Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0022625, Wed, 21 Mar 2012 00:27:54 -0400

Subject
Re: Dieter Zimmer on the 56 Conundrum and Lolita Chronology
Date
Body


In a message dated 21/03/2012 01:12:13 GMT Standard Time, jansy@AETERN.US
writes:


Anthony Stadlen: "...That at least one level of Nabokov's book should be
making fun of Freud by treating sexual abuse of a young girl as a disguised
symbol of enchanted butterfly-hunting, rather than the reverse, struck me
as immediately plausible [ ]Diana Butler saw Humbert's guilt -- in so far
as he felt it -- at having destroyed Lolita's childhood as symbolising
Nabokov's guilt at taking the life of his 'little butterfly'."


JM: I couldn't get your point

I'm not sure what you couldn't get. Perhaps my "rather than the reverse"
is ambiguous?

"My" point -- or rather, Diana Butler's -- was her hypothesis that Nabokov
simply reverses "Freudian" symbolism.

Butler's "Nabokov"'s "Freud" would presumably interpret a manifest
narrative "man hunts, catches, and impales butterfly" as a way of concealing and
revealing the latent narrative "man hunts, seduces, and rapes girl".

Butler's "Nabokov" allegedly invites us to interpret his manifest
narrative "man hunts, seduces, and rapes girl" as a way of concealing and revealing
the latent narrative "man hunts, catches, and impales butterfly".

Anthony Stadlen

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