Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0001499, Tue, 3 Dec 1996 10:25:25 -0800

Subject
Lolita queries (fwd)
Date
Body
From: Vitaly Kupisk <104361.1700@CompuServe.COM>



Steven Barnat <exnihilo@sirius.com> asked:
-----------------------------------------
Might some kind Nabokovians offer snappy interpretations of the
following trivia? he inquired, scratching head...

(1) "Still in Parkington. Finally, I did achieve an hour's slumber --
from which I was aroused by gratuitous and horribly exhausting congress
with a small hairy hermaphrodite, a total stranger." (Lolita, Vintage,
109) Who is this small, hairy hermaphrodite?

(2) "'Our double beds are really triple,' Potts cozily said tucking me
and my kid in. 'One crowded night we had three ladies and a child like
yours sleep together. I believe one of the ladies was a disguised man
[my static].'" (Vintage, 118) What might the porter really have said,
without Humbert's static?
--

Steven Barnat
San Francisco, CA
exnihilo@sirius.com

Vitaly Kupisk (104361.1700@compuserve.com) takes a shot at it:
1) Hairy Humbert's hand, I presume, that pitiful pervert...
2)The first two sentences of Pott's speech are a plausible boasting. The third
sentence seems fabricated by Humbert in its entirety.

Vitaly Kupisk
Berkeley, CA