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Re: Fw: Humbert's pedophilia on film
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Andrew and List
1. You are correct. The word "panorama", as generally used, suggests
a continous, perhaps superficial and generalized, view quite contrary
to Nabokov's methodic details. There must be a better word for the
multiple, detailed, trans-American scenes. [Perhaps I was influenced by
an older meaning of the word. In my Webster's International 2nd
Edition: "3. ....; a mental image of a series of images or events,
etc."]
2. HH can steal Lo's childhood because, in his view Lo is rightly
subsumed in his fantasy. He loves her, although this sort of "love"
seems to annihilate. Nabokov considered the arrogation of personal
autonomy to be a major evil. In Nabokov's view, the disciples of Marx
and Freud were over-stepping in this manner at the time of the novel's
writing.
3. To the extent that we identify with HH's point of view we have
been duped. We share responsibility that, but only for that. HH
deserves our empathy, as he had his creator's, but that is a different
matter. Happily, most of us understand that it is best [morally,
legally] to act only infrequently upon the fantasy that the world was
made to meet our idiosyncratic needs. My purely speculative view of
Nabokov's intent might explain the intensity with which Lolita grabs
many readers.
-Sandy Drescher
> Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 21:50:23 -0400
> From: Andrew Brown <as-brown@comcast.net>
>
>
>
> .........Sandy,
>
> As indicated in a previous paragraph, I do not at all think that, for
> Lolita,
> Nabokov decided to abandon his lifelong disapproval of the the general
> idea.
> So, his view of America could not be less "panoramic." It's a
> brilliant jewel
> box of individual images, from gas station signs, to neon shadows in
> puddles,
> to candid shots of the different types of male and female motor court
> managers,
> the different types of hitchhikers... Specifics. Thousands of
> specifics. But not
> a "panoramic" view. Anymore than VN's examination and cataloging of
> individual
> lepidopteral genitalia was panoramic.
>
> Consequently, I cannot find Nabokov "examining a liberal American
> tendency to
> "explain" evil - to find that psychology or history mitigated moral
> repugnance,
> as with Bolshevism or Psychoanalysis."
>
> But I may be badly misunderstanding something here. Especially since I
> cannot
> find a way to classify Bolshevism and Psychoanalysis together.
>
> "Not only on film, but in the text as well, it is important that the
> viewer/reader become at least somewhat seduced by the attractive,
> urbane European. For when that happens, a degree of complicity can be
> brought
> home in the final hill-top scene."
>
> I'm going to have to forego accepting any degree of complicity with
> HH. I don't
> think that this was VN's intention. But I will try to review posts
> I've missed
> over the past couple weeks, in which I've been drawn away from the
> List in
> order to do other writing, and I certainly apologize for what may look
> like
> willful stupidity on my part for having mangled anyone's ideas.
>
> Andrew Brown
----- End forwarded message -----
1. You are correct. The word "panorama", as generally used, suggests
a continous, perhaps superficial and generalized, view quite contrary
to Nabokov's methodic details. There must be a better word for the
multiple, detailed, trans-American scenes. [Perhaps I was influenced by
an older meaning of the word. In my Webster's International 2nd
Edition: "3. ....; a mental image of a series of images or events,
etc."]
2. HH can steal Lo's childhood because, in his view Lo is rightly
subsumed in his fantasy. He loves her, although this sort of "love"
seems to annihilate. Nabokov considered the arrogation of personal
autonomy to be a major evil. In Nabokov's view, the disciples of Marx
and Freud were over-stepping in this manner at the time of the novel's
writing.
3. To the extent that we identify with HH's point of view we have
been duped. We share responsibility that, but only for that. HH
deserves our empathy, as he had his creator's, but that is a different
matter. Happily, most of us understand that it is best [morally,
legally] to act only infrequently upon the fantasy that the world was
made to meet our idiosyncratic needs. My purely speculative view of
Nabokov's intent might explain the intensity with which Lolita grabs
many readers.
-Sandy Drescher
> Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 21:50:23 -0400
> From: Andrew Brown <as-brown@comcast.net>
>
>
>
> .........Sandy,
>
> As indicated in a previous paragraph, I do not at all think that, for
> Lolita,
> Nabokov decided to abandon his lifelong disapproval of the the general
> idea.
> So, his view of America could not be less "panoramic." It's a
> brilliant jewel
> box of individual images, from gas station signs, to neon shadows in
> puddles,
> to candid shots of the different types of male and female motor court
> managers,
> the different types of hitchhikers... Specifics. Thousands of
> specifics. But not
> a "panoramic" view. Anymore than VN's examination and cataloging of
> individual
> lepidopteral genitalia was panoramic.
>
> Consequently, I cannot find Nabokov "examining a liberal American
> tendency to
> "explain" evil - to find that psychology or history mitigated moral
> repugnance,
> as with Bolshevism or Psychoanalysis."
>
> But I may be badly misunderstanding something here. Especially since I
> cannot
> find a way to classify Bolshevism and Psychoanalysis together.
>
> "Not only on film, but in the text as well, it is important that the
> viewer/reader become at least somewhat seduced by the attractive,
> urbane European. For when that happens, a degree of complicity can be
> brought
> home in the final hill-top scene."
>
> I'm going to have to forego accepting any degree of complicity with
> HH. I don't
> think that this was VN's intention. But I will try to review posts
> I've missed
> over the past couple weeks, in which I've been drawn away from the
> List in
> order to do other writing, and I certainly apologize for what may look
> like
> willful stupidity on my part for having mangled anyone's ideas.
>
> Andrew Brown
----- End forwarded message -----