct glance at that just ahead of where you 17:29.223 --> 17:30.833 read, so don't turn here. 17:30.829 --> 17:35.289 I don't want to spoil what's coming up, but on page 221 there 17:35.290 --> 17:40.410 is a reference to--don't look, don't look--to a writer named 17:40.406 --> 17:44.366 Vivian Darkbloom plagiarizing from Joyce; 17:44.369 --> 17:46.349 Vivian Darkbloom you remember from Monday. 17:46.349 --> 17:50.309 That's the anagram of Vladimir Nabokov, so it's an explicit 17:50.305 --> 17:52.515 recognition. And the thing that's being 17:52.517 --> 17:55.077 plagiarized, I've actually given you on the handout. 17:55.079 --> 17:58.199 It's a little piece of Finnegans Wake, 17:58.202 --> 18:02.462 which is Joyce's work in which almost every word is a pun. 18:02.460 --> 18:06.830 I'll just read you a sentence of this so you know what it's 18:06.831 --> 18:10.601 like: "Say them all but tell them apart, cadenzando 18:10.599 --> 18:13.759 coloratura! R is Rubretta and A is Arancia, 18:13.761 --> 18:16.121 Y is for Yilla and N for greeneriN. 18:16.119 --> 18:19.769 B is Boyblue with odalisque O while W waters the fleurettes of 18:19.772 --> 18:21.812 no-vembrance." And that spells out "rainbow." 18:21.810 --> 18:25.440 Right. The important thing here is 18:25.436 --> 18:29.576 that Nabokov acknowledges this debt to Joyce as not just a 18:29.584 --> 18:31.554 parody, but a real debt. 18:31.549 --> 18:35.889 And so now I want to think at more length about another Joyce 18:35.893 --> 18:39.883 allusion which shows how complicated the relationship to 18:39.875 --> 18:41.535 his predecessor is. 18:41.539 --> 18:45.199 And, with Eliot, I read the Nabokovian version 18:45.199 --> 18:47.129 first. This time I'll give you the 18:47.125 --> 18:50.075 Joyce first. So this is on your handout as 18:50.083 --> 18:51.783 well from Chapter 2. 18:51.780 --> 18:57.490 18:57.490 --> 19:02.100 This describes the hero, Stephen Dedalus, 19:02.099 --> 19:06.709 as a young boy trying to write a poem. 19:06.710 --> 19:11.990 And eventually in the novel he will succeed in writing a poem, 19:11.990 --> 19:14.760 but here he doesn't manage to. 19:14.759 --> 19:19.079 And so, this is a kind of forecast of what will happen 19:19.082 --> 19:21.792 later on. The further complication is 19:21.788 --> 19:25.868 that here he's writing a poem and then he remembers an earlier 19:25.873 --> 19:28.503 attempt; that layering of memory, 19:28.495 --> 19:32.965 and that kind of layering, is actually a prototype for the 19:32.973 --> 19:38.723 layering in Lolita: The next day he sat at 19:38.722 --> 19:44.662 his table in the bare upper room for many hours. 19:44.660 --> 19:49.690 Before him lay a new pen, a new bottle of ink and a new 19:49.690 --> 19:51.460 emerald exercise. 19:51.460 --> 19:53.540 [Skip a little.] On the first line of the page 19:53.536 --> 19:56.076 appeared the title of the verses he was trying to write: 19:56.075 --> 19:58.365 "To E-- C--." He knew it was right to begin 19:58.370 --> 20:01.390 so for he had seen similar titles in the collected poems of 20:01.390 --> 20:03.410 Lord Byron. When he had written this title 20:03.413 --> 20:05.743 and drawn an ornamental line underneath, he fell into a 20:05.741 --> 20:08.071 daydream and began to draw diagrams on the cover of the 20:08.068 --> 20:10.148 book. He saw himself sitting at his 20:10.153 --> 20:13.693 table in Bray the morning after the discussion at the Christmas 20:13.687 --> 20:16.247 dinner table, trying to write a poem about 20:16.253 --> 20:19.503 Parnell on the back of one of his father's second moiety 20:19.500 --> 20:21.980 notices. But his brain had then refused 20:21.976 --> 20:25.566 to grapple with the theme and, desisting, he had covered the 20:25.567 --> 20:28.607 page with the names and addresses of certain of his 20:28.610 --> 20:32.150 classmates: Roderick Kickham, John Lawton, 20:32.152 --> 20:37.062 Anthony MacSweeney, Simon Moonan. 20:37.059 --> 20:41.179 The version of this that comes up in the novel is in the midst 20:41.180 --> 20:43.880 of Humbert's diary, and the diary itself, 20:43.882 --> 20:46.452 I should say, owes a lot to Joyce. 20:46.450 --> 20:50.100 And I've given you a piece of that diary to look at on your 20:50.098 --> 20:51.418 own on the handout. 20:51.420 --> 20:54.110 But this is the moment that directly alludes to 20:54.114 --> 20:57.454 Portrait, and it's really very important for 20:57.453 --> 20:59.683 understanding Nabokov's technique. 20:59.680 --> 21:02.610 So, page 51, near the bottom: 21:02.606 --> 21:06.786 Thursday: We are paying with hail and 21:06.788 --> 21:11.908 gale for the tropical beginning of the month. 21:11.910 --> 21:14.670 In a volume of the Young People's Encyclopedia I 21:14.674 --> 21:17.644 found a map of the States that a child's pencil had started 21:17.643 --> 21:20.103 copying out on a sheet of lightweight paper, 21:20.099 --> 21:23.089 upon the other side of which, counter to the unfinished 21:23.094 --> 21:26.684 outline of Florida and the Gulf, there was a mimeographed list 21:26.681 --> 21:29.561 of names referring, evidently, to her class at the 21:29.555 --> 21:32.145 Ramsdale School. And I think of that front 21:32.147 --> 21:34.947 and back of the page as another kind of knight's move. 21:34.950 --> 21:37.250 You think you're looking at one thing, and you land on another. 21:37.250 --> 21:40.680 It is a poem I know already by heart: Angel, 21:40.684 --> 21:42.764 Grace Austin, Floyd Beal, 21:42.758 --> 21:44.438 JackBeal, MaryBuck, 21:44.443 --> 21:46.743 Daniel… [and so on; 21:46.740 --> 21:48.460 I'll come back to this list, actually; 21:48.460 --> 21:51.180 just skip to the bottom on page 52] 21:51.176 --> 21:54.286 Talbot, EdgarTalbot, EdwinWayne, 21:54.292 --> 21:57.212 Lull,--[a lull in the book, right?] 21:57.205 --> 21:59.315 Williams, Ralph Windmuller, 21:59.318 --> 22:01.678 Louise A poem, a poem forsooth! 22:01.680 --> 22:05.460 So strange and sweet was it to discover this Haze Dolores: 22:05.464 --> 22:09.124 she, in its special bower of names with its bodyguard of 22:09.116 --> 22:12.026 roses, a fairy princess between her 22:12.025 --> 22:15.465 two maids of honor. That's the fairy tale again. 22:15.470 --> 22:19.690 In a way this is just like the Joyce. 22:19.690 --> 22:24.260 A list of names leads up to this aesthetic sensation, 22:24.258 --> 22:26.628 the revelation of a poem. 22:26.630 --> 22:31.700 The ordinary materials of life become the basis for a kind of 22:31.697 --> 22:33.637 artistic achievement. 22:33.640 --> 22:36.370 However, obviously this is not like the Joyce, 22:36.371 --> 22:39.831 where there is a realistic depiction of a young boy trying 22:39.831 --> 22:42.261 to write, getting bored and failing. 22:42.259 --> 22:46.139 Here something else is happening, because the list of 22:46.139 --> 22:47.929 names is not ordinary. 22:47.930 --> 22:50.120 Right. There is that bower of roses. 22:50.119 --> 22:53.289 That refers to Mary Rose Hamilton; 22:53.290 --> 22:56.370 Haze, Dolores; Hanek, Rosaline. 22:56.369 --> 23:02.109 And then there's Emile Rosado and Carmine Rose--a red 23:02.105 --> 23:07.395 rose--Angel, Grace-- really!--Stella Fantasia. 23:07.400 --> 23:10.670 And then even the ordinary names are kind of plants, 23:10.672 --> 23:14.392 because almost every name on this list comes back elsewhere 23:14.393 --> 23:16.523 in the book. You could look, 23:16.518 --> 23:19.668 for example, for Louise Windmuller or Vivian 23:19.667 --> 23:22.067 McCrystal. And then, right in the middle 23:22.069 --> 23:23.919 (oh, and then we have Shakespeare too: 23:23.920 --> 23:27.450 Miranda Anthony, Miranda Viola) and right in the 23:27.452 --> 23:31.202 middle you have a kind of explanation planted: 23:31.200 --> 23:33.390 McCoo, Virginia; 23:33.390 --> 23:38.450 McCrystal, Vivian; McFate Aubrey. 23:38.450 --> 23:42.720 McFate, which as you know is something Humbert gets kind 23:42.719 --> 23:46.049 of obsessed with, is the icon of the difference 23:46.048 --> 23:49.738 between the realistic world of Joyce and the already 23:49.739 --> 23:53.109 artificial, already aestheticized world of 23:53.105 --> 23:55.555 this novel. No one was ever really named 23:55.562 --> 23:59.592 McFate. McFate is a kind of parody of 23:59.588 --> 24:03.498 real randomness. You might think of it as having 24:03.502 --> 24:06.792 the same relation to real fate as Chicken McNuggets do to 24:06.793 --> 24:08.773 chicken. In other words, 24:08.773 --> 24:12.773 you might think of it as a kind of artificial, 24:12.772 --> 24:16.772 processed, bland, easily consumable version of 24:16.771 --> 24:18.831 fate. I really mean that. 24:18.829 --> 24:22.099 One of the funny things about that debt to Finnegans Wake 24:22.096 --> 24:25.636 is, Finnegans Wake as a book of puns is unreadable. 24:25.640 --> 24:28.310 Nobody reads it except specialists like me. 24:28.310 --> 24:30.190 Lolita was a bestseller. 24:30.190 --> 24:34.360 Nabokov made so much money from it he was able to retire to 24:34.362 --> 24:36.892 Switzerland. And you should ask yourself 24:36.893 --> 24:39.323 what about this novel makes that possible; 24:39.319 --> 24:41.719 why is that, that you have this McNugget 24:41.719 --> 24:43.749 version of the modernist novel? 24:43.750 --> 24:47.010 And I don't really mean that to disparage the novel, 24:47.009 --> 24:50.649 but it makes it clear that there's some kind of difference 24:50.653 --> 24:54.683 between this and the works that Nabokov is looking back to. 24:54.680 --> 24:59.360 I want to think a little bit more about this idea of a 24:59.355 --> 25:02.755 McFate. There is a kind of short 25:02.756 --> 25:08.246 circuit between the Joycean idea of taking ordinary life and 25:08.247 --> 25:12.247 transforming it into an aesthetic order, 25:12.250 --> 25:16.120 because the ordinary is already aesthetic in the book. 25:16.119 --> 25:18.859 In other words, chance is already fated. 25:18.859 --> 25:21.529 The thing that stands for randomness in this book, 25:21.528 --> 25:23.758 the thing that looks like ordinary detail, 25:23.761 --> 25:27.031 has already been arranged to give you artistic pleasure. 25:27.029 --> 25:31.139 That's why Humbert can be instantly delighted in the list 25:31.142 --> 25:33.962 of names. This doesn't look forward to 25:33.960 --> 25:37.820 Humbert's poem; it already is a poem and it is 25:37.821 --> 25:42.071 a poem to the crazed, aroused mind of Humbert. 25:42.069 --> 25:45.989 So, the artificial has taken the place of the real here, 25:45.988 --> 25:50.048 and this novel really reminds you of that all the time. 25:50.049 --> 25:54.419 On 84, Humbert's thinking of killing Charlotte, 25:54.424 --> 25:58.134 and he says, "No man can bring about the 25:58.133 --> 26:02.433 perfect murder. Chance, however, can do it." 26:02.430 --> 26:04.820 Chance can do it, and of course the perfect 26:04.823 --> 26:06.023 murder does happen. 26:06.019 --> 26:09.289 Charlotte Haze dies as if by a total accident, 26:09.286 --> 26:13.206 but we're aware that the accident is so perfect that it 26:13.206 --> 26:15.456 was arranged. So, this is the, 26:15.458 --> 26:18.698 kind of, hand of Nabokov, taking a narrative of real 26:18.703 --> 26:22.333 events and twisting it into something that makes a kind of 26:22.330 --> 26:25.520 sense, taking fate and making it 26:25.522 --> 26:28.242 McFate. And I want to show you one 26:28.239 --> 26:31.499 more example of that, in the scene where Humbert and 26:31.501 --> 26:35.021 Lolita have reached the hotel, the Enchanted Hunter. 26:35.019 --> 26:43.949 This is on page 118 near the bottom. 26:43.950 --> 26:46.900 "In the slow, clear hand of crime, 26:46.898 --> 26:48.678 I wrote 'Dr. Edgar H. 26:48.684 --> 26:51.994 Humbert and daughter, 342 Lawn Street, 26:51.990 --> 26:56.270 Ramsdale.' A key, 342, was half shown to 26:56.266 --> 27:01.956 me, magician showing object he is about to palm and hand it 27:01.960 --> 27:04.120 over to Uncle Tom." 27:04.119 --> 27:06.239 The coincidence--normally, in real life, 27:06.235 --> 27:09.055 it would be a delightful coincidence to go to a hotel 27:09.055 --> 27:12.525 room that has the same number as your street address--here it's a 27:12.527 --> 27:15.777 kind of too-easy icon of the correspondence between the place 27:15.781 --> 27:19.471 where Humbert meets Lolita and the place where he rapes her. 27:19.470 --> 27:22.210 And the book just tells you that, right, in one of those 27:22.213 --> 27:25.013 parentheses--"the magician showing the object he is about 27:25.006 --> 27:27.946 to palm"-- the ordinary event which is really trickery, 27:27.950 --> 27:32.020 a suggestion that nothing has been left to chance in the 27:32.018 --> 27:37.068 novel; nothing is ordinary. 27:37.069 --> 27:40.989 Now, as I come to my last section here, 27:40.994 --> 27:46.604 what I want to suggest is that this kind of transformation of 27:46.601 --> 27:49.521 arbitrary, real fated events into 27:49.522 --> 27:53.772 conspicuously artificial tricks (which you might think of a 27:53.774 --> 27:56.344 knight's move on the real: fate; 27:56.339 --> 28:01.949 McFate) is a response in particular to exile, 28:01.954 --> 28:08.084 in particular to Nabokov's condition of exile. 28:08.079 --> 28:13.079 An exile, living in a foreign country, lives in a kind of 28:13.076 --> 28:15.896 denaturalized world, a world where, 28:15.897 --> 28:19.507 instead of everything making instant sense everything has to 28:19.513 --> 28:20.803 be decoded. Right. 28:20.799 --> 28:23.779 Nothing is initially known to make sense; 28:23.779 --> 28:26.489 everything has to be figured out and reinvented. 28:26.490 --> 28:30.420 In that afterword to this book, Nabokov says he had to invent 28:30.415 --> 28:33.625 America. That's because he didn't know 28:33.630 --> 28:36.630 it already; it wasn't given to him. 28:36.630 --> 28:39.360 Now, in a way this is a terrible state, 28:39.359 --> 28:43.309 a state of discontinuity with the world you exist in. 28:43.309 --> 28:47.199 But it has a payoff, kind of, a payoff which is the 28:47.203 --> 28:51.413 possibility precisely of inventing, and this is visible 28:51.409 --> 28:53.589 everywhere in this book. 28:53.589 --> 28:57.679 One example is the transformation of housework. 28:57.680 --> 29:00.160 This is on page 179. 29:00.160 --> 29:10.260 29:10.259 --> 29:13.379 "My west-door neighbor"--west door--"who might have been a 29:13.382 --> 29:15.302 businessman or a college teacher, 29:15.299 --> 29:19.329 or both, would speak to me once in a while as he barbered some 29:19.334 --> 29:21.984 late garden blooms or watered his car, 29:21.980 --> 29:25.450 or, at a later date, defrosted his driveway (I don't 29:25.446 --> 29:28.026 mind if these verbs are all wrong)." 29:28.029 --> 29:30.319 Of course, the point is that they're all wrong. 29:33.763 --> 29:36.483 mowing the lawn, washing the car and so on has 29:36.481 --> 29:39.321 been transformed--precisely because Humbert is a 29:39.320 --> 29:42.280 foreigner--into something you can laugh at, 29:42.279 --> 29:45.639 something you can enjoy, something that you can apply 29:45.635 --> 29:47.115 the knight's move to. 29:47.119 --> 29:49.219 And this is, even a couple pages before, 29:49.222 --> 29:51.702 explicitly described as something particular to 29:51.701 --> 29:53.711 foreigners. Because, you remember, 29:53.708 --> 29:56.918 Gaston Godin says about the school that Lolita's going to go 29:56.923 --> 29:59.063 to, the girls are taught "not to 29:59.061 --> 30:01.781 spell very well, but to smell very well." 30:01.779 --> 30:06.099 And Humbert comments that it's "with a foreigner's love for 30:06.102 --> 30:10.102 such things"; the foreigner's love for this 30:10.096 --> 30:16.046 kind of move is a response to this denaturalized world of the 30:16.047 --> 30:17.837 exile. It's important, 30:17.843 --> 30:20.133 in this connection, to remember that the knight's 30:20.125 --> 30:21.975 move as a way of avoiding obstacles, 30:21.980 --> 30:25.930 in particular, keeps skipping over forms of 30:25.926 --> 30:29.016 violence. There is that mother's death at 30:29.022 --> 30:31.792 the beginning. There is another moment in 30:31.788 --> 30:35.728 which Humbert is tracing his hand along Lolita's leg and he 30:35.731 --> 30:39.881 discovers a bruise there that he'd given her accidentally. 30:39.880 --> 30:41.250 That's early on in the book. 30:41.250 --> 30:43.630 In other words, this surprise is a violent 30:43.631 --> 30:45.941 surprise. You can even look at the 30:45.938 --> 30:48.788 mention of a knight's move in this book. 30:48.790 --> 30:50.060 That's page 192: 30:50.060 --> 30:57.490 30:57.490 --> 31:00.310 One of the latticed squares in a small cobwebby 31:00.306 --> 31:03.496 casement window at the turn of the staircase was glazed with 31:03.502 --> 31:06.282 ruby, and that raw wound among the 31:06.283 --> 31:10.543 unstained rectangles and its asymmetrical position--a 31:10.542 --> 31:14.882 knight's move from the top--always extremely disturbed 31:14.883 --> 31:17.333 me. The knight's move--which is 31:17.331 --> 31:19.841 just a playful way of describing where the window is, 31:19.836 --> 31:22.626 right-- the knight's move is nonetheless a kind of wound or 31:22.631 --> 31:25.161 damage. So, even as it's the prototype 31:25.163 --> 31:27.773 for originality, it's also something very 31:27.767 --> 31:29.457 disturbing and harmful. 31:29.460 --> 31:32.240 And that conjunction, I want to suggest, 31:32.239 --> 31:36.509 that conjunction has to do with the traumatic event of having 31:36.514 --> 31:40.014 had to emigrate, having had to take up another 31:40.014 --> 31:43.574 language. Nabokov will say that his 31:43.568 --> 31:47.768 private tragedy is that, let's see: 31:47.769 --> 31:49.759 [His] private tragedy, 31:49.756 --> 31:52.326 which cannot, and indeed should not, 31:52.330 --> 31:55.980 be anybody's concern, is that I had to abandon my 31:55.977 --> 31:57.917 natural idiom, my untrammeled, 31:57.918 --> 32:01.868 rich, and infinitely docile Russian tongue for a second-rate 32:01.868 --> 32:05.548 brand of English devoid of any of those apparatuses--the 32:05.550 --> 32:08.920 baffling mirror, the black velvet backdrop, 32:08.923 --> 32:12.873 the implied associations and traditions--which the native 32:12.872 --> 32:15.822 illusionist, the frac-tails flying, 32:15.817 --> 32:20.357 can magically use to transcend the heritage in his own 32:20.364 --> 32:23.834 way. Here, being in exile prevents 32:23.829 --> 32:27.069 Nabokov from making that knight's move. 32:27.069 --> 32:31.079 And you might think about that homophobic attitude to a 32:31.079 --> 32:34.199 Proustian past, the fear that it's too like 32:34.198 --> 32:35.978 what he wants to do. 32:35.980 --> 32:39.550 But the main point here to think about is that feeling of 32:39.546 --> 32:41.216 damage. On the other hand, 32:41.219 --> 32:44.759 the critic Michael Wood has pointed out that Nabokov didn't 32:44.762 --> 32:46.922 lose Russian. He didn't lose it on the way 32:46.917 --> 32:50.777 while he was riding the boat; he decided to stop writing in 32:50.781 --> 32:52.651 it. And Wood says this: 32:52.645 --> 32:56.915 "Nabokov could appreciate language itself only after he 32:56.924 --> 33:01.684 had made himself lose a language and had found another in the 33:01.678 --> 33:03.578 ashes of his loss." 33:03.579 --> 33:07.359 A kind of economy, a balance between the loss of 33:07.355 --> 33:12.175 one language and a particular set of techniques that comes in 33:12.175 --> 33:15.465 its place. These techniques are really 33:15.466 --> 33:19.866 I think the source of the most appealing writing in this book, 33:19.869 --> 33:24.049 and so let's look now at one of those evocations of the American 33:24.046 --> 33:27.886 landscape which I just think maybe are the closest the book 33:27.891 --> 33:29.881 comes just to pure beauty. 33:29.880 --> 33:33.330 On page 152--oh, and by the way, 33:33.325 --> 33:37.545 this book was written on road trips. 33:37.549 --> 33:40.309 Nabokov's wife, Vera, drove him on thousands of 33:40.306 --> 33:43.476 miles of trips around the country while he was writing 33:43.482 --> 33:45.822 this novel and hunting butterflies, 33:45.819 --> 33:52.219 so think about that--but here is 152, evocation of the 33:52.220 --> 33:55.930 landscape: By a paradox of pictorial 33:55.930 --> 33:59.940 thought, the average lowland North American countryside had 33:59.936 --> 34:03.866 at first seemed to me something I accepted with a shock of 34:03.872 --> 34:07.122 amused recognition, because of those painted oil 34:07.119 --> 34:10.529 cloths which were imported from America in the old days to be 34:10.526 --> 34:13.646 hung above washstands in central European nurseries, 34:13.650 --> 34:17.080 and which fascinated a drowsy child at bedtime with the rustic 34:17.083 --> 34:19.113 green views they depicted: opaque, 34:19.110 --> 34:21.310 curly trees, a barn, cattle, 34:21.307 --> 34:25.617 a brook, the dull white of vague orchards in bloom, 34:25.619 --> 34:28.029 and perhaps a stone fence, or hills of greenish 34:28.031 --> 34:30.381 gouache. So, so far the American 34:30.382 --> 34:34.392 landscape is already a work of art, already part of a European 34:34.392 --> 34:36.802 memory. Then something else happens: 34:36.804 --> 34:40.314 "But gradually the models of those elementary rusticities 34:40.314 --> 34:43.014 became stranger and stranger to the eye, 34:43.010 --> 34:44.790 the nearer I came to know them. 34:44.789 --> 34:47.419 Beyond the tilled plain"--in other words, the already 34:47.418 --> 34:50.298 worked-over, domesticated plain--"beyond the toy roofs, 34:50.300 --> 34:54.520 there would be a slow suffusion of inutile loveliness, 34:54.517 --> 34:57.937 a low sun in a platinum haze with a warm, 34:57.940 --> 35:01.070 peeled-peach tinge pervading the upper edge of a 35:01.065 --> 35:04.185 two-dimensional, dove-gray cloud fusing with the 35:04.190 --> 35:05.920 distant amorous mist." 35:05.920 --> 35:09.090 "Inutile loveliness" is kind of the key word of 35:09.087 --> 35:12.127 Nabokov's technique, and he says the novel has as 35:12.128 --> 35:15.168 its only purpose to provide aesthetic bliss. 35:15.170 --> 35:18.330 So, here is inutile loveliness coming just from seeing the 35:18.329 --> 35:19.769 landscape as a stranger. 35:19.770 --> 35:23.980 Humbert goes on: There might be a line of 35:23.979 --> 35:26.829 spaced trees silhouetted against the horizon, 35:26.829 --> 35:30.149 and hot, still noons above a wilderness of clover, 35:30.151 --> 35:33.811 and Claude Lorrain clouds inscribed remotely into misty 35:33.811 --> 35:37.671 azure with only their cumulus part conspicuous against the 35:37.674 --> 35:40.254 neutral swoon of the background. 35:40.250 --> 35:43.680 Or again, it might be a stern El Greco horizon, 35:43.675 --> 35:47.615 pregnant with inky rain, and a passing glimpse of some 35:47.622 --> 35:51.282 mummy-necked farmer, and all around alternating 35:51.282 --> 35:55.102 strips of quicksilverish water and harsh green corn, 35:55.099 --> 35:59.369 the whole arrangement opening like a fan, somewhere in 35:59.371 --> 36:02.481 Kansas. So, a European artist actually 36:02.478 --> 36:05.008 appears again there, with Claude Lorrain, 36:05.010 --> 36:08.170 but kind of made strange: given that knight's move, 36:08.174 --> 36:09.634 given a new twist. 36:09.630 --> 36:13.450 So--instead of familiar, incorporated into this 36:13.451 --> 36:17.021 profoundly strange, vast landscape that gets 36:17.023 --> 36:21.343 Humbert's most appealing rhetoric--the rhetoric of an 36:21.343 --> 36:24.403 exile. But, I don't want you to think 36:24.397 --> 36:27.137 that this just means everything's okay. 36:27.139 --> 36:28.739 Of course, everything is not okay. 36:28.740 --> 36:30.160 Even Humbert will tell us so. 36:30.159 --> 36:33.409 Just a few pages later, on page 175, 36:33.412 --> 36:36.202 he talks about his journey: 36:36.200 --> 36:41.330 36:41.330 --> 36:43.410 We had been everywhere. 36:43.410 --> 36:45.520 We had really seen nothing. 36:45.519 --> 36:50.159 And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had 36:50.159 --> 36:54.639 only defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, 36:54.639 --> 36:58.159 trustful, dreamy, enormous country that by then, 36:58.157 --> 37:00.997 in retrospect, was no more to us than a 37:01.000 --> 37:04.830 collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour-books, 37:04.832 --> 37:08.542 old tires, and her sobs in the night--every night, 37:08.541 --> 37:12.251 every night--the moment I feigned sleep. 37:12.250 --> 37:15.570 We have to pair that with that other evocation of the landscape 37:15.568 --> 37:19.168 to see this alternate idea, that actually this distanced 37:19.165 --> 37:22.885 criss-crossing of the landscape could be damaging. 37:22.889 --> 37:25.389 Think of those other violent knight's moves, 37:25.392 --> 37:27.722 like skipping past the mother's death. 37:27.719 --> 37:32.729 Somehow this is skipped past, that--the sobs in the night. 37:32.730 --> 37:35.470 There's another version, yet another version, 37:35.474 --> 37:39.034 that relates back to that funny figure of Gaston Godin. 37:39.030 --> 37:45.150 And I spoke about Proust; Gaston Godin has a picture of 37:45.150 --> 37:47.080 Proust on his wall, and in fact, 37:47.084 --> 37:49.894 he has pictures of all great figures of French 37:53.201 --> 37:55.451 figures of this kind of aestheticism, 37:55.448 --> 37:58.198 this belief in the power of art, and all gay, 37:58.195 --> 38:00.125 as Godin himself is. 38:00.130 --> 38:04.300 And Humbert has a kind of hatred for that, 38:04.299 --> 38:07.349 which he voices on page 173. 38:07.350 --> 38:08.270 Sorry, 183: 38:08.270 --> 38:12.850 38:12.849 --> 38:16.019 There he was, devoid of any talent 38:16.016 --> 38:20.396 whatsoever, a mediocre teacher, a worthless scholar, 38:20.400 --> 38:23.070 a glum, repulsive, fat, old invert, 38:23.071 --> 38:27.001 highly contemptuous of the American way of life, 38:27.000 --> 38:29.570 triumphantly ignorant of the English language. 38:29.570 --> 38:31.990 There he was, in priggish New England--[here 38:31.988 --> 38:33.958 are we!] crooned over by the old and 38:33.957 --> 38:37.907 caressed by the young, oh, having a grand time and 38:37.913 --> 38:41.703 fooling everybody, and here was I. 38:41.699 --> 38:46.319 And the contrast here is between someone who has remained 38:46.318 --> 38:49.978 tied to that European past, remained comfortably 38:49.983 --> 38:53.423 alienated--and by that very means been able to fit into 38:53.422 --> 38:57.692 society--with someone who is in a much more ambivalent position, 38:57.690 --> 39:00.740 someone who's trying to become an American writer, 39:00.743 --> 39:04.173 as Nabokov says he's doing: trying to invent America, 39:04.170 --> 39:07.330 trying to bridge the gap between Russian and English, 39:07.334 --> 39:11.234 but always finding that English is only a kind of second best. 39:11.230 --> 39:16.890 And in fact it's more than that: he translated Lolita 39:16.888 --> 39:23.368 back in to Russian later on, and he added a second afterword 39:23.370 --> 39:27.610 where he said this: That wondrous Russian 39:27.612 --> 39:31.552 tongue that, it seemed to me, was waiting for me somewhere, 39:31.550 --> 39:34.860 was flowering like a faithful springtime behind a tightly 39:34.860 --> 39:38.290 locked gate whose key I had held in safekeeping for so many 39:38.288 --> 39:41.258 years, proved to be nonexistent. 39:41.260 --> 39:45.130 And there is nothing behind the gate but charred stumps and a 39:45.125 --> 39:48.795 hopeless autumnal distance, and the key in my hand is more 39:48.797 --> 39:53.497 like a skeleton key. So, there's a kind of lost 39:53.503 --> 39:59.053 paradise of European culture which he can't get back, 39:59.050 --> 40:04.170 even with this spectacular effort in English. 40:04.170 --> 40:13.260 So, that suggests that it's not all to the good; 40:13.260 --> 40:17.040 it hasn't been saved by taking up these knight's move 40:17.039 --> 40:20.309 techniques, the defamiliarizing techniques; 40:20.309 --> 40:22.329 there's still a record of damage. 40:22.329 --> 40:25.849 And so, I'm going to end a little early, 40:25.853 --> 40:29.053 just throwing out an analogy for you. 40:29.050 --> 40:34.360 And it's an analogy that Nabokov himself tries to debunk 40:34.364 --> 40:37.364 completely in that afterword. 40:37.360 --> 40:40.950 So, you should be skeptical of it, but then you should also ask 40:40.946 --> 40:44.356 yourself whether you can really do completely without it. 40:44.360 --> 40:48.520 Might it be that Nabokov's own relationship to American 40:48.524 --> 40:52.844 culture, his relationship to the English language that he 40:52.843 --> 40:56.003 transforms, is like Humbert's relationship 40:56.004 --> 40:59.024 to Lolita; that is, might it be that it's 40:59.019 --> 41:02.669 a kind of kidnapping of an American innocent by a 41:02.668 --> 41:05.858 cosmopolitan European for his own ends, 41:05.860 --> 41:09.580 ends which are seen as a kind of perversion? 41:09.579 --> 41:13.839 That's that element of violence that keeps coming back, 41:13.840 --> 41:18.810 the trail of slime across this dream of transforming reality, 41:18.809 --> 41:22.089 in this Joycean way, into something saved, 41:22.085 --> 41:26.795 the dream of turning fate, the fate of a dead mother--or, 41:26.800 --> 41:28.990 in Nabokov's own case, a father killed by 41:28.990 --> 41:30.910 assassination, a brother killed in a 41:30.906 --> 41:34.186 concentration camp--turning that into this beautifully worked 41:34.192 --> 41:36.242 out, playful system, 41:36.242 --> 41:40.452 defined by puns, and images, and a spell of 41:40.448 --> 41:42.888 rhetoric. In other words, 41:42.889 --> 41:47.849 could it be that all of this modernist technique that Humbert 41:47.849 --> 41:52.809 succeeds in putting to his own ends--that Nabokov succeeds in 41:52.808 --> 41:57.518 putting to his own ends--is not an unambiguous good, 41:57.519 --> 42:01.569 but a record of a kind of damage? 42:01.570 --> 42:05.720 Now, on Monday you're going to hear about this novel's 42:05.722 --> 42:09.732 confrontation with the idea that art could be saving, 42:09.730 --> 42:14.970 that it could somehow be redemptive, but here I think is 42:14.965 --> 42:20.385 a hint that it's something that the novel simply laughs at 42:20.392 --> 42:23.512 hollowly. And you might think of one last 42:23.513 --> 42:26.033 example. all these things I've been 42:26.030 --> 42:30.200 saying about the delight in words is put in the mouth of 42:30.197 --> 42:33.377 that horrible woman, the headmistress of the 42:33.375 --> 42:36.055 Beardsley School, Miss Pratt, on page 197. 42:36.060 --> 42:42.620 42:42.619 --> 42:45.779 Miss Pratt says to Humbert, "I'm always fascinated by the 42:45.778 --> 42:48.488 admirable way foreigners, or at least naturalized 42:48.486 --> 42:50.626 Americans, use our rich language." 42:50.630 --> 42:54.730 In other words, that the aesthetic discovery of 42:54.731 --> 42:59.991 English is something that just kind of fits comfortably into 42:59.991 --> 43:04.361 this prejudice of the dull suburban American. 43:04.360 --> 43:07.400 So, I'll just end there with this thought, 43:07.403 --> 43:11.863 this doubt, about Nabokov's own use of modernist technique in 43:11.856 --> 43:14.536 this novel, about the emphasis on the 43:14.544 --> 43:17.324 aesthetic here: whether it could be--not just 43:17.315 --> 43:21.275 that triumph of the imagination that Humbert sees in the list of 43:21.283 --> 43:25.003 the names--but a mark of a wound that can't be healed.