50th anniversary of Lolita's publication (Boston via lf)
A nice, short history and appreciation of that strange and wonderful book. It's probably a good time to read that book once again, I haven't done so in 10 years or more.
Humbert's seductive force comes in large part from his freakish rhetorical gifts--and also in large part for one of the seductive comparisons he repeatedly evokes. Just as an artist is first and foremost responsible to his or her own inspiration, Humbert describes himself as first and foremost responsible to his passion. He is soon so consumed by the kindling of his own senses that despite his powers of perception and despite his sensitivity, he acts with callousness and coldness to the nymphet he claims to so ardently love. The lesson he learns he learns ''too late."
"You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style." Humbert actually fools you into believing that he learns that lesson, but of course he doesn't.
Nabokov has Humbert compose a memoir in which he narrates not from the point of view of the regret and repentance which is his own at the time of writing, but from that of the euphoria and haunted rapture which preceded it. He writes from the perspective through which he had gradually persuaded himself that what he was doing to young Lolita could be explained, could be justified, was not so bad after all.
Bertrand Russell once noted that there is nothing so useful to a democracy as the immunization against eloquence, and Humbert's memoir should be seen in a similar light. What he ultimately tells his readers is: What I have done is monstrous, let no amount of eloquence ever convince you that such acts are anything but. Look at them for what they are. Look at them for the pain they cause.
Stated somewhat differently, the most brilliant American novel of the 20th century, now a round and ripe 50 years old, tells us that the artist cannot live in the world as he lives in the world of words--and that this is a lesson worthy of expressing in the world of words.
(Via robot wisdom weblog.)
8:50:24 AM 
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