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| case in point |
{dis var fun 2 rite}
Journalism professor John McPhee, who is at last finishing
Lolita via in-vehicle audiobook, muses that “Nabokov is a precursive rapper. He’ll go: ‘I went into the room and ruminated.’ He’ll have line rhymes that go on and on, and alliterations that go on and on, and alliterative line rhymes out the door. He’s verbally intoxicated” (“What I Think: John McPhee”). Indeed, the writer, professor, and lepidopterist Vladimir Nabokov churns out prose with ecstatic, effortless musicality, which in fiction is tasty but in cover letters utterly unpalatable. Fie on cover letters: clear, communicative, functional writing of the kind valued by consulting firms negates the sounds and shapes of words, and fears the spectrum of meanings permitted by their interactive shimmering. Thus, near-poets like Nabokov write in retaliation to the sparest systems of speaking and writing; though he has “only words to play with,” bland old objective reality is at the whim of the sound bites comprising
Lolita.
Practical people—professional, respectable people—resent such voices because they force listeners to think twice about what was just heard or read. Forced to revise their thoughts for clarity, writers rush to defend their beloved twists and turns of phrase, gesticulating wildly at inside jokes and misfired puns, and insisting that any unintelligibility is deliberate. Such writing tends towards excessive Romanticism, like piano students with overly-pliant interpretations of already-cheesy Chopin. Rhythmic prodding—or
rubato, code for “stolen time that ought to be returned”—exemplifies romanticism: the attempt to manipulate and, on occasion, obliterate time. Nabokov manages literary rubato by squelching every possible detail from an otherwise trivial moment: Lolita’s leading man Humbert Humbert observes “on her brown shoulder a raised purple-pink swelling (the work of some gnat) which I eased of its beautiful transparent poison between my long thumbnails and then sucked till I was gorged on her spicy blood” (156). Readers did not know that they wanted to know this, and marvel at Nabokov’s skillful neutralization of the grotesque. The following snippet similarly affirms that romanticism is really just verbal dilly-dallying: Humbert spots “a [fire] hydrant: a hideous thing, really, painted a thick silver and red, extending the red stumps of its arms to be varnished by the rain which like stylized blood dripped upon its argent chains” (106). By lingering on the unappetizing nubbins and knobs otherwise evicted by verbal economy, Nabokov demonstrates the power of rubato to hypnotize his audience. Half his adjectives could certainly be eliminated or compacted in the name of concision, but we would be experientially poorer for it—perhaps the masterful dearth of adverbs in these two segments contributes to their success. Blood has never oozed so appealingly from a ripe cyst.
These two moments are relatively unambiguous in the field of Nabokov’s figurative devices—readers later wander so far into the thicket of meanings that Nabokov succeeds in rationalizing Humbert’s carnal passion for a twelve-year-old. In class, we ascertained that in clinical language—Blanche Schwarzman, black-and-white language—HH sexually abused a young girl—“broke her life” (279)—and that’s that. How is it, then, that Nabokov makes readers like Humbert, or that Humbert makes readers like Humbert, or Humbert makes readers like Nabokov? (The third is not so controversial—we are so awed by Nabokov’s virtuosity that we trust him.) Perhaps we like Humbert for his relatability, especially regarding vanity: he continually worries that he has not “sufficiently stressed the peculiar ‘sending’ effect that [his] good looks—pseudo-Celtic, attractively simian, boyishly manly—had on women of every age and environment…every once in a while I have to remind the reader of my appearance much as a professional novelist, who has given a character of his some mannerism or a dog, has to go on producing that dog or that mannerism every time the character crops up” (104). This is the rapper-ego at work. Continual celebration of oneself, especially of the more superficial aspects, pervades most entries on the Billboard Hot 100, and is symptomatic of a need for affirmation experienced by all and exploited by artists. To complete his case, Humbert dwells in ethical gray areas, admitting that “he knew, of course, it was but an innocent game on [Lolita’s] part, a bit of backfisch foolery in imitation of fake romance,” but nevertheless insisting that “the limits and rules of such girlish games are fluid” (113). Given the option to, Humbert optimizes: he is “in blood stepped in so far” à la Macbeth that he might as well continue with his sin, forming an advantageous interpretation of Lolita’s girlish inexperience. The skies nevertheless burn with hell flames.
In a more whimsical mode of manipulation,
MC Nabokov-Humbert litters the pages with charming alliterations and puns, often risqué in nature. Here is a large sampling of most effective ones: the “Kumfy Kabins (117)” that dot Humbert and Lolita’s copulative interstate criss-crossing form a fine double-entendre if I ever heard one. The “noble nipple” (76) graces us with its amusing appearance as Humbert appraises his dummy-bride, Charlotte Haze. The following list demonstrates that Nabokov’s phrases, read in rapid succession, are of stunning sonic value: “a midget for mistress” (108), “a banked banker, so to speak” (98), American mountains that are “altitudinal failures as alps go” (156), “gangling, golden-haired high school uglies, all muscles and gonorrhea” (160), asking strangers for directions and receiving only “geometrical gestures, geographical generalities…well-meaning gibberish” (116). Should your eyes water, I will provide relief in the form of chilled stone fruits, pillowing Lolita’s eyes “as plumbaceous umbrae” (111) and appearing as sleeping pills: “much too precious was each tiny plum, each microscopic planetarium with its live stardust” (109). That HH so regards these purple pills—tools meant to facilitate the fondling of darlings—speaks to the almost holy consecration of his however-misdirected love for Lolita. He yearns to suntan in her fey, star-dusted presence; the pills afford possibilities to do so imaginatively. Upon their chipper arrival at The Enchanted Hunters, Humbert notes that “with a childish hand [Lolita] tweaked loose the frock-fold that had stuck in the peach-clef—to quote Robert Browning” (117). Now, is Humbert actually quoting the poet, or is he being cleverly Victorian with this creative characterization of the wedgie? Privately and blissfully, Humbert revels in his ripe, nubile ward. Nevertheless, when his consciousness nags, HH mishears “The weather is getting better’” as “Where the devil did you get her?” and “July was hot” as “You lie—she’s not” (127) (his daughter, that is). See how the mere sounds of words amplify their usage! Sketchy Humbert’s paranoia pollutes his perceptions of spoken words. Maybe, though, he heard correctly the first time.
Another very rapperly reference to procreation (however more delicately euphemized) commemorates Humbert and Lo’s first shared bed at The Enchanted Hunters. Think twice or you’ll miss it, for rather than detailing the proceedings with pornographic detail, Humbert writes, “Had the management of The Enchanted Hunters lost its mind one summer day and commissioned me to redecorate…There would have been poplars, apples, a suburban Sunday. There would have been a fire opal dissolving within a ripple-ringed pool, a last throb, a last dab of color, stinging red, smarting pink, a sigh, a wincing child” (134-135). “Smarting”—to cause a sharp, stinging pain. When considered in combination with the knowledge that “pride alone have prevented her [Lolita] from giving up” (134) during what’s revealed to be “strenuous intercourse three times that very morning” (140), one marvels at Nabokov’s novel coverage of the oft-mangled “stark act.” The story was not building up to this point, as originally surmised (…considering), but passes casually by on its merry way to portraying a love less technical and more ineffably pure.
As another means of comic relief, Humbert-Nabokov supplies parenthetical zingers with a knack for trivializing the tragic. Early on, he recounts the death of a parent: “My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning)” (10). Similarly, the death of Charlotte Haze merits the following note: “Within the intricacies of the pattern (hurrying housewife, slippery pavement, a pest of a dog, steep grade, big car, baboon at its wheel), I could dimly distinguish my own vile contribution” (103). These precisely-timed interjections contribute to the farcical, film noir, two-dimensional quality of Humbert’s recollections, suggesting that half of what he claims may have transpired only in his revisionist memory, if not imagination. When a motel manager tells Humbert that “one night we had three ladies and a child like yours sleep together. I believe one of the ladies was a disguised man [my static]’” (118), the parenthetical-within-a-parenthetical reminds the reader of Humbert’s creative omnipotence. Similar editors’ markings appear throughout his narrative, suggesting a meta-revision of reality for maximal effect.
 |
Kiki Smith: “...your work shouldn’t be so idiosyncratic and
personal that people can’t find an entrance for themselves
into it, and it can’t be so general that they can’t see
what you have at stake in it.” |
Vivian Darkbloom—a.k.a. Vladimir Nabokov—delights in the fungible permutations of a name. “Humbert” morphs most dynamically, beginning with “Mr. Edgar H. Humbert (I threw in the “Edgar” just for the heck of it)” (75) in his wedding announcement. No one thinks to question this inconsequential falsity. When filling out forms, HH deliberates: “What should I put? Humbert and daughter? Humberg and small daughter? Homberg and immature girl? Homburg and child? The droll mistake—the ‘g’ at the end—which eventually came through may have been a telepathic echo of these hesitations of mine” (109). This gestures to the impact of letter-by-letter revision: a tiny substitution has a disproportionately large effect, changing perhaps even the religious affiliation of the Hum-someone in question. His identity is slippery, as all signifiers are. Elsewhere, Humbert crafts a particularly appealing incarnation of Lolita (amongst Lo, Lola, Dolly, Delores): “Lo and Behold, upon returning, I would find the former, les yeux perdus, dipping and kicking her long-toed feet in the water” (162). These words at play—carefree, confident, knowing play—add to, rather than distract from, the clarity of prose. Still cleverer is the naming of Humbert’s dispensable lawyer, who “suggested I give a clear, frank account of the itinerary we followed…This is not too clear I am afraid, Clarence, but I did not keep any notes” (154). Clears and Clarences and similar pairings abound, winking at readers from their firmly-affixed, sneaky nooks on the page. These details sandwich, by the way, a decidedly un-clear account of Humbert and Lolita’s travels around the country.
Nabokov remixes narration and “found documents” to spin poetry out of once-empty words. Indeed, as pointed out in class, in Hum’s hands everything becomes a poem, just as for hammers any old thing becomes a nail. Humbert pairs the academic-seeming assertion that “in such stimulating temperate climates [says an old magazine in this prison library] as St. Louis, Chicago and Cincinnati, girls mature about the end of their twelfth year” with the realization that “Delores Haze was born less than 300 miles from stimulating Cincinnati,” artfully combining the facts to suit his questionable case. How conveniently and eloquently they meld in Humbert’s favor. In the first stages of his fervor for Lolita, Humbert collects and stashes tokens of her existence with gnomish attention, including verbal treasures of a verbal nature: “There was a mimeographed list of names referring, evidently, to her class at the Ramsdale school. It is a poem I know already by heart…A poem, a poem, forsooth! So strange and sweet was it to discover this ‘Haze, Delores’ (she!) in its special bower of names, with its bodyguard roses—a fairy princess between her two maids of honor…pretty Rosaline [Honeck], dark Mary Rose [Hamilton]” (52). This method of mountain-from-molehilling, purely aesthetic, endears Humbert to his listeners. The poetry positively flows out of tender Humbert, we say with a simper, pardoning his need to feed on nymphets as a side-effect of aesthetic hypersensitivity, a trait to be encouraged.
At what point does one take too much artistic liberty? Slightly-creepy multidisciplinary artist Kiki Smith recalls that when she was young, “a man told me that your work shouldn’t be so idiosyncratic and personal that people can’t find an entrance for themselves into it, and it can’t be so general that they can’t see what you have at stake in it” ("The Magic of Fall Fashion at the Venice Biennale: Kiki Smith"). Vladimir Nabokov sits at that ideal junction between obscurity and opalescence: a bit of persistent rubbing reveals literary gems worth pocketing. In fact, most of his writing glimmers at first glance. His verve for verbiage (though only of the most essential kind) electrifies each page of Lolita, rendering a story ripe for retelling, in person or on screen. If only the Wall Street Journal was written in such a way—I wouldn’t have to read each article five times before it penetrated my air-head. Perhaps this is the reason that literature rings more truly to the likes me of than nonfiction and news: memorably adorable thought-strings enmesh themselves into one’s CPU to stay.
Works Cited
Gebremedhin, Thomas. "The Magic of Fall Fashion at the Venice Biennale: Kiki Smith." Wall Street Journal Magazine, Aug. 2017.
Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. 2nd International ed., New York, Random House, 1955.
"What I Think: John McPhee." Princeton University News, edited by Jamie Saxon, www.princeton.edu/news/2017/09/18/what-i-think-john-mcphee. Accessed 20 Mar. 2018.
