Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0024380, Mon, 1 Jul 2013 09:40:42 +0200

Subject
Re: Apropos of Dolores
Date
Body
The (only?) brief passage in the novel where Humbert sees Lolita devoid of "nymphetic charm" -and as VN makes the reader understand how other people see her (and how the reader should see her eventually even if he temporarily yields to Humbert's stylistic skill)- is when he fetches her at summer camp, after her mother's death. It's in Part 1 ch 27 and Humbert calls this interlude "a very narrow human interval between two tiger heartbeats".

So that it's impossible to say whether the girl in Vivian Maier's photo is a nymphet or not; there's nothing objective in a young girl that could make her a nymphet in Humbert's eyes.

Laurence Hochard

Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2013 15:51:38 -0400
From: barriekarp@GMAIL.COM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Apropos of Dolores
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU

Thank you, now I see the photo you mean.

Only rarely have I seen Vivian Maier photos with direct gaze and eye contact. Most photos I've seen by her of people are from behind in fact. Her photos from behind or unobserved effect a particular emotional resonance.




In that sense (direct gaze, eye contact), this photo and the photo of VN in car share category.

This is a dreamy girl, perhaps mesmerized.

She looks a lot more friendly than VN in his car photo, and relaxed, lacks his tension, contraction, apprehension.



Are you saying through his eyes a nymphet? and through Vivian Maier's eyes?

This girl isn't portrayed the way VN & his interpreters portray his nymphets. One has to do something somehow to make this Vivian Maier girl a nymphet.



--




Barrie Karp





On Sun, Jun 30, 2013 at 2:57 PM, NABOKV-L, English <nabokv-l@holycross.edu> wrote:



I am pasting in again below Vivien Maier's photograph of the young girl in the car that Barrie Karp does not seem to have gotten in the previous email. Mary Efremov commented: "Possibly a nymphet?"



SES




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