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An Exchange on Humbert's Innocence
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Date
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*[*Here arranged in a sequence, with the permission of the authors, is an
exchange of friendly disagreements, both off-List and submitted to the
List, on the question of Humbert's innocence. -- SES]
*1. Carolyn Kunin:*
Dear Anthony,
Thanks for the perspicacious critique!
But seriously, there is some evidence for this possibility. Please recall
that both Jansy and I are in a speculative mood.
I did find the dates that more than suggest the possibility of Humbert's
biological paternity. Lolita was born on January 1, 1947 and the photo that
Humbert shows the Farlow's of a pre-Haze Charlotte was taken in April of
1934. Jean does the math and concludes that Humbert is "Dolly's real
father."
Now this may be of no significance to you, but it intrigues me.
Carolyn
ps to Mr Stadlen:
So interesting -- the Wikipedia article onLolita mentions at least one
critic, the Canadian author Robertson Davies (of whom I am particularly
fond), who ab initio did not "buy" Humbert's confessions at all: In 1959,
novelist Robertson Davies excused the narrator entirely, writing that the
theme of Lolita is "not the corruption of an innocent child by a cunning
adult, but the exploitation of a weak adult by a corrupt child. This is no
pretty theme, but it is one with which social workers, magistrates and
psychiatrists are familiar." Robertson's essay, "Lolita's Crime: Sex Made
Funny" has been republishedin Lolita: un royaume au-dela des mers by
Christine Raguet-Bouvart.*
Now that I think of it, it is quite astonishing that lo these many years we
have all taken Humbert at face value. Is there any other Nabokov narrator
of whom this can be said?
*googleable
*2. *
*Anthony Standlen: *
I wanted to make the point that the ideas of Humbert's "innocence" and of
his being Lolita's biological father are so clearly ideas that Nabokov
shows Humbert as calculating his readers and, for instance, Jean Farlow
will fall for, that to take them seriously is a kind of ungrounded
speculation -- in effect, falling for what is clearly presented as
Humbert's seduction -- in which, simply, anything goes and contradictions
don't count.
*3. Jansy Mello*:
For my part, Anthony Stadlen's indignation was formulated in the same vein
as a Frank Muir classic (from his collection of anedoctes and quotations in
"An irreverent companion to social history"...) and I instantly remembered
that Stanley Kubrick's "Lolita" was entirely filmed in England and
considered by some critics as "a dark comedy."*
Nevertheless, I'm dead serious when I take into account Carolyn's
conjectures about Humbert Humbert having made up his nymphetic adventures
during his stay in a psychiatric prison ward. If I remember it right,
V.Nabokov was never very enthusiastic about the hypothesis that his former
short novel, "The Enchanter," could be considered his *Ur*-Lolita. I have
no doubt that its anonymous character ("Arthur"?) is a true scheming
pedophile. Humbert Humbert, though, may share with him only in that kind
of "sham" rape as we find in the davenport scene (disgusting and violent as
it is). So, whereas "Arthur" moves on to act in the "real world", HH
would be only inhabiting the tragic web of his perverse fantasy world. Why
not consider this hypothesis as a possibility?
*btw*:I forgot to specify that when I dreamed of casting Stanley Tucci as
Humbert, I was considering him as a delusional "innocent" (I was curious
about how this talented actor would cope with this challenge). Charming
Colin Firth, though, might not correspond to Quilty's role as a Sellers
kind of comedian (he is truer to the "famous playwright" type that would
jilt Lolita after using her, not to all the other Quilty masks that HH
makes him wear...) . .
*4. Carolyn Kunin*:
Dear Jansy,
I don't know the name Tucci and Colin Firth was a handsome guy in an Austen
film I think, but Mason I think was just right. In Appel's Annotated
Lolita, there is even a picture of the advert that Lolita keeps on her wall
because the model reminds her of Humbert (or perhaps Quilty). You will see
that physically Mason is very like indeed.
Having an aversion to Jeremy Irons in all his incarnations makes me unable
to defend him. Besides that, I find the Kubrick film so perfect I wouldn't
even like to ponder the re-make.
Carolyn
*5. Anthony Stadlen:*
Dear Jansy,
Many thanks for this. It's a possible hypothesis. But to be a serious
hypothesis, by Karl Popper's argument, it must be falsifiable. There must
be any number of hypotheses one could formulate about "Lolita" -- for
example, Humbert really is Humpty Dumpty, and the entire novel is
day-dreamed by him as he falls off his wall because he caught sight of
Alice-Lolita, and this means that one has barely begun to understand
"Lolita" unless one has grasped the subtle intertextuality with *Finnegans
Wake*, which is even alluded to in the novel in various more or less
explicit hints. Humbert's fall, like Humpty's, like Finnegan's, is the Fall
of Mankind. But the Fall is a Christian notion. Judaism does not have
Original Sin. There is no such thing as the "Judaeo-Christian tradition".
Nabokov's text, by an author who is bitterly attuned to antisemitism and
the Holocaust, not least through his love for Vera, is a post-Judaic
atheist treatise against the hidden anti-Judaic post-Christian
atheist assumptions which Joyce was barely aware of building into his
flawed masterpiece. "Lolita" may have no moral in tow, but this is because
it itself is the pilot not the piloted, being moral through and through,
the paradigmatic moral and negative-theological discourse of our age.
Disprove that! It's a possible hypothesis.
With much respect, but also some scepticism,
Anthony
*6. Jansy Mello:*
Dear Anthony,
I understand that one has to prove a hypothesis before it evolves into a
theory and not disprove all the ones that people are constantly throwing at
us. The burden of proof lies on the shoulders of the builder of the
hypothesis.
Jansy
--
Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
Co-Editor, NABOKV-L
Search archive with Google:
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exchange of friendly disagreements, both off-List and submitted to the
List, on the question of Humbert's innocence. -- SES]
*1. Carolyn Kunin:*
Dear Anthony,
Thanks for the perspicacious critique!
But seriously, there is some evidence for this possibility. Please recall
that both Jansy and I are in a speculative mood.
I did find the dates that more than suggest the possibility of Humbert's
biological paternity. Lolita was born on January 1, 1947 and the photo that
Humbert shows the Farlow's of a pre-Haze Charlotte was taken in April of
1934. Jean does the math and concludes that Humbert is "Dolly's real
father."
Now this may be of no significance to you, but it intrigues me.
Carolyn
ps to Mr Stadlen:
So interesting -- the Wikipedia article onLolita mentions at least one
critic, the Canadian author Robertson Davies (of whom I am particularly
fond), who ab initio did not "buy" Humbert's confessions at all: In 1959,
novelist Robertson Davies excused the narrator entirely, writing that the
theme of Lolita is "not the corruption of an innocent child by a cunning
adult, but the exploitation of a weak adult by a corrupt child. This is no
pretty theme, but it is one with which social workers, magistrates and
psychiatrists are familiar." Robertson's essay, "Lolita's Crime: Sex Made
Funny" has been republishedin Lolita: un royaume au-dela des mers by
Christine Raguet-Bouvart.*
Now that I think of it, it is quite astonishing that lo these many years we
have all taken Humbert at face value. Is there any other Nabokov narrator
of whom this can be said?
*googleable
*2. *
*Anthony Standlen: *
I wanted to make the point that the ideas of Humbert's "innocence" and of
his being Lolita's biological father are so clearly ideas that Nabokov
shows Humbert as calculating his readers and, for instance, Jean Farlow
will fall for, that to take them seriously is a kind of ungrounded
speculation -- in effect, falling for what is clearly presented as
Humbert's seduction -- in which, simply, anything goes and contradictions
don't count.
*3. Jansy Mello*:
For my part, Anthony Stadlen's indignation was formulated in the same vein
as a Frank Muir classic (from his collection of anedoctes and quotations in
"An irreverent companion to social history"...) and I instantly remembered
that Stanley Kubrick's "Lolita" was entirely filmed in England and
considered by some critics as "a dark comedy."*
Nevertheless, I'm dead serious when I take into account Carolyn's
conjectures about Humbert Humbert having made up his nymphetic adventures
during his stay in a psychiatric prison ward. If I remember it right,
V.Nabokov was never very enthusiastic about the hypothesis that his former
short novel, "The Enchanter," could be considered his *Ur*-Lolita. I have
no doubt that its anonymous character ("Arthur"?) is a true scheming
pedophile. Humbert Humbert, though, may share with him only in that kind
of "sham" rape as we find in the davenport scene (disgusting and violent as
it is). So, whereas "Arthur" moves on to act in the "real world", HH
would be only inhabiting the tragic web of his perverse fantasy world. Why
not consider this hypothesis as a possibility?
*btw*:I forgot to specify that when I dreamed of casting Stanley Tucci as
Humbert, I was considering him as a delusional "innocent" (I was curious
about how this talented actor would cope with this challenge). Charming
Colin Firth, though, might not correspond to Quilty's role as a Sellers
kind of comedian (he is truer to the "famous playwright" type that would
jilt Lolita after using her, not to all the other Quilty masks that HH
makes him wear...) . .
*4. Carolyn Kunin*:
Dear Jansy,
I don't know the name Tucci and Colin Firth was a handsome guy in an Austen
film I think, but Mason I think was just right. In Appel's Annotated
Lolita, there is even a picture of the advert that Lolita keeps on her wall
because the model reminds her of Humbert (or perhaps Quilty). You will see
that physically Mason is very like indeed.
Having an aversion to Jeremy Irons in all his incarnations makes me unable
to defend him. Besides that, I find the Kubrick film so perfect I wouldn't
even like to ponder the re-make.
Carolyn
*5. Anthony Stadlen:*
Dear Jansy,
Many thanks for this. It's a possible hypothesis. But to be a serious
hypothesis, by Karl Popper's argument, it must be falsifiable. There must
be any number of hypotheses one could formulate about "Lolita" -- for
example, Humbert really is Humpty Dumpty, and the entire novel is
day-dreamed by him as he falls off his wall because he caught sight of
Alice-Lolita, and this means that one has barely begun to understand
"Lolita" unless one has grasped the subtle intertextuality with *Finnegans
Wake*, which is even alluded to in the novel in various more or less
explicit hints. Humbert's fall, like Humpty's, like Finnegan's, is the Fall
of Mankind. But the Fall is a Christian notion. Judaism does not have
Original Sin. There is no such thing as the "Judaeo-Christian tradition".
Nabokov's text, by an author who is bitterly attuned to antisemitism and
the Holocaust, not least through his love for Vera, is a post-Judaic
atheist treatise against the hidden anti-Judaic post-Christian
atheist assumptions which Joyce was barely aware of building into his
flawed masterpiece. "Lolita" may have no moral in tow, but this is because
it itself is the pilot not the piloted, being moral through and through,
the paradigmatic moral and negative-theological discourse of our age.
Disprove that! It's a possible hypothesis.
With much respect, but also some scepticism,
Anthony
*6. Jansy Mello:*
Dear Anthony,
I understand that one has to prove a hypothesis before it evolves into a
theory and not disprove all the ones that people are constantly throwing at
us. The burden of proof lies on the shoulders of the builder of the
hypothesis.
Jansy
--
Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
Co-Editor, NABOKV-L
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
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/