Subject
Lolita's subjectivity
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In addition to the recent comments on presence through
absence in /Lolita/, the discussion has given me my first
conceivable hint at an understanding of Nabokov's comment,
"She was like the composition of a beautiful puzzle - its
composition and its solution at the same time, since one is a
mirror view of the other, depending on the way you look."
Riddle: How can a reader feel pity and tenderness for a
character who is not seen certainly herself, but only through
the perceptions, distorted by obsession, of a narrator?
Solution: The reader feels that very loss of clarity and
direct view and curiosity to reconstruct whatever is
possible.
Jerry Friedman
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absence in /Lolita/, the discussion has given me my first
conceivable hint at an understanding of Nabokov's comment,
"She was like the composition of a beautiful puzzle - its
composition and its solution at the same time, since one is a
mirror view of the other, depending on the way you look."
Riddle: How can a reader feel pity and tenderness for a
character who is not seen certainly herself, but only through
the perceptions, distorted by obsession, of a narrator?
Solution: The reader feels that very loss of clarity and
direct view and curiosity to reconstruct whatever is
possible.
Jerry Friedman
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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