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Fw: Fw: The name LOLITA -- but why Cora Day?
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----- Original Message -----
From: Jamie L. Olson
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2003 11:58 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: The name LOLITA -- but why Cora Day?
Dear list,
I should probably step out of the argument on the pronunciation of 'Lolita' and leave it to the native speakers of Russian, but please allow me one additional posting.
I think that we all agree that the description of the way her name ought to sound is definitely not American, but most (or all?) speakers of Russian seem to think that Nabokov's is definitely not a Russian pronunciation. I don't quite agree with this opinion, but I am not Russian (though I do speak the language---more or less clumsily, I suppose), so my own opinion will likely be dismissed by many.
Nevertheless, let me summarize my position:
The name itself is, of course, not at all a Slavic one. It certainly has roots in one or another Romance language. The suffix '-ita' is a certain indicator of this latinate etymology. But the author, though multilingual, was most at home in French, English, and Russian. (Some may have heard recordings of VN's readings from the novel, in which the second word of the phrase from one of Hum's poems, "ma Lolita," takes its stress on the ultimate syllable---not on the penultimate, as in English, Russian, Italian, Spanish, etc. So we can definitely rule out French as a determining factor in the name's general pronunciation.) As the nymphet's name is certainly not meant to be pronounced in the English (we've all heard James Mason's long-'O'-ed Englishing of the name) or American fashion, the proper pronunciation must derive from either Russian, Spanish, or Italian.
If we restrict ourselves to the evidence in the novel's opening paragraph alone, I think that the description of the tongue marching down the palate in three steps from back to front is perfectly in line with Russian phonetics, though definitely not with American or British English phonetics, and (though I'm no expert) probably not completely with Italian or Spanish phonetics. A heavy 'L' followed by an 'O' in Russian demands that the tongue situate itself relatively far back on the palate, while an 'L' followed by a Russian 'i' softens the consonant, placing the tip of the tongue just back from the teeth. And the light 'T' is, of course, pronounced by placing the tip of the tongue on the back of the teeth. Thus, the tip of the tongue moves step-by-step from back to front.
If, however, we focus on what Nabokov told the _Playboy_ interviewer in 1964, we see him emphasizing the Italian and Spanish etymology of the name. In his desciption there, both 'L's are "liquid and delicate"---unlike Russian, and unlike the description in the opening passage. However, he does say that "the first syllable should as in 'lollipop'", which is not at all like a Spanish or Italian pronunciation, in which the 'O' would be long. The comparison to "lollipop" sounds to me more like the unstressed 'O' in Russian, which, as I understand it, is somewhere between the English schwa and the vowel sound in the first syllable in the word 'father'.
Then again, as Aleksey Sklyarenko pointed out, VN does deny any connection to Russian or English in the pronunciation of the name 'Lolita' in Vivian Darkbloom's notes to _Ada_.
But there is yet another source that we could refer to: a September 1965 interview on public television that is also reproduced in _Strong Opinions_. There, Nabokov makes a definite distinction between the Russian and American/English pronunciations of the name, in spite of the fact that both opening paragraphs' description of the pronunciation is the same. It is as follows:
"Note that for the necesary effect of dreamy tenderness both 'l's and 't's should be iberized and not pronounced the American way with crushed 'l's, a course 't', and a long 'o': 'Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.' Now comes the Russian. Here the first syllable of her name sounds more like an 'ah' sound than an 'o' sound, but the rest is like Spanish: (Reads in Russian) 'Lah-lee-ta, svet moey zhizni, ogon' moih chresel. Greh moy, dusha moya.' And so on" (SO [Vintage 1990], p. 53).
Perhaps the above passage should be the last word on the matter, since it is, after all, VN describing everything that we have been discussing over the past week on the list. Though it's not entirely clear to me, he seems to be implying that the first syllable should sound different in Russian ("more like an 'ah' sound than an 'o' sound"), but then again he does assert that American readers should fight the urge to give her name a "long 'o'", which they would otherwise naturally do. The result of this advice may be something more like the Russian unstressed 'o'. In both languages, "everything is iberized," but the question is whether the statement "the rest is like Spanish" in the Russian version means that it is also unlike Russian, or whether it so happens in this case that his conception of Russian and iberian pronunciations coincide.
One might think that this is a lot of unnecessary fuss and hair-splitting over the pronunciation of a name, but the name is, after all, that of the title character in one of the most famous English novels ever written (certainly the most widely read VN novel), and we should try to get it right. In any case, I think many would agree that it is more natural for Russians to pronounce her name properly, while we Americans and other readers of English must make a conscious effort to do so.
Jamie L. Olson
At 10:19 AM 08/11/2003 -0700, you wrote:
EDNOTE. I suppose that "Cora Day" refers to Charlotte Corday who stabbed the French revolutionary Marat to death in his bath (1793). It is the subject of a famous painting. For detail, see the URL
http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:NayYJFYmXzEJ:www.asis.com/sfhs/women/charlotte.html+Marat+Corday&hl=en&lr=lang_en|lang_ru&ie=UTF-8
VN refers to Corday elsewhere. ADA? Someone should look into the contexts and find out why.
----- Original Message -----
From: Carolyn Kunin
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Sunday, August 10, 2003 9:02 PM
Subject: The name LOLITA -- but why Cora Day?
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Sergey Karpukhin
>
> I would like to contribute to the Lolita thread. In Julian Barnes's Flaubert's
> Parrot, chapter 6 "Emma Bovary's Eyes", there is a short discussion of
> mistakes in literature, and among his examples the narrator Geoffrey
> Braithwaite mentions Nabokov: "Nabokov was wrong - rather surprising, this -
> about the phonetics of the name Lolita." I wonder what made him think so?
Dear Sergey Karpukhin,
Regarding the name Lolita:
It is a Spanish name (and Nabokov's pronunciation of it is not Russian as suggested by Mr Olson). I don't find the reference now, but I seem to recall that "Mr Haze" came up with the name during a (honeymoon?) visit to Mexico.
I have asked a Spanish-speaking friend about the pronunciation. She says Nabokov got the three positions of the tongue correct. Her only "correction" would be that "lee" is not quite the Spanish pronunciation which slightly shortens the vowel. Still, this is certainly no "mistake." Barnes must be -- rather surprising this -- barking.
It turns out that Lola/Lolita are short/diminuative forms of both Dolores and Charlotte.
The name Charlotte recalls "Cora Day" who seems to pop up every so often in VN -- but why?
Carolyn Kunin