tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post6431229924793607970..comments2024-01-06T10:36:04.084-05:00Comments on A Commonplace Blog: The murderer’s fancy styleD. G. Myershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10659136455045567825noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-58473958252119478182009-11-23T04:30:13.309-05:002009-11-23T04:30:13.309-05:00I do not believe "You can always count on a m...I do not believe "You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style" is supposed to make logical sense. It's an absurd statement which seems to speak to the fact that this not a conventional murderer or a conventional textual world. The elaborations in style have to do with Humbert's identity: H.H. is a better artist than C.Q. but who is a shadow of who is not obvious in Humberland and changes in style repeatedly point to Humbert's various identities. Most explicitly, after Humbert the artist kills the degenerate Quilty he literally pops a big pink bubble with juvenile connotations (304), "a bubble of hot poison" (17). Also, for all of Humbert's "fine points," he is definitely a sociopath. Read the passage when he describes how he would have liked to kill Charlotte. That is the thought-process of a sociopath. More to the point, what is "fancy" is the murder itself. Humbert kills a strain of himself through a wonderfully implausible and fantastic scene: the death of Quilty (with all those locked and yet opening doors, the exquisite details of a man taking impossibly long to die who finally does in the bed where the trouble was consummated), this "fancy" murder, leads to the artistic flourish of taking the news story on 287-288 and transforming it into his own story on 306-307. Once again, the creation of art oversees the creation of penance.<br /><br />Finally, as much as I like Appel, his emphasis (and your emphasis) on Christ's crown of thorns, while useful, does not take advantage of another reference on 298 of Speak, Memory: here art and nature share the ability to beautifully mimic through patterns (through deception); the rebirth of consciousness is described as recognizing that patterning, that mimicry, is to see what is "marvelously disguised" through the "tangle of twigs and leaves." Given that the class list so dear to Nabokov's heart (52) surrounds Dolores Haze's name with Roses (a tangle of thorns), I believe the art that is Lolita (the tangle, the parodies, the mask, the marvelously disguised patternings) is what can be more extensively looked at than someone seeking Christ's atonement. The reference, in itself, is a parody since it is Lolita who is "crucified for a moment" as Humbert walks past her "without touching her bulging babe" (270). What kills Dolores is childbirth; what brings Lolita to life is Humbert's artistry.Paul M. Capobiancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03216783366714518048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-52235892217791018532009-02-23T19:01:00.000-05:002009-02-23T19:01:00.000-05:00Nabokov did not believe that Lolita should be stag...Nabokov did not believe that <I>Lolita</I> should be staged or filmed with an underage actress in the title role. Sue Lyon was sixteen when Kubrick’s film version, with screenplay by Nabokov, was released. (Even now, the <A HREF="http://www.faqs.org/childhood/A-Ar/Age-of-Consent.html" REL="nofollow">age of consent</A> in the majority of states is fifteen or sixteen.) There is a reason for Nabokov’s moral squeamishness. (I know, I know. You are supposed to believe Nabokov when he says that his novels contain no moral message. Don’t believe him. Like Cool Hand Luke, he is sprinkling pepper on his trail.) Perhaps the best reason is the remarkable scene of, um, er, Lolita in Humbert’s lap. The scene lasts as long as it takes Humbert, um, er, to conclude his activities. Only in language—not on film—could this scene have achieved its power to hold the reader spellbound and appall him at the same time.D. G. Myershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10659136455045567825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-63247741008397791122009-02-23T18:33:00.000-05:002009-02-23T18:33:00.000-05:00As well all that remains of him. Without the reade...As well all that remains of him. Without the reader to imagine Humbert, he is lost (or at least his "case" is). <BR/><BR/>Like most of the text, there are double (or more) meanings. He does reinforce the inadequacy of words in describing the accident scene of his wife's death...impressions vs. the order required to assign words and arrange them for some type of meaning. Looking forward to the second half.Dwighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13688525659034403580noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-50893793803331082642009-02-23T17:51:00.000-05:002009-02-23T17:51:00.000-05:00Humbert also means, of course, that he only has wo...Humbert also means, of course, that he only has words <I>rather than Lolita</I> to play with. By the end of the novel, that medium enables him to “make [her] live in the minds of later generations.” All that remains of her—the words in Humbert’s book.D. G. Myershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10659136455045567825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-64535334111466343282009-02-23T17:20:00.000-05:002009-02-23T17:20:00.000-05:00Thanks for the post. I'm working my way through Lo...Thanks for the post. I'm working my way through Lolita for the first time (just finished Part One). The other edge of the "fancy prose style" quote is Humbert's lament that he has "only words to play with" -- the inadequacy of words to describe what he wants to convey. So it is both fancy and inadequate at the same time.Dwighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13688525659034403580noreply@blogger.com