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Last week I wrote that I think Nabokov read Heinz von Lichberg's Lolita,
liked it and purposefully rewrote it, rather than by way of cryptomnesia or
something (see A Reinterpretation of Lolita). Furthermore, that he encoded
an admission of this into his own Lolita, via numerous "signposts and
tombstones", as John Ray, Jr. says in the Foreword to Lolita. What follows
here are some of the passages from the first five chapters that I think
support my theory. Note that these are only some. There were probably just
as many passages from the first five chapters alone that I could have
included but did not, and others still that might be admissions of a sort
that I missed or suspected but did not understand fully enough to include. I
have included comments on a few of the passages, but mostly I think they
speak for themselves.
One can find passages as suggestive as these throughout the entire book.
Enjoy.
Foreword
"Save for the correction of obvious solecisms and a careful suppression of a
few tenacious details that despite " H.H."'s own efforts still subsisted in
his text as signposts and tombstones (indicative of places or persons that
taste would conceal and compassion spare), this remarkable memoir is
presented intact."
"While "Haze" only rhymes with the heroine's real surname, her first name is
too closely interwound with the inmost fiber of the book to allow one to
alter it; nor (as the reader will perceive for himself) is there any
practical necessity to do so."
"The caretakers of the various cemeteries involved report that no ghosts
walk."
—Saying that it is safe now, the original Lolita is lost to time?
"[...] and a great work of art is of course always original[...]"
"A desperate honesty that throbs through his confession does not absolve him
from sins of diabolical cunning. He is abnormal. He is not a gentleman. But
how magically his singing violin can conjure up a tendresse, a compassion
for Lolita that makes us entranced with the book while abhorring its
author!"
Part One, Chapter 1
"Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there
might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain
initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years
before Lolita was born as my age was that summer."
—If you allow that The Enchanter does not mention Lolita, and therefore that
Lolita was born in the late 1940s to 1950s and not in The Enchanter, you can
subtract 25 or so and end up in the 1920s, when Nabokov was 25 or so and
living in Berlin, where the original Lolita was published. Note that Nabokov
himself writes in Part One, Chapter 4 that "twenty-four years later, I broke
her spell by incarnating her in another." He also writes in Part One,
Chapter 5 that "in September 1952, after twenty-nine years have elapsed, I
think I can distinguish in her the initial fateful elf in my life." Also,
Germany is by the sea.
Part One, Chapter 3
"Annabel was, like the writer, of mixed parentage: half-English, half-Dutch,
in her case. I remember her features far less distinctly today than I did a
few years ago, before I knew Lolita. There are two kinds of visual memory:
one when you skillfully recreate an image in the laboratory of your mind,
with your eyes open (and then I see Annabel in such general terms as:
"honey-colored skin," "thin arms," "brown bobbed hair," "long lashes," big
bright mouth"); and the other when you instantly evoke, with shut eyes, on
the dark innerside of your eyelids, the objective absolutely optical replica
of a beloved face, a little ghost in natural colors (and this is how I see
Lolita)."
—That he speaks of memory is interesting, given the theories that
cryptomnesia was at play in his creation of Lolita. It is also curious that
the "general terms" describing Annabel are in quotes, as if taken from
elsewhere. I do not know if these terms appeared in the German version of
the von Lichberg story. In the Carolyn Kunin translation, von Lichberg's
Lolita has, depending on which sentence you read, reddish gold or blonde
hair. She also has "little arms" a "boyishly slim and supple" body, "big shy
eyes", "little arms", a "sweet mouth", and a "brown left arm." In addition,
there is this of interest from von Lichberg's Lolita, though it is not
related to this particular passage: " No, probably not Lolita but Lola -- or
maybe it really was Lolita?" It could be, though it seems a stretch, that
Nabokov's translation of the story differs radically from Kunin's. Or he
could be just throwing us a false scent. Or the entire theory could be
wrong, of course, or at least not apply to the terms in question.
Part One, Chapter 4
" I leaf again and again through these miserable memories, and keep asking
myself, was it then, in the glitter of that remote summer, that the rift in
my life began; or was my excessive desire for that child only the first
evidence of an inherent singularity? When I try to analyze my own cravings,
motives, actions and so forth, I surrender to a sort of retrospective
imagination which feeds the analytic faculty with boundless alternatives and
which causes each visualized route to fork and re-fork without end in the
maddeningly complex project of my past. I am convinced, however, that in a
certain magic and fateful way Lolita began with Annabel."
"Long after her death I felt her thoughts floating through mine. Long before
we met we had had the same dreams. We compared notes. We found strange
affinities."
The last two paragraphs of this chapter begin with: "I have reserved for the
conclusion of my "Annabel" phase the account of our unsuccessful first
tryst." It ends with: "But that mimosa grove—the haze of stars, the tingle,
the flame, the honeydew, and the ache remained with me, and that little girl
with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted me ever since—until at
last, twenty-four years later, I broke her spell by incarnating her in
another."
Part One, Chapter 5
"Neither are good looks any criterion; and vulgarity, or at least what a
given community terms so, does not necessarily impair certain mysterious
characteristics, the fey grace, the elusive, shifty, soul-shattering
insidious charm that separates the nymphet from such coevals of hers as are
incomparably more dependent on the spatial world of synchronous phenomena
than on that intangible island of entranced time where Lolita plays with her
likes."
—Is he talking here of von Lichberg, whose story has been widely criticized
as poorly written (or rather, lacking "good looks")? Are her "coevals" other
stories of the time that were perhaps more well-received but less ultimately
profound or important in Nabokov's eyes?
"Furthermore, since the idea of time plays such a magic part in the matter,
the student should not be surprised to learn that there must be a gap of
several years, never less than ten I should say, generally thirty or forty,
and as many as ninety in a few known cases, between maiden and man to enable
the latter to come under the nymphet's spell. It is a question of focal
adjustment, of a certain distance that the inner eye thrills to surmount,
and a certain contrast that the mind perceives with a gasp of perverse
delight. When I was a child and she was a child, my little Annabel was no
nymphet to me; I was her equal, a faunlet in my own right, on that same
enchanted island of time; but today, in September 1952, after twenty-nine
years have elapsed, I think I can distinguish in her the initial fateful elf
in my life."
"The human females I was allowed to wield were but palliative agents. I am
ready to believe that the sensations I derived from natural fornication were
much the same as those known to normal big males in that routine rhythm
which shakes the world."
—Did he view his own pre-Lolita books as "palliative agents", calling them
here "human females" in keeping with his metaphor? "Normal big males" as the
writer status quo?
"One moment I was ashamed and frightened, another recklessly optimistic.
Taboos strangulated me."
—Speaking of the taboo against rewriting another artist's work?
"Darling, this is only a game!"
*****
What do you all think? Am I alone in suspecting that Nabokov was telling us
of the influence that von Lichberg's Lolita had on him?
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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
liked it and purposefully rewrote it, rather than by way of cryptomnesia or
something (see A Reinterpretation of Lolita). Furthermore, that he encoded
an admission of this into his own Lolita, via numerous "signposts and
tombstones", as John Ray, Jr. says in the Foreword to Lolita. What follows
here are some of the passages from the first five chapters that I think
support my theory. Note that these are only some. There were probably just
as many passages from the first five chapters alone that I could have
included but did not, and others still that might be admissions of a sort
that I missed or suspected but did not understand fully enough to include. I
have included comments on a few of the passages, but mostly I think they
speak for themselves.
One can find passages as suggestive as these throughout the entire book.
Enjoy.
Foreword
"Save for the correction of obvious solecisms and a careful suppression of a
few tenacious details that despite " H.H."'s own efforts still subsisted in
his text as signposts and tombstones (indicative of places or persons that
taste would conceal and compassion spare), this remarkable memoir is
presented intact."
"While "Haze" only rhymes with the heroine's real surname, her first name is
too closely interwound with the inmost fiber of the book to allow one to
alter it; nor (as the reader will perceive for himself) is there any
practical necessity to do so."
"The caretakers of the various cemeteries involved report that no ghosts
walk."
—Saying that it is safe now, the original Lolita is lost to time?
"[...] and a great work of art is of course always original[...]"
"A desperate honesty that throbs through his confession does not absolve him
from sins of diabolical cunning. He is abnormal. He is not a gentleman. But
how magically his singing violin can conjure up a tendresse, a compassion
for Lolita that makes us entranced with the book while abhorring its
author!"
Part One, Chapter 1
"Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there
might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain
initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years
before Lolita was born as my age was that summer."
—If you allow that The Enchanter does not mention Lolita, and therefore that
Lolita was born in the late 1940s to 1950s and not in The Enchanter, you can
subtract 25 or so and end up in the 1920s, when Nabokov was 25 or so and
living in Berlin, where the original Lolita was published. Note that Nabokov
himself writes in Part One, Chapter 4 that "twenty-four years later, I broke
her spell by incarnating her in another." He also writes in Part One,
Chapter 5 that "in September 1952, after twenty-nine years have elapsed, I
think I can distinguish in her the initial fateful elf in my life." Also,
Germany is by the sea.
Part One, Chapter 3
"Annabel was, like the writer, of mixed parentage: half-English, half-Dutch,
in her case. I remember her features far less distinctly today than I did a
few years ago, before I knew Lolita. There are two kinds of visual memory:
one when you skillfully recreate an image in the laboratory of your mind,
with your eyes open (and then I see Annabel in such general terms as:
"honey-colored skin," "thin arms," "brown bobbed hair," "long lashes," big
bright mouth"); and the other when you instantly evoke, with shut eyes, on
the dark innerside of your eyelids, the objective absolutely optical replica
of a beloved face, a little ghost in natural colors (and this is how I see
Lolita)."
—That he speaks of memory is interesting, given the theories that
cryptomnesia was at play in his creation of Lolita. It is also curious that
the "general terms" describing Annabel are in quotes, as if taken from
elsewhere. I do not know if these terms appeared in the German version of
the von Lichberg story. In the Carolyn Kunin translation, von Lichberg's
Lolita has, depending on which sentence you read, reddish gold or blonde
hair. She also has "little arms" a "boyishly slim and supple" body, "big shy
eyes", "little arms", a "sweet mouth", and a "brown left arm." In addition,
there is this of interest from von Lichberg's Lolita, though it is not
related to this particular passage: " No, probably not Lolita but Lola -- or
maybe it really was Lolita?" It could be, though it seems a stretch, that
Nabokov's translation of the story differs radically from Kunin's. Or he
could be just throwing us a false scent. Or the entire theory could be
wrong, of course, or at least not apply to the terms in question.
Part One, Chapter 4
" I leaf again and again through these miserable memories, and keep asking
myself, was it then, in the glitter of that remote summer, that the rift in
my life began; or was my excessive desire for that child only the first
evidence of an inherent singularity? When I try to analyze my own cravings,
motives, actions and so forth, I surrender to a sort of retrospective
imagination which feeds the analytic faculty with boundless alternatives and
which causes each visualized route to fork and re-fork without end in the
maddeningly complex project of my past. I am convinced, however, that in a
certain magic and fateful way Lolita began with Annabel."
"Long after her death I felt her thoughts floating through mine. Long before
we met we had had the same dreams. We compared notes. We found strange
affinities."
The last two paragraphs of this chapter begin with: "I have reserved for the
conclusion of my "Annabel" phase the account of our unsuccessful first
tryst." It ends with: "But that mimosa grove—the haze of stars, the tingle,
the flame, the honeydew, and the ache remained with me, and that little girl
with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted me ever since—until at
last, twenty-four years later, I broke her spell by incarnating her in
another."
Part One, Chapter 5
"Neither are good looks any criterion; and vulgarity, or at least what a
given community terms so, does not necessarily impair certain mysterious
characteristics, the fey grace, the elusive, shifty, soul-shattering
insidious charm that separates the nymphet from such coevals of hers as are
incomparably more dependent on the spatial world of synchronous phenomena
than on that intangible island of entranced time where Lolita plays with her
likes."
—Is he talking here of von Lichberg, whose story has been widely criticized
as poorly written (or rather, lacking "good looks")? Are her "coevals" other
stories of the time that were perhaps more well-received but less ultimately
profound or important in Nabokov's eyes?
"Furthermore, since the idea of time plays such a magic part in the matter,
the student should not be surprised to learn that there must be a gap of
several years, never less than ten I should say, generally thirty or forty,
and as many as ninety in a few known cases, between maiden and man to enable
the latter to come under the nymphet's spell. It is a question of focal
adjustment, of a certain distance that the inner eye thrills to surmount,
and a certain contrast that the mind perceives with a gasp of perverse
delight. When I was a child and she was a child, my little Annabel was no
nymphet to me; I was her equal, a faunlet in my own right, on that same
enchanted island of time; but today, in September 1952, after twenty-nine
years have elapsed, I think I can distinguish in her the initial fateful elf
in my life."
"The human females I was allowed to wield were but palliative agents. I am
ready to believe that the sensations I derived from natural fornication were
much the same as those known to normal big males in that routine rhythm
which shakes the world."
—Did he view his own pre-Lolita books as "palliative agents", calling them
here "human females" in keeping with his metaphor? "Normal big males" as the
writer status quo?
"One moment I was ashamed and frightened, another recklessly optimistic.
Taboos strangulated me."
—Speaking of the taboo against rewriting another artist's work?
"Darling, this is only a game!"
*****
What do you all think? Am I alone in suspecting that Nabokov was telling us
of the influence that von Lichberg's Lolita had on him?
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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