DOCSLIB.ORG

Chronology of Lolita

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Chronology of Lolita Chronology of Lolita CHRONOLOGY OF LOLITA This chronology is based on information gathered from the text of Nabokov’s Lolita as well as from the chronological reconstructions prepared by Carl Proffer in his Keys to Lolita and Dieter Zimmer’s online chronology at <http://www.d-e-zimmer.de/LolitaUSA/LoChrono.htm> (last accessed on No- vember 13, 2008). For a discussion of the problems of chronology in the novel, see Zimmer’s site. The page numbers in parenthesis refer to passages in the text where the information on chronology can be found. 1910 Humbert Humbert born in Paris, France (9) 1911 Clare Quilty born in Ocean City, Maryland (31) 1913 Humbert’s mother dies from a lightning strike (10) 1923 Summer: Humbert and Annabel Leigh have romance (11) Autumn: Humbert attends lycée in Lyon (11) December (?): Annabel dies in Corfu (13) 1934 Charlotte Becker and Harold E. Haze honeymoon in Veracruz, Mexico; Dolores Haze conceived on this trip (57, 100) 1935 January 1: Dolores Haze born in Pisky, a town in the Midwest (65, 46) April: Humbert has brief relationship with Monique, a Parisian prostitute (23) Humbert marries Valeria Zborovski (25, 30) 1937 Dolly’s brother born (68) 1939 Dolly’s brother dies (68) Humbert receives inheritance from relative in America (27) Valeria discloses to Humbert that she is having an affair; divorce proceedings ensue (27, 32) xv Chronology of Lolita 1940 Winter: Humbert spends winter in Portugal (32) Spring: Humbert arrives in United States and takes up job devising and editing perfume ads (32) Over next two years Humbert writes comparative history of French literature for English-speaking students (32) 1943–44 (?) Humbert spends more than a year in a sanatarium due to psychological problems (33) 1944 Summer: Dolly under supervision of Miss Phalen (56) 1945 The Haze family moves from Pisky to Ramsdale, which is located in New England (46, 74, 35) 1945 (?) Valeria dies in childbirth 1946 (?) Humbert has “another bout of insanity” and is institutiona lized (34) 1947 May: Humbert moves into Haze household in Ramsdale (40–41) June 5 (Thursday): First diary entry provided by Humbert (41) June 22 (Sunday): Humbert’s encounter with Dolly on living room couch (57) June 26 (Thursday): Charlotte drives Dolly to Camp Q (65) Late June or early July: Humbert marries Charlotte (74–75) July 29 (Tuesday): Charlotte’s and Humbert’s last swim at Hour- glass Lake (82) August 5 (Tuesday): Charlotte receives letter from the second Miss Phalen “exactly a week after our last swim” (93) August 6 (Wednesday): Humbert goes to doctor to get a pre- scription for sleeping pills (94); Charlotte reads his diary; Charlotte is hit by a car and dies. August 13 (Wednesday): Humbert leaves Ramsdale (105–6), spends night in Parkington (109) August 14 (Thursday): Humbert drives from Parkington to Camp Q to pick up Dolly. They drive on to Briceland and the Enchanted Hunters Hotel (112, 115) August 15 (Friday): Humbert and Dolly leave Briceland and go to Lepingville (139, 141) August 1947– Humbert and Dolly travel across the United States (154). August 1948 1948 August: Humbert and Dolly arrive in Beardsley and take up residence at 14 Thayer Street (176) December: Humbert meets with Miss Pratt to discuss Dolly’s conduct (193) xvi Chronology of Lolita 1949 January 1: Humbert buys Dolly a new bicycle (199) May: Dolly participates in a “very special rehearsal” of the school play (202) May 27 (Friday): Dolly’s piano teacher mentions in phone con- versation with Humbert that Dolly has missed two lessons (202); Humbert and Dolly fight, Dolly escapes, and then she decides to abandon the play and start a new road trip (207) May 29 (Sunday): Humber and Dolly leave Beardsley (208) Early June: Humbert and Dolly stay at the Chestnut Court in Kas- beam, where she surreptitiously meets with Quilty (212–15) Mid-June: Humbert and Dolly arrive in Wace, where they attend Clare Quilty and Vivian Darkbloom’s play (220) Late June: Dolly plays tennis at Champion Hotel in Colorado (233), and frolics by the pool under that watchful gaze of Clare Quilty (237) June 27 (Monday): Humbert and Dolly arrive in Elphinstone at the Silver Spur Court (238). Dolly is ill and is taken to the local hospital (240) June 28 (Tuesday): Humbert attempts an early morning visit to the hospital (242) July 2 (Saturday): Humbert visits Dolly in the hospital for the last time and spies suspicious envelope (242) July 3 (Sunday): Humbert is sick, but he sends Dolly’s two bags to the hospital (244) July 4 (Monday): Still sick, Humbert hears “some great national celebration in town” (245); Dolly leaves hospital (246) July 5 (Tuesday): Humbert telephones hospital and learns that Dolly had left the day before (246); Humbert leaves Elphinstone July 5–November 18: Humbert searches for Dolly and her new companion (248) November 18: Humbert arrives in Beardsley for a few days (248, 252) 1950 January 1: Humbert sends a collection of Dolly’s belongings to a home for orphaned girls in Canada (255) Winter-Spring: Humbert stays in a Quebec sanatorium (255) May: Humbert picks up Rita (258) and spends two years with her (259) 1951 September: Humbert takes up position at Cantrip College until June 1952 (260) 1952 June: Humbert gets Rita out of jail and returns to New York City with her by way of Briceland (261) September 18 (Thursday): Dolly writes Humbert from Coalmont (267) xvii Chronology of Lolita 1952 September 22 (Monday): Humbert receives Dolly’s letter and leaves New York for Coalmont (267) September 23 (Tuesday): Humbert arrives at Schiller home on Hunter Road, Coalmont (268–69); at around 4:00 PM, he departs for Ramsdale (281) September 24 (Wednesday): Humbert arrives in Ramsdale at around noon (287); he learns Clare Quilty’s address from Quilty’s uncle Ivor (291); and he drives from Ramsdale to Parkington (292) September 25 (Thursday): After spending the night at Insomnia Lodge, Humbert goes to kill Quilty at Quilty’s house on Grimm Road (293); after the murder, Humbert is arrested by police (307) November 16 (Sunday): Humbert dies of coronary thrombosis (3) December 25 (Thursday): Dolly Schiller dies in childbirth in Gray Star (4) 1955 August 5: John Ray, Jr. finishes his foreword to Humbert’s memoir (6) xviii Chronology of Lolita A Reader’s Guide to Nabokov’s “Lolita” xix Chronology of Lolita xx.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Vladimir Nabokov Lolita by John Lennard “There Are No Verbal Obscenities
    Literature Insights General Editor: Charles Moseley Vladimir Nabokov Lolita by John Lennard “there are no verbal obscenities ... in Lolita, only the low moans of ... abused pain.” HEB ☼ FOR ADVICE ON THE USE OF THIS EBOOK PLEASE SCROLL TO PAGE 2 Reading t * This book is designed to be read in single page view, using the ‘fit page’ command. * To navigate through the contents use the hyperlinked ‘Book- marks’ at the left of the screen. * To search, click the magnifying glass symbol and select ‘show all results’. * For ease of reading, use <CTRL+L> to enlarge the page to full screen, and return to normal view using < Esc >. * Hyperlinks (if any) appear in Blue Underlined Text. Permissions Your purchase of this ebook licenses you to read this work on- screen. No part of this publication may be otherwise reproduced or transmitted or distributed without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher. You may print one copy of the book for your own use but copy and paste functions are disabled. Making or distributing copies of this book would constitute copyright infringement and would be liable to prosecution. Thank you for respecting the rights of the author. ISBN 978-1-84760-073-8 Vladimir Nabokov: ‘Lolita’ John Lennard HEB ☼ Humanities-Ebooks, LLP Copyright © John Lennard, 2008 The Author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published by Humanities-Ebooks, LLP, Tirril Hall, Tirril, Penrith CA10 2JE Contents Preface Part 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Athletic Inspiration: Vladimir Nabokov and the Aesthetic Thrill of Sports Tim Harte Bryn Mawr College, [email protected]
    Bryn Mawr College Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College Russian Faculty Research and Scholarship Russian 2009 Athletic Inspiration: Vladimir Nabokov and the Aesthetic Thrill of Sports Tim Harte Bryn Mawr College, [email protected] Let us know how access to this document benefits ouy . Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.brynmawr.edu/russian_pubs Custom Citation Harte, Tim. "Athletic Inspiration: Vladimir Nabokov and the Aesthetic Thrill of Sports," Nabokov Studies 12.1 (2009): 147-166. This paper is posted at Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College. http://repository.brynmawr.edu/russian_pubs/1 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Tim Harte Bryn Mawr College Dec. 2012 Athletic Inspiration: Vladimir Nabokov and the Aesthetic Thrill of Sports “People have played for as long as they have existed,” Vladimir Nabokov remarked in 1925. “During certain eras—holidays for humanity—people have taken a particular fancy to games. As it was in ancient Greece and ancient Rome, so it is in our present-day Europe” (“Braitenshtreter – Paolino,” 749). 1 For Nabokov, foremost among these popular games were sports competitions. An ardent athlete and avid sports fan, Nabokov delighted in the competitive spirit of athletics and creatively explored their aesthetic as well as philosophical ramifications through his poetry and prose. As an essential, yet underappreciated component of the Russian-American writer’s art, sports appeared first in early verse by Nabokov before subsequently providing a recurring theme in his fiction. The literary and the athletic, although seemingly incongruous modes of human activity, frequently intersected for Nabokov, who celebrated the thrills, vigor, and beauty of sports in his present-day “holiday for humanity” with a joyous energy befitting such physical activity.
    [Show full text]
  • Imōto-Moe: Sexualized Relationships Between Brothers and Sisters in Japanese Animation
    Imōto-Moe: Sexualized Relationships Between Brothers and Sisters in Japanese Animation Tuomas Sibakov Master’s Thesis East Asian Studies Faculty of Humanities University of Helsinki November 2020 Tiedekunta – Fakultet – Faculty Koulutusohjelma – Utbildningsprogram – Degree Programme Faculty of Humanities East Asian Studies Opintosuunta – Studieinriktning – Study Track East Asian Studies Tekijä – Författare – Author Tuomas Valtteri Sibakov Työn nimi – Arbetets titel – Title Imōto-Moe: Sexualized Relationships Between Brothers and Sisters in Japanese Animation Työn laji – Arbetets art – Level Aika – Datum – Month and Sivumäärä– Sidoantal – Number of pages Master’s Thesis year 83 November 2020 Tiivistelmä – Referat – Abstract In this work I examine how imōto-moe, a recent trend in Japanese animation and manga in which incestual connotations and relationships between brothers and sisters is shown, contributes to the sexualization of girls in the Japanese society. This is done by analysing four different series from 2010s, in which incest is a major theme. The analysis is done using visual analysis. The study concludes that although the series can show sexualization of drawn underage girls, reading the works as if they would posit either real or fictional little sisters as sexual targets. Instead, the analysis suggests that following the narrative, the works should be read as fictional underage girls expressing a pure feelings and sexuality, unspoiled by adult corruption. To understand moe, it is necessary to understand the history of Japanese animation. Much of the genres, themes and styles in manga and anime are due to Tezuka Osamu, the “god of manga” and “god of animation”. From the 1950s, Tezuka was influenced by Disney and other western animators at the time.
    [Show full text]
  • Pedophilia, Poe, and Postmodernism in Lolita
    Nabokov’s Dark American Dream: Pedophilia, Poe, and Postmodernism in Lolita by Heather Menzies Jones A Thesis Submitted to the Department of English of the State University of New York, College at Brockport, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS 1995 ii Nabokov’s Dark American Dream: Pedophilia, Poe, and Postmodernism in Lolita by Heather Menzies Jones APPROVED: ________________________________________ _________ Advisor Date ________________________________________ _________ Reader ________________________________________ __________ Reader ________________________________________ __________ Chair, Graduate Committee _______________________________________ ___________ Chair, Department of English iii Table of Contents Chapter Page Introduction 1 Pedophilia and Lolita 10 Poe and Lolita 38 Postmodernism and Lolita 58 Works Cited 83 1 INTRODUCTION The following thesis about Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita first began as a paper written as an assignment for a course about postmodern American literature. In the initial paper's title there was an allusion made to the implicated reader, and the paper itself was about giving Lolita a newer and postmodern reading. To read Lolita again, years after doing so initially, was a distinctly disturbing thing to do. The cultural climate has certainly changed since the mid-1950's when the book was first published in this country, and this alone makes the rereading of this novel an engaging opportunity. Lionel Trilling wrote that Nabokov sought to shock us and that he had to stage-manage something uniquely different in order to do so. Trilling believed that the effect of breaking the taboo "about the sexual unavailability of very young girls" had the same force as a "wife's infidelity had for Shakespeare" (5).
    [Show full text]
  • From Russia to America: the Depiction of Nationality in Nabokov’S Work
    From Russia to America: The Depiction of Nationality in Nabokov’s Work Julian W. Connolly University of Virginia A truly international writer, Vladimir Nabokov once 26). Of course, even at this point Nabokov had declared: “the nationality of a worthwhile writer is moved on from America to Switzerland, though he of secondary importance […] The writer’s art is his always thought he might return to the States and he real passport. His identity should be immediately never relinquished in American citizenship. recognized by a special pattern or unique coloration” (Strong Opinions, 63). Despite this affirmation, An avid and accomplished lepidopterist as well however, the treatment of nationalities in Nabokov’s as a celebrated writer, Nabokov was a perceptive work is highly individualized and distinctive. He observer of the world around him. It is not surprising, himself traveled along an extraordinarily complex then, that his creative work would feature indelible path through life. Born into a wealthy family in St. portraits of the peoples and places he had come Petersburg, Russia, Nabokov was forced to leave to know in his life. As one looks carefully at his his homeland in 1919 because of the Bolshevik writings, one sees that each of the lands Nabokov Revolution. He attended Cambridge University in depicted is given a distinctive national coloring, England, and after graduation moved to Berlin to and it is likely that Nabokov’s personal experience launch a career as a writer. After a decade and a of living in these different lands had a decisive half he moved again, this time to France when life influence on they way they emerge in his art.
    [Show full text]
  • A Delicate Balance ​ ​​ ​ ​ ​​ ​
    PEEK BEHIND ​ ​ THE SCENES OF A DELICATE BALANCE ​ ​​ ​ ​ ​​ ​ Compiled By Lotta Löfgren ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ To Our Patrons ​ ​ ​ ​ Most of us who attend a theatrical performance know little about how a play is ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ actually born to the stage. We only sit in our seats and admire the magic of theater. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ But the birthing process involves a long period of gestation. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Certainly magic does happen on the stage, minute to minute, and night after night. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ But the magic that theatergoers experience when they see a play is made possible ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ only because of many weeks of work and the remarkable dedication of many, many ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ volunteers in order to transform the text into performance, to move from page to ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ stage. In this study guide, we want to give you some idea of what goes into creating a ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ show. You will see the actors work their magic in the performance tonight. But they ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ could not do their job without the work of others. Inside you will find comments ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ from the director, the assistant director, the producer, the stage manager, the set ​ ​ ​ ​ ​
    [Show full text]
  • Vladimir Nabokov's Representations of America in Lolita an Honors
    “Lovely, Trustful, Dreamy, Enormous”: Vladimir Nabokov’s Representations of America in Lolita An Honors Paper for the Department of English By Tully Patrick Moyer Bowdoin College, 2018 Ó2018 Tully Moyer Table of Contents Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………iii Introduction ………….……………………………………………………………...………….…1 Not-so-separate Spheres: Privacy and Publicity in American Hotels and Motels..…….…….….. 9 Humbert the Persuader: Contradictory Criticisms of American Consumerism….………….….. 50 Connection to Place: Seeking an American Identity…………………….…………………..…. 98 Coda……...……………………………………………………………………….………...…..138 Works Cited……………………………………………………………………….…………....141 ii Acknowledgements Thank you to Professor Morten Hansen, my advisor on this project, for reading countless drafts, providing honest and productive feedback, and taking the time to talk about things at every step along the way. And of course, thank you for your guidance throughout my time in the Bowdoin English department, from my first year until now, constantly believing I can do better and showing me how to get there. Thank you to my readers, Professor Meredith McCarroll and Professor Hilary Thompson, for your thoughtful consideration and comments throughout the year. I appreciate your unique perspectives that have challenged me to think about my work in entirely new ways. Thank you to Professor Celeste Goodridge, for your years of service to Bowdoin College and the immeasurable impact that you had on the lives of so many Bowdoin students. Beginning with my first college English course, your passion and brilliance inspired me to think about the English language and my time as a student in an entirely different way. I have always valued the time that you took, long after your role as my professor ended, to care for my education and life more generally, and all of my future intellectual pursuits will be shaped in a significant way by my time with you.
    [Show full text]
  • Nabokov's Lolita Spring 2021
    Nabokov’s Lolita FNDL 25300, REES 20004, GNSE 24900, ENGL 28916, SIGN 26027 Spring 2021 NB: This course is conducted remotely Malynne Sternstein [email protected] Office hours over Zoom TBA Teaching assistants: Office hours TBA Eliza Beckerman-Lee Victoria Berman Evelyn Burd [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Reading: Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. (Any edition, but the preference is for Alfred Appel’s annotated edition; Vintage, Rev. edition, 1991) Requirements: 1. Attendance and participation: 20%; 2. Weekly discussion posts: 40% • 250-500 words responding to one of three prompts available on the Canvas discussion thread 3. Midterm: write a letter, postcard, review, response, etc. in the voice of a character in the novel: 20% 4. Final: Imagine and materialize: 20% • Choose a scenario, text, place, or character in the novel and imagine these materializing further. For example, make a tourist map of one of the towns referred to in the novel, give a fulsome backstory to a “minor” character, file an accident report involving Charlotte Haze, Sketch the layout of the Enchanted Hunter’s Lodge, or create its dining room’s menu and sign, advertising and facilities, write sections of one of the fictitious texts mentioned in the novel, like “Do the Senses Make Sense?” or Quilty’s play “The Enchanted Hunter,” recreate the clothing store where Humbert Humbert purchases clothing for his Lolita, recreate the wedding of Richard Schiller and Dolores Haze, plant Charlotte’s garden, etc., etc. NB: Past projects for the course have included a mobile, a painting, a sculpture, Dolores Haze’s ‘diary,’ expository prose with schizoid marginalia, performance, songs, plays, maps, parody film reviews, short film, photographic essays, etc.
    [Show full text]
  • A Parody of Psychoanalysis in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita
    Journal of English Language and Literature Volume 9 No. 2 April 2018 A Parody of Psychoanalysis in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita Hossein Sharifi Khorasani Khayyam Higher Education University of Mashhad, Iran [email protected] Abstract- In Lolita (1955), Nabokov is playing a game with all his readers. Who do you think the winner is and what the game is all about? Nabokov who is a brilliant author wants to criticise Freud and his theory of psychoanalysis. He wants to rebel against Freud and his ideas. This paper aims to show you how successful Nabokov was in conveying his own ideas. We want to see whether or not psychoanalysis can be rejected by the help of Nabokov using a parody and trying to put psychoanalysis three key concepts: sexuality, memory, and interpretation into questioning. In this attempt, Nabokov takes a journey from conscious to unconscious and guides the readers with himself through this journey. He shows them symbols which may not represent real symbols, and simple characters which may not be that simple and plain; characters which have a wound in their Superegos and a dark side in their Ids and Egos. Keywords- Freud; psychoanalysis; Parody; sexuality; conscious; unconscious; symbolism; Id; Ego; Superego. "It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever in the first instance unconscious; the further quality of sight." “consciousness” might also be present, or again it might be --Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita absent.” As he states, “in mental life nothing has once be Humbert Humbert who is the main character of formed can be perished – […] everything is somehow Lolita (1955) is a middle-aged European scholar who has preserved and in suitable circumstances it can be brought obsessive love and desire for ‘nymphets’, or attractive, to light” (qtd.
    [Show full text]
  • Martin Amis on Vladimir Nabokov's Work | Books | the Guardian
    Martin Amis on Vladimir Nabokov's work | Books | The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/nov/14/vladimir-naboko... The problem with Nabokov Vladimir Nabokov's unfinished novella, The Original of Laura, is being published despite the author's instructions that it be destroyed after his death. Martin Amis confronts the tortuous questions posed by a genius in decline Martin Amis The Guardian, Saturday 14 November 2009 larger | smaller Vladimir Nabokov in Switzerland, in about 1975. Photograph: Horst Tappe/Getty Images Language leads a double life – and so does the novelist. You chat with family and friends, you attend to your correspondence, you consult menus and shopping lists, you observe road signs (LOOK LEFT), and so on. Then you enter your study, where language exists in quite another form – as the stuff of patterned artifice. Most writers, I think, would want to go along with Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), when he reminisced in 1974: The Original of Laura: (Dying is Fun) a Novel in Fragments (Penguin Modern Classics) by Vladimir Nabokov 304pp, Penguin Classics, £25 1 of 11 11/15/09 12:59 AM Martin Amis on Vladimir Nabokov's work | Books | The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/nov/14/vladimir-naboko... Buy The Original of Laura: (Dying is Fun) a Novel in Fragments (Penguin Modern Classics) at the Guardian bookshop ". I regarded Paris, with its gray-toned days and charcoal nights, merely as the chance setting for the most authentic and faithful joys of my life: the coloured phrase in my mind under the drizzle, the white page under the desk lamp awaiting me in my humble home." Well, the creative joy is authentic; and yet it isn't faithful (in common with pretty well the entire cast of Nabokov's fictional women, creative joy, in the end, is sadistically fickle).
    [Show full text]
  • Revisiting the Double Topos in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita
    “In a princedom by the sea”: Revisiting the double topos in Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita Rudolf Sárdi, South Mediterranean University, Tunis, Tunisia Abstract Over the past three decades considerable scholarly attention has been paid to the works of Vladimir Nabokov, who has become one of the most widely disputed figures of twentieth- century American and Russian literature (partially) due to his verbal pyrotechnics and stylistic extravaganzas. For a long time, these attributes of his fiction were somewhat misguidedly viewed as the quintessence of the Nabokovian universe. In his fiction, Vladimir Nabokov has made extensive use of the double topos. While he is known to have used the double for parodic purposes, the present paper diverts from the traditional mode of interpretation by attempting to answer what motivated the author to develop a particular liking for the doppelganger, which he stoutly labelled as a “frightful bore.” It will be claimed that Nabokov’s force of circumstances and his conviction in a metaphysical and textual “otherworld” propelled him to revivify the double as a literary theme. It will be demonstrated that Lolita abounds in various forms of doubling; most importantly, Nabokov repeatedly alludes to Edgar Allan Poe, whose “Annabel Lee” recurs in the novel as a central rhetorical, framing, ordering, and fictionalizing device, illuminating the all- pervasive nature of the “otherworld” that moves the novel’s earlier interpretations to yet another dimension. Keywords: doppelgänger, literary tradition, displacement, parody, repetition, “otherworld” Introduction It is trotting out a hoary old literary chestnut that Vladimir Nabokov harbored a strong animus against the traditional topos of the doppelgänger in his fiction.
    [Show full text]
  • LOLITA Opéra Imaginaire D’Après La Roman De Vladimir Nabokov Composé Et Arrangé Par Joshua Fineberg
    LOLITA Opéra imaginaire d’après la roman de Vladimir Nabokov composé et arrangé par Joshua Fineberg 1. Argument Spectacle multi-média pour danseurs/acteurs, voix, ensemble, électronique et vidéo Mon travail a longtemps porté sur la question des sources (modèles) de la réalité et de leurs représentations (réalisations) dans les œuvres artistiques. C'est un thème central dans toute la musique spectrale, de la synthèse orchestrale d'un trombone dans Partiels de Grisey à l'analyse/re-synthèse en temps réel de l'ensemble instrumental dans ma propre pièce Empreintes. Ce rapport (du modèle à la représentation) est presque toujours destructif. Le modèle semble pauvre une fois que l'artifice l'a révélé dans une plus riche apparence. Un « original » qui devrait résonner dans sa « légitimité » est accablé par la force de sa transcription. Pour moi, c'est là la vraie histoire racontée par Lolita de Nabokov. L’œuvre de Nabokov a suscité beaucoup de polémiques et a été adaptée en diverses réalisations dramatiques (les plus notables étant deux grands films); cependant ces adaptations se sont toutes concentrées sur ce qui est peut-être l’aspect le moins intéressant du roman – son intrigue. Pour moi, l'idée vraiment essentielle de l’œuvre est la nature en soi destructive de la transcription artistique d'un personnage, d'un événement, d'une scène ou d'un son. Transposant une adolescente réelle en une vision sublimée Humbert la tue de fait et place un double à sa place (ironiquement il la détruit assez complètement dans la réalité). Le vrai personnage féminin est vu seulement de temps en temps et à travers des aperçus furtifs (comme ses yeux rougeoyants, brillant en de rares occasions derrière un masque ornemental).
    [Show full text]