Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0006535, Thu, 9 May 2002 07:50:34 -0700

Subject
Re: "White Widowed Male" (fwd)
Date
Body
From Mary Bellino (iambe@rcn.com):

I agree with Anthony Stadlen; there's no question that Nabokov was
evoking particularly the style of the earlier psychiatric casebooks such
as those of Krafft-Ebing and Havelock Ellis, both of which he'd read.
Alfred Appel adds that "the entire subtitle parodies the titillating
confessional novel, such as John Cleland's _Memoirs of a Woman of
Pleasure_ (1749), and the expectations of the reader who hopes _Lolita_
will provide the pleasures of pornography" (Annotated Lolita 321).