Subject
The Tolksdorf Revelation and Lolita's "little Spanish friend
From
Date
Body
EDNOTE. Although Alexander Dolinin is a name that every Nabokovian should
know, I would mention that he is "the anchorman" of the NABOKOV 101 Program
each summer in St. Peterburg.
----- Original Message -----
From: "dolinin" <dolinin@wisc.edu>
To: "Vladimir Nabokov Forum" <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: Leonardo. plus: An Affair of Honour".
> This message was originally submitted by dolinin@WISC.EDU to the NABOKV-L
list at LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU.>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (59
lines) ------------------
> First, I would like to congratulate Mr. "Ludger Tolksdorf" (an anagram?)
on
> his wonderful lampoon of current intertextual craze. General response to
it
> reminded me of the so-called Alan Sokal affair when the editors of a
> "progressive" cultural studies journal had taken a brilliant parody of
> postmodernist idiocy for a serious philosophical article.
>
> I would also like to suggest an INTRAtextual explanation of a "pale
> Spanish child, the daughter of a heavy-jawed nobleman"--Lolita's "little
> Spanish friend," "the lesser nymphet," "the dark-haired page girl of my
> princess"--who arouses HH by her "faint musky fragrance."
>
> The image derives from HH's reminiscence of his beloved Annabel in Chapter
> 4 of Part 1: "I recall the scent of some kind of toilet powder--I believe
> she stole it from her mother's SPANISH MAID--a sweetish, lowly, MUSKY
> PERFUME."
>
> In HH's mind the Spanish girl for a moment replaces Lolita when it seems
to
> him that he "noticed Lo in white shorts receding through the speckled
> shadow of a garden path in the company of a tall man who carried two
tennis
> rackets." In fact what he sees is Lolita in slacks and her slim companion
> in shorts looking for a lost ball. This important episode that refers both
> to HH's past and, proleptically, to Lolita's future, introduces the theme
> of bifurcation as HH actually admits that the reality of Lolita's Spanish
> "page girl" is "an alternate vision, as if life's course constantly
> branched." Quite a few echoes of the episode appear in the novel later, in
> connection with Lolita's "escape" and HH's attempts to find a replacement
> for her. First, the "dark-haired page girl" is transformed into Fay PAGE,
a
> "DARK girl," the next tennis partner of Lolita; then into Rita, "a
> DARK-HAIRED, PALE-skinned adult" with "some SPANISH or Babilonian blood."
> In Quilty's house after the murder HH notices "two DARK-HAIRED, PALE young
> beauties, a big one and small one (almost a child)"--obviously the
replicas
> of both the Spanish girl and Rita. A possible branching of HH's story
> involving a replacement of Lolita with "the lesser nymphet" is presented
in
> John Farlow's letter (chapter 27, Part 2) presumably invented by the
> narrator. John Farlow tells Humbert that he "had married a Spanish girl"
> who was "very young and a ski champion" (cf. Humbert's alternate vision of
> Lolita as a "real girl champion" and a play upon Champion as the name of a
> city and a hotel). Farlow's Spanish wife, like Lolita's Spanish friend, is
> the daughter of a wealthy nobleman (a count) and has dark hair (on the
> snapshot she is a brunette in white wool--cf. the white shorts of the
> Spanish girl).
> I won't interpret here the Spanish girl motif in Part 2 of
> Lolita (I do it briefly in my article "Nabokov's Time Doubling," in
Nabokov
> Studies, Vol. 2) but I think that the intratextual pattern shown above is
> immeasurably more interesting and significant than shaky intertextual
> parallels suggested by Mr.Maar.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
know, I would mention that he is "the anchorman" of the NABOKOV 101 Program
each summer in St. Peterburg.
----- Original Message -----
From: "dolinin" <dolinin@wisc.edu>
To: "Vladimir Nabokov Forum" <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: Leonardo. plus: An Affair of Honour".
> This message was originally submitted by dolinin@WISC.EDU to the NABOKV-L
list at LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU.>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (59
lines) ------------------
> First, I would like to congratulate Mr. "Ludger Tolksdorf" (an anagram?)
on
> his wonderful lampoon of current intertextual craze. General response to
it
> reminded me of the so-called Alan Sokal affair when the editors of a
> "progressive" cultural studies journal had taken a brilliant parody of
> postmodernist idiocy for a serious philosophical article.
>
> I would also like to suggest an INTRAtextual explanation of a "pale
> Spanish child, the daughter of a heavy-jawed nobleman"--Lolita's "little
> Spanish friend," "the lesser nymphet," "the dark-haired page girl of my
> princess"--who arouses HH by her "faint musky fragrance."
>
> The image derives from HH's reminiscence of his beloved Annabel in Chapter
> 4 of Part 1: "I recall the scent of some kind of toilet powder--I believe
> she stole it from her mother's SPANISH MAID--a sweetish, lowly, MUSKY
> PERFUME."
>
> In HH's mind the Spanish girl for a moment replaces Lolita when it seems
to
> him that he "noticed Lo in white shorts receding through the speckled
> shadow of a garden path in the company of a tall man who carried two
tennis
> rackets." In fact what he sees is Lolita in slacks and her slim companion
> in shorts looking for a lost ball. This important episode that refers both
> to HH's past and, proleptically, to Lolita's future, introduces the theme
> of bifurcation as HH actually admits that the reality of Lolita's Spanish
> "page girl" is "an alternate vision, as if life's course constantly
> branched." Quite a few echoes of the episode appear in the novel later, in
> connection with Lolita's "escape" and HH's attempts to find a replacement
> for her. First, the "dark-haired page girl" is transformed into Fay PAGE,
a
> "DARK girl," the next tennis partner of Lolita; then into Rita, "a
> DARK-HAIRED, PALE-skinned adult" with "some SPANISH or Babilonian blood."
> In Quilty's house after the murder HH notices "two DARK-HAIRED, PALE young
> beauties, a big one and small one (almost a child)"--obviously the
replicas
> of both the Spanish girl and Rita. A possible branching of HH's story
> involving a replacement of Lolita with "the lesser nymphet" is presented
in
> John Farlow's letter (chapter 27, Part 2) presumably invented by the
> narrator. John Farlow tells Humbert that he "had married a Spanish girl"
> who was "very young and a ski champion" (cf. Humbert's alternate vision of
> Lolita as a "real girl champion" and a play upon Champion as the name of a
> city and a hotel). Farlow's Spanish wife, like Lolita's Spanish friend, is
> the daughter of a wealthy nobleman (a count) and has dark hair (on the
> snapshot she is a brunette in white wool--cf. the white shorts of the
> Spanish girl).
> I won't interpret here the Spanish girl motif in Part 2 of
> Lolita (I do it briefly in my article "Nabokov's Time Doubling," in
Nabokov
> Studies, Vol. 2) but I think that the intratextual pattern shown above is
> immeasurably more interesting and significant than shaky intertextual
> parallels suggested by Mr.Maar.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>