How can Humbert's so-called "redemption" entail his going straight off to
commit his filthy murder, in which not he but another is Clearly Guilty -- both
of child-sex-crime and his own murder? I am using Nabokov's own adjective:
"There is no rhetorical link between a filthy murderer [Raskolnikov],
and this unfortunate girl [Sonya]." (Lectures in Russian
Literature, 1981, p. 110.) Nabokov was clear-sighted, not sentimental
-- or, at least, much more clear-sighted than sentimental. His summing-up
of Humbert was: "a vain and cruel wretch who manages to appear ' touching
' ''. (Strong Opinions, 1973, p. 84.) And: "Both [Hermann and
Humbert] are neurotic scoundrels, yet there is a green lane in Paradise where
Humbert is permitted to wander at dusk once a year; but Hell shall never parole
Hermann." (Preface to Despair, 1965.) So a fraction of one-365th or
-366th "redemption" is all that is granted Humbert by his creator, ten
years on.
Anthony Stadlen
Anthony
Stadlen
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In a message dated 24/02/2012 02:31:48 GMT Standard Time, Rsgwynn1@CS.COM
writes:
In a message dated 2/22/2012 8:09:58 PM Central Standard Time,
STADLEN@AOL.COM writes:
Does Humbert ultimately receive some moment of Grace? I
like to think he has, as he sits overlooking and overhearing the children
near the end of the novel. It does move in a mysterious way, its
wonders to perform.
Brian Boyd has long ago
pointed to Nabokov's brilliance and insight in having Humbert seductively
place this passage just where it is near the end of his narrative. Nabokov
ruthlessly exposes readers who are seduced by the rhetoric of a child-rapist
and murderer. This does not mean that Humbert's fleeting insight had no
validity, but it was fleeting, and he did not have the integrity to act on
it.
Anthony Stadlen
I would set
this alongside what Humbert ultimately says and does in his last meeting with
dowdy, pregnant Lo. I think, or like to think, that he has effected his
own catharsis, his own redemption, before dying. He surely has nothing
tangible to gain by writing these things in his "confessions." It does
strike me as a "moral" ending to the novel, if such is possible. Burgess
extends the same possibility of redemption to Alex in the "missing" 21st
chapter of A Clockwork Orange, as does Dostoyevsky to Raskolnikov, even though
"that is another story," as does Tolstoy to Ivan Ilyich, who, in his own way,
is a great sinner too. In most classic novels the protagonist dies with
some grace, with the possible exception of poor Emma, to whom none is offered
by either God or the author.
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