Subject
Aloneness in Nabokov (fwd)
Date
Body
>From Thomas Bolt <bolt@spacelab.net>
In the spirit of getting back to the books:
Over the past six months, I've been returning to a question in my mind:
Does Humbert Humbert have any friends?
If we discount G.G., the lover of boys who stands next to H.H. in the
alpabetic spectrum, I think the answer would have to be "No."
I'm not saying Humbert *deserves* any--but his victims, including
Charlotte, Lolita, and even the horrible C.Q.--like H.H. a user of people
(though, perhaps unlike H.H., a casual one)-- have friends. What does it
mean that Humbert doesn't? Is friendship, not just in LOLITA but in both
Sirin and Nabokov, a special state of human grace? One of those fine,
"real" things (an unmentioned one) that Humbert feels he is forbidden by
the basis of his relationship with Lolita to discuss with her?
Humbert asks for our pity--and manipulates us masterfully (though his
summation, for this juror, is puntured by the false note of pretentious
self-pity concentrated into a single word, "concord")--but one of the
things he avoids mentioning is his aloneness.
Are the characters who are most alone in Nabokov those who most desire
power over others, who misunderstand the proper (nonabusive) relationship
of one person to another?
Pnin has friends, even Charles Kinbote has a sort of friend (though many,
many fewer than the King); Hermann and others like him do not.
The special aloneness of Cincinnatus C. seems to be that of someone who
deserves a friend and can't find one among the parodies of human behavior
he finds around him (think of where and when that book was written); but
outside the frame of that nightmare book there are "beings akin to him."
The more I consider it, the more friendship seems to be an important
Nabokovian theme.
In the spirit of getting back to the books:
Over the past six months, I've been returning to a question in my mind:
Does Humbert Humbert have any friends?
If we discount G.G., the lover of boys who stands next to H.H. in the
alpabetic spectrum, I think the answer would have to be "No."
I'm not saying Humbert *deserves* any--but his victims, including
Charlotte, Lolita, and even the horrible C.Q.--like H.H. a user of people
(though, perhaps unlike H.H., a casual one)-- have friends. What does it
mean that Humbert doesn't? Is friendship, not just in LOLITA but in both
Sirin and Nabokov, a special state of human grace? One of those fine,
"real" things (an unmentioned one) that Humbert feels he is forbidden by
the basis of his relationship with Lolita to discuss with her?
Humbert asks for our pity--and manipulates us masterfully (though his
summation, for this juror, is puntured by the false note of pretentious
self-pity concentrated into a single word, "concord")--but one of the
things he avoids mentioning is his aloneness.
Are the characters who are most alone in Nabokov those who most desire
power over others, who misunderstand the proper (nonabusive) relationship
of one person to another?
Pnin has friends, even Charles Kinbote has a sort of friend (though many,
many fewer than the King); Hermann and others like him do not.
The special aloneness of Cincinnatus C. seems to be that of someone who
deserves a friend and can't find one among the parodies of human behavior
he finds around him (think of where and when that book was written); but
outside the frame of that nightmare book there are "beings akin to him."
The more I consider it, the more friendship seems to be an important
Nabokovian theme.