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Re: Article: Hafid Bouazza on LOLITA in Hollands Diep: 2
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Dear Jansy,
There is a contradiction in HH's comment on Lolita being 'safely solipsized'
and his mention of her 'innocence' as a child, which he claims to want to
protect. Also there is ambiguity in the terms 'safely solipsized'. (With
Annbale Lee he discussed 'solipsism' - as a boy of thirteen years old!)
What I forgot to mention in my artcile (darned!) in connection with 'the
word's mercy', is whether Nabokov was being merciful towards HH by having
him die of coronary thrombosis, so shortly before his trial, much like he
'saved' Krug from insanity in *Bend Sinister*, like an 'anthropomorphic
deity'. which is just another word for a deus ex machina. The question
might be intereseting - although I think Nabokov choose the best dramatic
and artistic solution - after all, the ladies and gentlemen of the jury are
we, the readers, and we are left with the moral dilemma. This is art, not
Hollywood (witness Adrian Lynne who fell in Nabokov's trap in his movie of
the book, in which takes the whole Freudian vaseline - notice the horrible
use of filters in the flashback-sequence ).
Best,
Hafid Bouazza
2010/4/8 Jansy <jansy@aetern.us>
> *Hafid Bouazza *[to Jansy] "*With all due respect for my brother
> Abdellah, but it was I who wrote the article and he who translated it. My
> thoughts may not be his, nor my interpretations his (and he has contributed
> to this site much longer than I have). For the rest: I come to the same
> conclusion as you do: 'In the final analysis it is the writer Vladimir
> Nabokov [emphasis added, HB] who gives us genius and a moral dilemma -
> besides a masterpiece*.' "
>
> *JM*: Hafid, accept my apologies. Your are totally right and I shouldn't
> have placed your initials together when I addressed you (the author of the
> original article) and your brother (who posted both original and
> translation). The theme, the part related to solipsism, present in your
> commentary, came right at a time I'd been working on it, through James
> Bonney's thesis relating solipsism in Nabokov's Lolita (private tyranny) and
> in VN's former novels (public tyranny). As you may well realize,
> philosophical solipsism lies outside my field of competence. As a
> psychoanalyst, I'm used to terms like egocentrism, narcisim, altruism,
> psychosis, perversion, autistic states, aso. All of these are related to an
> individual's apprehension of an "external reality."
>
> *A few comments about "Lolita" and HH's solipsization:*
> In the beginning of ch. 32 (AL,I) HH wrote: "... in order to enjoy my
> phantasms in peace I firmly decided to ignore what I could not help
> perceiving..." Had it been possible for the words "I firmly decided to
> ignore" to have been expressed by someone else in the novel, "solipsism" in
> fiction and psychopathological acumen would have been harmonized. The
> Freudian theory holds that a pervert has a split mind*:* he simultaneously
> recognizes and ignores a conflictual fact which he cannot bring himself to
> solve (he doesn't need to consciously and wilfully "ignore it" before he
> acts out his fantasy)*; *a neurotic deals with conflicts by repressing one
> part of what he's perceived, and is conscious of only the other part.
> However, since Humbert Humbert is a fictional character, Nabokov's
> rendering of HH's "deliberate" solipsism (the neologism HB mentioned) is
> quite fascinating:
>
> At the end of ch. 31 we learn that Humbert cannot accept spiritual
> comfort, from a Catholic priest, after he realizes that his Lolita shall
> remain "polluted". He wants to pay for his sins, for as long as he lives,
> should her condition not be altered by his having been granted God's
> pardon. Human law and ordinary morality don't abide by absolute grace, as it
> is offered by St.Peter's church (they are closer to Saint Paul's vision, in
> his letters to the Corinthians - quoted by VN in Pale Fire - concerning the
> particular sin of inducing innocent people into sin*), and we find that
> Humbert, quite surprisingly, seems to admit that, like a criminal who must
> pay for his crimes, he must pay for the harm he has inflicted on Lolita. These lines
> are pretty amazing:
> "... under the guidance of an intelligent ... confessor, to whom, in a
> moment of metaphysical curiosity, I had turned over a Protestant's drab
> atheism for an old-fashioned popish cure, I had hoped to deduce from my
> sense of sin the existence of a Supreme Being... Alas, I was unable to
> transcend the simple human fact that whatever spiritual solace I might find,
> whatever lithophanic eternities might be provided for me, nothing could make
> my Lolita forget the foul lust I had inflicted upon her....I see nothing for
> the treatment of my misery but the melancholy and very local palliative of
> articulate art. To quote an old poet: The moral sense in mortals is the
> duty/ We have to pay on mortal sense of beauty."
>
> ..........................................................................
> * I wonder I Humbert Humbert's rejection of a divine pardon isn't related
> to Nabokov's childhood experience with the Orthodox Church, instead of the
> Roman faith.
> Search the archive<http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en> Contact
> the Editors <nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu> Visit "Nabokov
> Online Journal" <http://www.nabokovonline.com> Visit Zembla<http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm> View
> Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm> Manage
> subscription options <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/>
>
> All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both
> co-editors.
>
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There is a contradiction in HH's comment on Lolita being 'safely solipsized'
and his mention of her 'innocence' as a child, which he claims to want to
protect. Also there is ambiguity in the terms 'safely solipsized'. (With
Annbale Lee he discussed 'solipsism' - as a boy of thirteen years old!)
What I forgot to mention in my artcile (darned!) in connection with 'the
word's mercy', is whether Nabokov was being merciful towards HH by having
him die of coronary thrombosis, so shortly before his trial, much like he
'saved' Krug from insanity in *Bend Sinister*, like an 'anthropomorphic
deity'. which is just another word for a deus ex machina. The question
might be intereseting - although I think Nabokov choose the best dramatic
and artistic solution - after all, the ladies and gentlemen of the jury are
we, the readers, and we are left with the moral dilemma. This is art, not
Hollywood (witness Adrian Lynne who fell in Nabokov's trap in his movie of
the book, in which takes the whole Freudian vaseline - notice the horrible
use of filters in the flashback-sequence ).
Best,
Hafid Bouazza
2010/4/8 Jansy <jansy@aetern.us>
> *Hafid Bouazza *[to Jansy] "*With all due respect for my brother
> Abdellah, but it was I who wrote the article and he who translated it. My
> thoughts may not be his, nor my interpretations his (and he has contributed
> to this site much longer than I have). For the rest: I come to the same
> conclusion as you do: 'In the final analysis it is the writer Vladimir
> Nabokov [emphasis added, HB] who gives us genius and a moral dilemma -
> besides a masterpiece*.' "
>
> *JM*: Hafid, accept my apologies. Your are totally right and I shouldn't
> have placed your initials together when I addressed you (the author of the
> original article) and your brother (who posted both original and
> translation). The theme, the part related to solipsism, present in your
> commentary, came right at a time I'd been working on it, through James
> Bonney's thesis relating solipsism in Nabokov's Lolita (private tyranny) and
> in VN's former novels (public tyranny). As you may well realize,
> philosophical solipsism lies outside my field of competence. As a
> psychoanalyst, I'm used to terms like egocentrism, narcisim, altruism,
> psychosis, perversion, autistic states, aso. All of these are related to an
> individual's apprehension of an "external reality."
>
> *A few comments about "Lolita" and HH's solipsization:*
> In the beginning of ch. 32 (AL,I) HH wrote: "... in order to enjoy my
> phantasms in peace I firmly decided to ignore what I could not help
> perceiving..." Had it been possible for the words "I firmly decided to
> ignore" to have been expressed by someone else in the novel, "solipsism" in
> fiction and psychopathological acumen would have been harmonized. The
> Freudian theory holds that a pervert has a split mind*:* he simultaneously
> recognizes and ignores a conflictual fact which he cannot bring himself to
> solve (he doesn't need to consciously and wilfully "ignore it" before he
> acts out his fantasy)*; *a neurotic deals with conflicts by repressing one
> part of what he's perceived, and is conscious of only the other part.
> However, since Humbert Humbert is a fictional character, Nabokov's
> rendering of HH's "deliberate" solipsism (the neologism HB mentioned) is
> quite fascinating:
>
> At the end of ch. 31 we learn that Humbert cannot accept spiritual
> comfort, from a Catholic priest, after he realizes that his Lolita shall
> remain "polluted". He wants to pay for his sins, for as long as he lives,
> should her condition not be altered by his having been granted God's
> pardon. Human law and ordinary morality don't abide by absolute grace, as it
> is offered by St.Peter's church (they are closer to Saint Paul's vision, in
> his letters to the Corinthians - quoted by VN in Pale Fire - concerning the
> particular sin of inducing innocent people into sin*), and we find that
> Humbert, quite surprisingly, seems to admit that, like a criminal who must
> pay for his crimes, he must pay for the harm he has inflicted on Lolita. These lines
> are pretty amazing:
> "... under the guidance of an intelligent ... confessor, to whom, in a
> moment of metaphysical curiosity, I had turned over a Protestant's drab
> atheism for an old-fashioned popish cure, I had hoped to deduce from my
> sense of sin the existence of a Supreme Being... Alas, I was unable to
> transcend the simple human fact that whatever spiritual solace I might find,
> whatever lithophanic eternities might be provided for me, nothing could make
> my Lolita forget the foul lust I had inflicted upon her....I see nothing for
> the treatment of my misery but the melancholy and very local palliative of
> articulate art. To quote an old poet: The moral sense in mortals is the
> duty/ We have to pay on mortal sense of beauty."
>
> ..........................................................................
> * I wonder I Humbert Humbert's rejection of a divine pardon isn't related
> to Nabokov's childhood experience with the Orthodox Church, instead of the
> Roman faith.
> Search the archive<http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en> Contact
> the Editors <nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu> Visit "Nabokov
> Online Journal" <http://www.nabokovonline.com> Visit Zembla<http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm> View
> Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm> Manage
> subscription options <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/>
>
> All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both
> co-editors.
>
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/