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Fwd: Re: BIBLIOGRAPHY: Nabokov's Lolita Riddle by Joanne
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----- Forwarded message from jansy@aetern.us -----
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 12:42:58 -0300
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
Reply-To: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
Subject: Re: BIBLIOGRAPHY: Nabokov's Lolita Riddle by Joanne Morgan
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Dear Don and List,
I´ve worked for several years as a training-analyst and full-member of the
International Psychoanalytic Association ( from which I resigned last year) and
part of my teaching to candidates concerns what is loosely named " applied
psychoanalysis" ( works such as Freud´s article on Leonardo da Vinci, or
Bonaparte´s paper on Edgar A. Poe ), a kind of investigation about the links
between an artist´s fantasy life, symptoms and external circumstancesch which
must be pursued with great care - if at all.
Concerning the posting about Joanne Morgan´s book ( which I haven´t ordered to
read and simply use here the information offered at her site ), who deals with
matters relative to paedophilia and child abuse from the stand point of
political science and philosophy, I must confess that I feel certain qualms
that arise from my professional bias. It is my opinion that Nabokov stated
what he wanted to reveal concerning his experience with Uncle Ruka and a
fondling governess, therefore I feel doubtful that he would have played games
and riddles about any painful experiences of submission or complicity in such
distressing situations, even if intentionally using them to defy or denounce
Freud and the "Viennese circle".
It is one thing to conjecture about Nabokov character´s secrets hidden in an
attic or by his choices of wordplay and acrostics. It is something entirely
different when these suppositions are expanded into an author´s personal life
and real suffering - and to no useful outcome to the person under scrutiny.
Perhaps Nabokov´s forceful writing may help to bring up the social issue of
child abuse by enhancing the reader´s sensibility to these matters, but I still
prefer to follow theories that are limited to the realm of his fiction.
Jansy Mello
----- Original Message -----
From: D. Barton Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Friday, July 01, 2005 12:28 AM
Subject: BIBLIOGRAPHY: Nabokov's Lolita Riddle by Joanne Morgan
EDNOTE. Something from the wilder shores of Nabokov studies. See
www.lolitariddle.com for a description of JOANNE MORGAN'S BOOK.
About the Author
Joanne Deirdre Morgan was born in 1959 in Ottawa, Canada. She grew up in a
Canadian diplomatic family, living in Moscow, Brussels and Vienna, before
moving to Canberra, Australia in 1975. She finished a honors degree in
political science and philosophy at the Australian National University in 1982.
She was actively involved in the Women's Liberation Movement during the early
1980s and was employed as a child support worker in a women's refuge. After
becoming an Australian citizen, she joined the public service and worked as a
policy officer for the Federal and State governments. In 1996 she returned to
university studies, completing a Social Work degree in 1999. She won a
Commonwealth scholarship to undertake PhD studies in sociology at the
University of Sydney. The title of her completed thesis is "Social Change and
the Charismatic 'Author-Leader': A Case Study of Betty Friedan's The Feminine
Mystique" (2002).
Jo's interest in the widespread social problems generated by pedophilia was
sparked by background research for her article "US Hate Crime Legislation: A
Legal Model to Avoid in Australia", published in the Journal of Sociology in
2002 (abstract). She initially read Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita intending to
include it as a literary case study of pedophilia within her PhD thesis.
Instead she became side-tracked by the author's insistence that he had planted
a 'riddle' within Lolita. Solving Nabokov's Lolita Riddle is Jo's first book.
Jo is also a member of the small acoustic folk group, Joyshell. You can hear a
few demo songs from Joyshell's recent CD at www.joyshell.com
-----------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: Jomorgan
To: chtodel@cox.net
Sent: Thursday, June 30, 2005 6:27 PM
Subject: Nabokov's Lolita Riddle
Dear D Barton Johnson
Please visit my website www.lolitariddle.com. I have just published a
code-cracking book in Australia which proves that Nabokov wrote Lolita as a
semi-autobiographical account of his own terrible sexual abuse as a boy at the
hands of his molesting, pedophilic Uncle Ruka. Nabokov invented an ingenious
code which hinged on a deliberate 'Freudian slip' (what he called 'blunders').
There are several errors in his memoirs and his translation of Pushkin's Eugene
Onegin - especially in the stanza referring to trysts with uncles and children
by the old lime trees. These 'errors' pivot on the word 'plain' - hence Nabokov
instructed he wanted his biographer to search for the plain truth about his
life, not Marxist bunkum or Freudian rot.
You may order a copy of my book by visiting my website.
Yours sincerely
Jo Morgan
Sydney
----- End forwarded message -----