Subject
Response re Jo Morgan re Michael Maar's evidence on the
Lolita/Lichberg issue.
Lolita/Lichberg issue.
From
Date
Body
Apologies to List Master Don. The message I refered to in my last post was
not even sent. I found it among my drafts. I've done some fast editing to
omit unnecessary snottiness. I have left in the second paragraph, below,
however, as a cautionary example of writing while impaired. The digression
about Freud strikes me as comically irrelevant and bassackward
The note below was written, apparently, in the very early hours of 9.02.05:
Perhaps the best remarks have already been made on this issue, and I have
arrived late on the scene with an insight long ago put forward and
dismissed, but it seems to me improbable that VN would have secretly
encrypted, over a series of decades, the unremarkable information that his
uncle Ruka fondled him.
Nabokov's dismissive tone toward Freud is simply that of an artist who knows
far better than any psychiatrist -- and better than most artists -- what the
true wellspring of creativity is. Dr.Freud's posting of sign boards, warning
signals, and suspiciously apt case histories have always seemed like the
infestation of rustic pedagogy one now finds all over the finest trails in
the greatest national parks in the world. In my opinion, it is better to let
ignorant and luckless tourists be eaten by the bears and wolves of which
these signs are meant to warn them. Do your homework at home before
venturing into the wild -- and before entering the wild side of art.
A writer of Nabokov's stature, which is to say an artist of the stature of a
James Joyce, which is to say artists worthy of permission to sit at table
with Shakespeare or Dante, does not waste his time "encrypting
deliberate 'blunders' across his memoirs." Creating multiple stories such as
The Vane Stories, and creating dual -- and dueling -- worlds, such as in
Pale Fire, are another thing altogether.
The encryption idea could only (and I
apologize to those in this profession who have been kind enough to tolerate
my intrusions) have been nurtured in the woolly world of academia. Speak,
Memory speaks frankly, briefly, and completely sufficiently about Uncle
Ruka's predelictions -- predelictions that, in my mind (and at the extremely
innocuous level at which VN's memoirs describe him as operating), make him
no villian or monster. It wasn't until I was in my forties that I remembered
at least three specific instances from childhood of this sort of thing
happening to me. Two occasions were at the municiple swimming park, and one
was in the basement of an elderly man on our block who had a remarkable
stamp collection, a marvelous aquarium, and an odd way of suggesting that
you and he go to use the bthroom at the same time.
It was not cause for lynching; it simply gave credence to my
mother's puzzling warnings about not sitting alone among unfamilar grown
men when I went to the movies, and of spending no more time than necessary
in the bathhouse and showers at the city swimming pool when I was ten or
eleven years old.
Ruka was old enough to know that the English poet and playwright Wilde had
been put to two years hard labor (practically a death sentence for a man of
Wilde's age and condition in those days) for advancing more deliberate and
intricate embraces with rough trade kids who
knew an easy way to get a few pounds off a toff.
Your statement, Jo, that you have managed to prove that Nabokov wrote Lolita
as a semi-autobiographical/semi-fictional account of his own terrible
incestuous abuse at the hands of his pedophilic Uncle Ruka is not
credible to me. A genius pushing sixty does not create a masterpiece merely
in order to vent an ancient grudge.
Regarding what you describe as "gender-bending" games e.g. 'boys knees,
'butcher-boy' pyjamas 'tomboy shirt', refer to girl childrens' fashions in
the forties. Possibly the last generation when girls clothes differed from
womens' clothes. Boys knees is a legitimate and unloaded description. Today
"boy shorts" are a style of
women's underwear I see advertised in VC whenever I'm giving my wife's
lingerie catalogs a thoughtful perusal. Judging from the girls
modeling them, they have an agreeably feminine appearance.
I would advise caution with regarding any analysis of "the author's" closing
confession in his so-called 'novel' Lolita - "I have camouflaged what I
could so as not to hurt people." Do you really think that Vladimir Nabokov,
worried that much about "hurting people" if art seemed to require it?
Boyd's life provides evidence to the contrary, I think.
But something must be said about your categorizing as a "blatant lie"
Nabokov's postscript tale about a US publisher who had once supposedly
proposed he replace his 12 year old girl, in Lolita, with a boy. The way
Nabokov describes this, in a letter to Bunny Wilson, has an authentic tone.
Or maybe he was entertaining a friend with a tale of the type of thing that
would happen and did happen and does happen to writers all the time, from
film directors, creative directors, editors and agent. VN, as an artist,
knew that one of the dangers that life holds for the artist (as the world
holds dangers for its children) are that their are a sharklike variety of
biografiends who are clearly consumed with envy and hatred for
their superiors, and look long and hard, and mendaciously for leveling tales
to tell.
For example, his earlier fan, the scholar who took as absolute gospel
Nabokov's story of
the inspiration for Lolita coming from a supposed news story about an ape in
a cage in
Paris who one day executed a charcoal drawing of the bars of its cage. The
scholar actually spent years trying to find the "newspaper
story" which, of course, Nabokov had pulled from his backside in a moment
of happy inspiration, just to illustrate a point.
Andrew Brown
----- Original Message -----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Friday, September 02, 2005 7:35 PM
Subject: Jo Morgan re Michael Maar's evidence on the Lolita/Lichberg issue.
> Re the 'outrage'Kunin expects will one day be unleashed over Michael
Maar's
> arguments about the connection between VN's Lolita and Lichberg's minor
> work.
>
> I am still waiting for Nabokov's many scholars and fans to show sufficient
> interest in my book "Solving Nabokov's Lolita Riddle" (2005). By paying
> careful attention to Nabokov's well-documented battle against Sigmund
Freud
> and his strategy of encrypting deliberate 'blunders' across his memoirs
> (Speak, Memory/Conclusive Evidence and Eugene Onegin)I have managed to
> prove that Nabokov wrote Lolita as a semi-autobiographical/semi-fictional
> account of his own terrible incestuous abuse as a boy at the hands of his
> pedophilic Uncle Ruka.
>
> The dangerous confidence trick 'Nabokov the Magician' has pulled on
> everyone explains: 1) the many gender-bending games the author played
> around Humbert's 'twofold' nymphet (e.g. Lolita's 'boys knees, her
'butcher-
> boy' pyjamas and 'tomboy shirt'); 2) the author's closing confession in
his
> so-called 'novel' Lolita - "I have camouflaged what I could so as not to
> hurt people"; and 3) Humbert's sly agreement that Lolita can take part in
> the Beardsley school play provided that boys parts are taken by girls
> parts. It also explains the blatant lie Nabokov told in his infamous
> postscript "On a Book Entitled Lolita" - namely that a US publisher had
> once proposed he replace his 12 year old girl with a boy.
>
> The revelations contained in my book with one day make Maar's work look
> like the proverbial storm in a tea cup. Please take the time to examine
> aspects of my analysis on my website www.lolitariddle.com. You can also
> order copies of my book via the website, if you so wish.
>
> With Lolita turning 50 this month, isn't it past time for Nabokov's 'time-
> bomb' to finally go off?
>
> Jo Morgan
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
----- End forwarded message -----
not even sent. I found it among my drafts. I've done some fast editing to
omit unnecessary snottiness. I have left in the second paragraph, below,
however, as a cautionary example of writing while impaired. The digression
about Freud strikes me as comically irrelevant and bassackward
The note below was written, apparently, in the very early hours of 9.02.05:
Perhaps the best remarks have already been made on this issue, and I have
arrived late on the scene with an insight long ago put forward and
dismissed, but it seems to me improbable that VN would have secretly
encrypted, over a series of decades, the unremarkable information that his
uncle Ruka fondled him.
Nabokov's dismissive tone toward Freud is simply that of an artist who knows
far better than any psychiatrist -- and better than most artists -- what the
true wellspring of creativity is. Dr.Freud's posting of sign boards, warning
signals, and suspiciously apt case histories have always seemed like the
infestation of rustic pedagogy one now finds all over the finest trails in
the greatest national parks in the world. In my opinion, it is better to let
ignorant and luckless tourists be eaten by the bears and wolves of which
these signs are meant to warn them. Do your homework at home before
venturing into the wild -- and before entering the wild side of art.
A writer of Nabokov's stature, which is to say an artist of the stature of a
James Joyce, which is to say artists worthy of permission to sit at table
with Shakespeare or Dante, does not waste his time "encrypting
deliberate 'blunders' across his memoirs." Creating multiple stories such as
The Vane Stories, and creating dual -- and dueling -- worlds, such as in
Pale Fire, are another thing altogether.
The encryption idea could only (and I
apologize to those in this profession who have been kind enough to tolerate
my intrusions) have been nurtured in the woolly world of academia. Speak,
Memory speaks frankly, briefly, and completely sufficiently about Uncle
Ruka's predelictions -- predelictions that, in my mind (and at the extremely
innocuous level at which VN's memoirs describe him as operating), make him
no villian or monster. It wasn't until I was in my forties that I remembered
at least three specific instances from childhood of this sort of thing
happening to me. Two occasions were at the municiple swimming park, and one
was in the basement of an elderly man on our block who had a remarkable
stamp collection, a marvelous aquarium, and an odd way of suggesting that
you and he go to use the bthroom at the same time.
It was not cause for lynching; it simply gave credence to my
mother's puzzling warnings about not sitting alone among unfamilar grown
men when I went to the movies, and of spending no more time than necessary
in the bathhouse and showers at the city swimming pool when I was ten or
eleven years old.
Ruka was old enough to know that the English poet and playwright Wilde had
been put to two years hard labor (practically a death sentence for a man of
Wilde's age and condition in those days) for advancing more deliberate and
intricate embraces with rough trade kids who
knew an easy way to get a few pounds off a toff.
Your statement, Jo, that you have managed to prove that Nabokov wrote Lolita
as a semi-autobiographical/semi-fictional account of his own terrible
incestuous abuse at the hands of his pedophilic Uncle Ruka is not
credible to me. A genius pushing sixty does not create a masterpiece merely
in order to vent an ancient grudge.
Regarding what you describe as "gender-bending" games e.g. 'boys knees,
'butcher-boy' pyjamas 'tomboy shirt', refer to girl childrens' fashions in
the forties. Possibly the last generation when girls clothes differed from
womens' clothes. Boys knees is a legitimate and unloaded description. Today
"boy shorts" are a style of
women's underwear I see advertised in VC whenever I'm giving my wife's
lingerie catalogs a thoughtful perusal. Judging from the girls
modeling them, they have an agreeably feminine appearance.
I would advise caution with regarding any analysis of "the author's" closing
confession in his so-called 'novel' Lolita - "I have camouflaged what I
could so as not to hurt people." Do you really think that Vladimir Nabokov,
worried that much about "hurting people" if art seemed to require it?
Boyd's life provides evidence to the contrary, I think.
But something must be said about your categorizing as a "blatant lie"
Nabokov's postscript tale about a US publisher who had once supposedly
proposed he replace his 12 year old girl, in Lolita, with a boy. The way
Nabokov describes this, in a letter to Bunny Wilson, has an authentic tone.
Or maybe he was entertaining a friend with a tale of the type of thing that
would happen and did happen and does happen to writers all the time, from
film directors, creative directors, editors and agent. VN, as an artist,
knew that one of the dangers that life holds for the artist (as the world
holds dangers for its children) are that their are a sharklike variety of
biografiends who are clearly consumed with envy and hatred for
their superiors, and look long and hard, and mendaciously for leveling tales
to tell.
For example, his earlier fan, the scholar who took as absolute gospel
Nabokov's story of
the inspiration for Lolita coming from a supposed news story about an ape in
a cage in
Paris who one day executed a charcoal drawing of the bars of its cage. The
scholar actually spent years trying to find the "newspaper
story" which, of course, Nabokov had pulled from his backside in a moment
of happy inspiration, just to illustrate a point.
Andrew Brown
----- Original Message -----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Friday, September 02, 2005 7:35 PM
Subject: Jo Morgan re Michael Maar's evidence on the Lolita/Lichberg issue.
> Re the 'outrage'Kunin expects will one day be unleashed over Michael
Maar's
> arguments about the connection between VN's Lolita and Lichberg's minor
> work.
>
> I am still waiting for Nabokov's many scholars and fans to show sufficient
> interest in my book "Solving Nabokov's Lolita Riddle" (2005). By paying
> careful attention to Nabokov's well-documented battle against Sigmund
Freud
> and his strategy of encrypting deliberate 'blunders' across his memoirs
> (Speak, Memory/Conclusive Evidence and Eugene Onegin)I have managed to
> prove that Nabokov wrote Lolita as a semi-autobiographical/semi-fictional
> account of his own terrible incestuous abuse as a boy at the hands of his
> pedophilic Uncle Ruka.
>
> The dangerous confidence trick 'Nabokov the Magician' has pulled on
> everyone explains: 1) the many gender-bending games the author played
> around Humbert's 'twofold' nymphet (e.g. Lolita's 'boys knees, her
'butcher-
> boy' pyjamas and 'tomboy shirt'); 2) the author's closing confession in
his
> so-called 'novel' Lolita - "I have camouflaged what I could so as not to
> hurt people"; and 3) Humbert's sly agreement that Lolita can take part in
> the Beardsley school play provided that boys parts are taken by girls
> parts. It also explains the blatant lie Nabokov told in his infamous
> postscript "On a Book Entitled Lolita" - namely that a US publisher had
> once proposed he replace his 12 year old girl with a boy.
>
> The revelations contained in my book with one day make Maar's work look
> like the proverbial storm in a tea cup. Please take the time to examine
> aspects of my analysis on my website www.lolitariddle.com. You can also
> order copies of my book via the website, if you so wish.
>
> With Lolita turning 50 this month, isn't it past time for Nabokov's 'time-
> bomb' to finally go off?
>
> Jo Morgan
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
----- End forwarded message -----