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EDNOTE. (London) Times Literary Supplement to carry critic Michael Maar article on Lichberg "Lolita". The item below is a preliminary announcement.
----- Original Message -----
From: Mvoscol@aol.com
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2004 3:57 AM
Subject: TLS:Maar next week
TLS March 26, 2004, p. 16 ("NB"):
"The first little throb of Lolita went through me late in 1939 or early in 1940 in Paris", wrote Vladimir Nabokov of his famous novel. He embarked on a version, which he wrote in Russian; the unnamed figure who would grow into Humbert Humbert was a "Central European, the anonymous nymphet French, and the loci were Paris and Provence". Nabokov was displeased with his effort, "and destroyed it". It was later found, however, and published in 1986 as The Enchanter.
A German literary critic, Michael Maar, now suggests that the first throb of Lolita occurred not in Paris but Berlin, and indeed came in a work of fiction by Heinz von Lichberg, the pen-name of a German journalist later known for his Nazi sympathies. Lichberg published a twenty-page short story called "Lolita" in Berlin in 1916, in Die verfluchte Gioconda, a collection by various hands. It involves a man who rents a room in a Spanish resort where he becomes infatuated by the daughter of his host. "She was very young ... according to our Nordic notions .... But it was not only her beauty that captivated me .... a strange enigma emanated from her, which tantalizingly overcame me on moonlit nights." Nabokov lived in Berlin after 1916, and could have read Lichberg's story.
German newspapers announced Mr Maar's discovery last week, but the full version of his investigation will be carried in next week's TLS. "It is not of great artistic merit", he says of Lichberg's "Lolita". "But then the master takes the subject andd creates a work of art."
----- Original Message -----
From: Mvoscol@aol.com
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2004 3:57 AM
Subject: TLS:Maar next week
TLS March 26, 2004, p. 16 ("NB"):
"The first little throb of Lolita went through me late in 1939 or early in 1940 in Paris", wrote Vladimir Nabokov of his famous novel. He embarked on a version, which he wrote in Russian; the unnamed figure who would grow into Humbert Humbert was a "Central European, the anonymous nymphet French, and the loci were Paris and Provence". Nabokov was displeased with his effort, "and destroyed it". It was later found, however, and published in 1986 as The Enchanter.
A German literary critic, Michael Maar, now suggests that the first throb of Lolita occurred not in Paris but Berlin, and indeed came in a work of fiction by Heinz von Lichberg, the pen-name of a German journalist later known for his Nazi sympathies. Lichberg published a twenty-page short story called "Lolita" in Berlin in 1916, in Die verfluchte Gioconda, a collection by various hands. It involves a man who rents a room in a Spanish resort where he becomes infatuated by the daughter of his host. "She was very young ... according to our Nordic notions .... But it was not only her beauty that captivated me .... a strange enigma emanated from her, which tantalizingly overcame me on moonlit nights." Nabokov lived in Berlin after 1916, and could have read Lichberg's story.
German newspapers announced Mr Maar's discovery last week, but the full version of his investigation will be carried in next week's TLS. "It is not of great artistic merit", he says of Lichberg's "Lolita". "But then the master takes the subject andd creates a work of art."