So many things that could be picked up on in this book, it makes it very difficult to focus on one thing, but I will try. The one thing that keeps coming back to me as I think about it is how awful the women are treated in this book and seem fairly disposable. In the beginning two females die fairly quickly and randomly; Humbert’s mother and his first nymphet Annabel. One is struck by lighting and the other dies of typhus I believe. No wonder Humbert comes across so emotionally detached.
Unfortunately, the women continue to be victims in this book. We have the prostitutes that Humbert uses. We have Valeria his first wife who he finds intellectually inferior and wants to severely beat her upon finding out she is having an affair. Then there is poor Charlotte, man what a tragedy. If you love Humbert you seem to die in freak ways. Charlotte gets hit by car after finding out her lovely Humbert is obsessed with her daughter.
Then there is Lolita, who is (so you think) a victim in many ways. Over time Humbert just uses Lolita for sex acts and it progresses to the point where Lolita starts to bribe him for money and in return she will do sexual favors. Not sure who is the victim here as the lines get blurry and it seems that both Humbert and Lolita are victims and just play on each others sickness and neediness. Ultimately, Lolita dies in childbirth.
Overall, the women in the book are loathed, disgusted, drugged, found to be intellectually inferior, sexually abused, lied too, obsessed over, plotted against (Humbert has many fantasies where he is either beating or murdering his wives) — man I am not sure the women catch a break in way shape or form, except that maybe for a brief time Lolita gets away from Humbert, but even then what she ends up with isn’t all that great. If there is a theme that stood out for me I would say this book makes women sex objects and victims (not a great book for women to be in as it seems they all wind up dead sooner or later)…
The book was also interesting because in the beginning it had more of a romantic novel feel and then the second half of the book it took on more of a detective novel feel. There was lots of foreshadowing and word play that made the book entertaining, although I can say like some films that should have done a better job editing — parts of the book that had Lolita and Humbert traveling all over the US could have been scaled down as they seemed unnecessary and distracting.
I had to post today because tomorrow I am progressing, no advancing, no moving toward the Uverse experience. Not sure if it will work – technology is always finky.
After reading the first 10 or so chapters of the book I decided to go and read what Wikipedia had to say about Lolita. After reading the rest of the book it seems to give a farely precise synopsis I guess for the most part. One of the most interesting notes I read on Wikipedia though was toward the bottom under the heading, “Nabokov’s afterword”. It is the part that talks about how an American critic characterized the novel as, “the record of Nabokov’s [love affair with the romantic novel].” After which, Nabokov writes that the substitution of “English language” for “romantic novel” would be more correct. I thought about that allegory while reading the rest of the book and tried to pay attention to different connections that could be made from it.
I tried to make some other conclusions, or ideas if you will, from the reading as well about how I often overlook other underlying morals to a story because I get caught up in the face value of it. Trying to relate the story and the alleged allegory of it somehow to game development and game playing in general was difficult for me. It did however remind me not to be so quick to judge a book by it’s cover if you will.
I’m interested to hear the discussion about this in class for Monday. The ties it has to the realm of digital narrative are not as apparent to me now as I am sure they will be.
Something that Dave mentioned early in last week’s class seems to be at the forefront of Lolita. When we reveal something, we also conceal something else. In reading Lolita, I noticed that Humbert’s character uses flowery language to mask his despicable behavior, almost as if he were doing nothing wrong and that his decisions— in his own mind— were practical and even wise. In doing this, he conceals his evil heart. We hear only as reference that HH has been in a number of sanitoriums, but it is clear that he needs mental help.
During the long tour, HH describes in great detail the places they went and the things they saw, as mentioned in the earlier post by Bsherma. I would venture to guess that the descriptions mark the passage of time, but more interestingly, they mask the debauchery that is going on in the motel rooms. Again, the concealment for each thing revealed.
HH’s description of all of the deaths appears dissociated, passive (for example, his mother’s death: picnic-lightning). And yet he is obsessive about Lolita during her “nymphet” years. He describes her beauty in such a way to make us all agree that she is a beautiful girl. We almost forget that she is a child. As you read the story, you find yourself forgetting that time will doom everything. This concealment is like an oncoming train, yet we are shown the beauty of it, especially in the first part of the story.
The first part of the book seems to be filled with the seeding of Humbert’s ideas. His lust for nymphets and in particular for Lolita is described in flowery detail. I think he tries to warm up to the reader and emphasizes a number of excuses for inexcusable behavior. I found myself dismissing the inexcusable as inevitable, though despicable. The second part of the story deals with the ultimate destruction and loss (which was inevitable)and the ultimate goal of hunting down Q.
I’ve never read Nabokov before, but this book was a fascinating narrative. It reminds me of a lot of the fiction of Jim Thompson (The Grifters, Pop. 1280, The Killer Inside Me) in the 1950’s. The genre was termed Roman Noir. Thompson’s characters were more passionate about their violent behavior, but much like Nabokov’s work, they concealed their secrets to establish a social norm (toward society) on the outside until their nature overtook the character, sliding into tragedy in the end.
Principally what interests me about Lolita is what I will refer to as Layers of Narrative, although there almost certainly is another, more conventional term for what I am talking about. Upon reading (ignoring all introductions and such that are unique to certain editions of the text) one is thrust into a letter written by John Ray, Jr. about a found text. This found text is the main text of the novel, consisting of two parts of Humbert Humbert (who I’ll refer to as HH from now on) recounting his tortured story while in jail. This is much like the Found Footage technique used in some movies (The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield), where the story is told by the people in it. This creates Layers of Narrative. Instead of long exposition I will simply draw a diagram, as best I can with words, to show how this idea works in Lolita, which has many layers. Think of this as rings of a tree. I will start at the centermost layer and work outwards.
> The centermost layer is HH’s actual account, which I will simply call HH. This is what actually happened to him, not his recounting of it later. This is what he really thought, felt, and did.
> The next layer, which circles the that last layer, is what I will call HH on HH. It is HH’s recounting of his story. This account is filtered through his eccentricities and colored by his obsession, but with the benefit of hindsight. A good example of this can be found on page 38 of The Annotated Lolita, when he is being given a tour of the house he will live in: “I inspected it through the mist of my utter rejection of it…”
> The next layer is what I will call John Ray, Jr. on (HH on HH). Here this fictional character discusses the relevance of HH on HH. He doesn’t know what actually happened. He only knows what HH recorded, and develops an opinion based on that: “He is abnormal. He is not a gentleman.”
> The last layer (that I can think of, at least) I will call Vladimir Nabokov on Lolita. This includes (but is not exclusive to) Nabokov’s commentary on his work (the preceding three layers).
So, in summary, I have outlined four layers to the narrative of Lolita, all of which, together, make up the text:
> HH
> HH on HH
> John Ray, Jr. on (HH on HH)
> Vladimir Nabokov on Lolita
I think I will pick on how the doppelganger parody plays out in the novel before moving into the digital narrative. Because doppelganger is a fun word to say/type and it’s an alter-ego named Humbert Humbert. What’s not to like about that!
I wanted to look up and see if there was a meaning behind Humbert Humbert, and found it…but not on Wikipedia. The Russian translation means “man” and “shade,” where shadows form a theme in the novel and are traditional symbols for doubles. Part of the fun language context that Nabokov plays with.
What I found interesting was the play between Humbert and Quilty. Quilty is much like Humbert, but are separated to be protagonist and antagonist. The characters positions in the book become the hunter and the hunted, flipping back and forth and blurring the differences between the two characters. Nabokov uses the slight differences between the two supposed opposites and reveals their similarities. Nabokov’s parody would be more on a question of morality. I think that there is more to say about Humber Humbert if you look into Quilty.
What makes this a digital narrative, other then it is annotated like crazy, are the multiple layers of story. Clint’s previous post says it very well. I could easily imagine this as an online hypertext where you can choose which layer to focus on, and move from one to another. Not that it can’t be done with the book. Just for the fun of it I read Ch11, then 28, and back to 5. Try reading a book that way and tell me how much more interesting it is!
I wanted to comment quickly bsherma’s comment about how women are abused in the book. I would argue that Lolita was as much invested in the relationship, at first, as Humbert, if not more. It wasn’t just Humbert going after a nymphet, rather, a chance for Lolita to escape her life and look for something else out in the world. The first time Humbert and Lolita have sex, Lolita seduces Humbert. The drugs that Humbert gave her had almost no affect. There is another moment in the book where Lolita seduces him again, but I can’t seem to find that chapter. >_< I’m not saying it’s a tragic life and the way that she is described as an object, by Humbert, should be thrown away, but I don’t think Lolita should be considered a victim in the arms of Humbert.
I will attempt to parallel Lolita with Ryan’s topologies and taxonomy. The first thing I noticed is how the narrative/medium calls attention to itself. The reader is addressed as “ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” “gentlemen of the jury,” “frigid gentlewomen of the jury,” “the reader” etc. (pp. 9, 69, 87, 103, 132, 217, 238, 250, 257, 299 (“this book”), 308.) The narrative reminds us it is a narrative and in doing so creates nodes in the structure of the story. The first person account begins in a fictional point in time and ends at this point suggesting Ryan’s “plot as travel in story world.” Within the boundary of start and end points, the story resembles Ryan’s “vector with side branches.” Some of those branches are loops back into time, revealing more information of from past events, which deviates from her model a bit. This creates some layering of stories within stories with the nodes creating some resting points where the layers collapse before they build up again, or so it seems.
If it is possible to compare the story to the types of interactivity, or if Lolita was a hypertext of sorts, it would most resemble Ryan’s “internal-exploratory.” The player/reader cannot influence the outcome; only discover the whole story one clue at a time in a game that might be analogous to “Where in the world is Carmen San Diego meets Bad Day on the Midway.” Humbert is the avatar in a fall-myth that deteriorates from bad to worse, which seems like a Russian story, doesn’t it?
Lolita could not be transmogrified in good taste to one of Ryan’s other interactive styles. What a horror Lolita the first person shooter would be. The other choices seem even more ghastly. What techniques in this narrative might be useful in a digital narrative? A fascinating element was the story as told from inside the narrators struggling and failing intellect. Perhaps another bar graph for the first person shooter is the sanity meter.
What interested me the most in reading Lolita was Navokov’s style of writing. Though I didn’t pick up on it until Chapter 2 of Part 2, the book is written much like a blog or other type of online journal. As there were no blogs when this book was published, I have to assume that Navokov meant to tell the story in this manner to make the reader feel personally connected to the characters. As in many blog writers, Navokov wanted the reader to feel like a good friend rather than a passive observer. He wanted us to feel like we were reading someone’s diary rather than a narrated account of one’s life.
This is particularly the case in the section in which Humbert Humbert details he and Lolita’s travels that first year after Charlotte’s death. (page 158) Rather than feel constrained by the limited amount of space a book allows, he rambles on and on about every single place the pair visited. Had this been an online narrative, I could have easily seen a myriad of hyperlinks to other pages where readers could discover more about the places they visited that fateful year. Given the various layers of story within Lolita, I actually think it might be best told online as readers/viewers could pick and choose which storyline they found interesting.
That said, the idea that Lolita would make a spectacular online narrative leaves me with the following questions: What about Lolita would make is such a successful online narrative? What does it have that other, similarly acclaimed books don’t? Could any book be reformatted into an online narrative and be successful? Would Faulkner’s The Sound & the Fury or any of James Joyce’s works invoke the same passion if they had been written as online narratives rather than traditional books?
The one thing that became quite clear for me, as I read the book (going from whatever page I happened to be, to its designated link in the Notes section at the end), could be stated in the following questions: Would I be reading the same Lolita without these annotations? Would I make sense of the story as I did without their help? Would I have been aware of the multiple literary allusions included in this book? (Some of which could be considered relevant in the process of understanding the novel, while some could be of importance exclusively to researchers or experts in literary subjects)
The answer is obviously no. It would have been a completely different experience, and I’m not sure if I would have appreciated all the details the book has to offer without them. For example, there’s no way I could have found on my own that Vivian Darkbloom is an anagram of Vladimir Nabokov, not on a first reading, or even a second one (a fact that could be considered crucial, from a certain point of view). But on the other hand, by revealing the identity of Humbert’s nemesis right from the start it took away all the entertaining aspect of finding the clues and solving the mystery myself.
And it’s precisely with these annotations that I find a link with digital narratives, most specifically with video games and all the additional information available on the web for people having trouble solving the puzzles presented by their game of choice, or looking for a greater knowledge of the tools with which to achieve a more successful record, or perhaps to delight in the intricacies and effort that went into creating the world they are enjoying.
I found this book really fascinating… the story line and HH’s obsession with “nymphets” was a bit disturbing, especially at first, but the narrative helped me understand his motivations and obsessions. But rather than focus on the story line, I will just consider the elements of storytelling. What was most intriguing to me about the narrative, besides the references to the audience reading it, were the direct references to the other characters in the book. The parenthetical comments to Lolita, Charlotte, Valeria, Annabel and others really made the text feel more realistic. Although some of these characters were already dead within the context of the story, HH’s comments to them showed that they were still alive in the consciousness of his character, which made him more human. I often have thoughts specifically directed toward those who aren’t around anymore, and the narrative often felt like a stream of consciousness. All of the word play was so fun and intriguing, and nuances like calling the lake Our Glass Lake, then later stating that he had realized it was Hourglass Lake really made the story feel more real. As far as the notations go, I found them helpful to translate the French dialogue and a few other things, but many times I preferred to draw my own conclusions. For example, when HH said he “tiddled his winks into a cup”, I of course realized the reference to the child’s game, but I also felt an innuendo in that statement that wasn’t reflected in the notation, and it seemed the way I interpreted the statement was more interesting, so I skipped the notations for the most part and tried to derive the meaning from context, and still felt I had a solid understanding of the story. The way the story was told kept me turning and burning the pages, I had a hard time putting it down!
I get it. Nabokov, as Borges might describe, has a great skill at the craft of verse. There are not many things to say about the text that have not been said or discussed before, and what there is can still be passionately discussed.
I will hit on a sentence that has not been talked about. Since other classmates seemed to have had a broader look at the book, I wanted to pick something that mattered to me. Here is the sentence I chose: “It is strange that the tactile sense, which is so infinitely less precious to men than sight, becomes at critical moments our main, if not only, handle to reality.” What could be humorous about this statement, is that this text is all about the tactile sense. A textual description of the memories of HH…of Jay…of Nabokov. This book is an attempt to textually tactilize the mind of a pedophile. I got it. It is a great work of verse. Nabokov has a fantastic handle on creating a world and then creating world on top of that one to describe the underlying world. It has some comedy in it, but it is a best overtly sarcastic and caddy. The meat of the narrative is very serious. At times I had to stop, go hug my son and remind him about who a stranger is, and who is allowed to touch him and take him somewhere…for my sanity’s sake. The fact that I held the book reminded me that this was a story and that I was not reading the newspaper (though it could be argued that the news[paper] barely qualifies as reality). Even though I knew is was a story, I still had real emotions come from it. I do not want to compare story telling between Nabokov and Lucas in terms of quality, but reading this was very much like the idea of watching Star Wars Episode III. I knew it would look good, but in essence it is the story of the fall of a man, and all the consequences that befall that world from that choices a troubled man makes. I get it, the book has layers, it has narrative, it has form, it is challenging and it is provoking. But, to me it is like the elephant in the room, it is defended as a great work of literature, but the fact that it deals with making me want to feel for the pedophile as a victim and a hero that exasperates me.
…now I am going to wash my brain with soap…not because of the text…but because of the [con]text.
One of the first things that struck me was the notion of the part of Lolita that is inside the text and the part that is outside the text, and related to this is the idea of what is being revealed and what is being concealed. Nabokov, a skilled craftsman, is concerned with and aware of the reader. He believes that a good reader is a re-reader and thus crafts narratives that will reveal more and deeper levels with successive readings and yet he doesn’t reveal all. In addition, he hints at the world outside the text and, as we see in Lolita, he is in constant dialogue with the reader. He, and HH as narrator, purposefully engages the reader, invites the reader to use her imagination; he wants to make an impact on the reader, woe and convince the reader. He presents the story to us, reveals as much as he wants, yet the reader is always aware that there is something that is being concealed, hidden just outside the narrative. The precursors, the life of HH outside of the story at the moment he is recounting it from his prison cell, the forks not taken, Lo’s story and Charlotte’s story, the audience(s)—all these are living just outside the text. HH is plagued by the memories of choices and alternatives not taken. Who—aside from each one of us and the reading public—is the reader? Specifically, the ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the lawyers, the doctors, and perhaps Lolita herself…
A note on the French: from my observation the instances in which the French is misused or misspelled are those in which it is (mis)used by characters other than HH (such as the Russian taxi driver or Charlotte Haze).
How often do we come across a book in which unspeakable content turns our stomachs while incredible narration keeps us glued to the pages? (If I’m the only one, I’ll take it as a sign and seek help.)
I attribute this addictive quality to good writing, or course, but more specifically to the narrator’s varied use of person. He moves between first and third person with a fluidity that keeps us from jumping on his manipulation, but in a way that allows us to immerse ourselves in the narrator’s story without getting too close to Humbert’s criminal activity.
The fictional non-fiction character John Ray, Jr., PhD. brings us into the story at a two-person distance from Humbert’s actions, for which Jr. (J.R.) tells us the monster has suffered punishment. Then, throughout part one, the narrator speaks of Humbert’s longings and Humbert’s illicit actions, but of his (the narrator’s) memories.
This separation works two fold: first, it distances the narrator from his earlier actions, second, it allows us to distance ourselves from those same actions by reading about the monster Humbert instead stepping into the narrative “I” until the narrator has some more humane emotions/moments.
Throughout part one, our narrator tells us about Humbert Humbert following in a young prostitute’s wake, about Humbert striking V, and about Humbert holding Lolita in his lap when she is just a child. Humbert has a pet and plans to pull the bigger Haze under the lake, but the narrator can’t kill the woman.
As we come into part two, the narrator becomes accountable for his actions, to some degree, and uses the “I” to describe some of his actions with his young hostage. Of course, the occasional Humbert comes in when things are really bad, but he progressively loses the third person in favor of the first as his feelings for Lo become warmer. He stops calling her his pet, his monkey, etc. as he progresses toward what comes across as remorse, or as close to remorse as narrator Humbert can come.
The funny thing is that the narrator can’t stand the thought that Quilty kidnapped, raped and sodomized a girl of such a young age, which he told us Humbert had already done. The loving father avenging his stepdaughter is all first person, but Humbert’s attraction to new nymphettes brings back the third.
The narrator keeping himself out of the “bad” parts allows us to stay with him, even though we know he is H.H., as he tells us about the horrible Humbert. And the knowledge that Jr. introduced us to the story because H.H. died in a facility brings us to it with a sense of final justice before we get started.
So, are we (or am I, should I say) more likely to empathize with a pedophile because he really did love her (uck!) or is Nabokov just able to manipulate me (us?) into taking H.H.’s words without associating them too closely with his actions?
What interested me while reading Lolita is how the narrative is setup like a game between the author and the reader; where the author is pulling the reader into the plot while the reader is following to get to the end.
It was very fascinating how much the narrative forces us to use our imagination. As long as the reader is seeking a good story, the author is willing to provide one but only if the reader is clever to find it or imagine it.
Through out the narrative Nabokov reveals to us some but yet conceals others to keep us pulled to the novel and interacted with the narrative, which I think played a big part in finishing the whole book to get to the end.
While reading the book I felt as if I was reading two stories in one. Because at one point Nabokov makes you disgusted by Humbert and at other you feel pity for him. Where Humbert in one paragraph he feels sorry and realizes that Lolita is not an object for him own and in the next paragraph he talks about revenge from the person who took something that is his but yet he doesn’t realize he is hurting her; which goes back to the revealed and hidden parts.
I think the author did a good job manipulating my focus through out the story, where sometimes i had to slow down and indulge in the details and descriptions of the narrative.
The author was very clever in making the reader expect something but yet surprises him with a totally different thing. Some parts of the novel where unexpected yet many parts where very predictable.
This narrative pulled me to the story and got me through finishing the book. The way the story was written makes you get over the disgusting parts and focus on the narrative and the plot.
I tried to get past the uncomfortable content of pedaphilia and focus on the narrative structure. I found the narrative to be quite creative. The narrative was a combination of both comedy and tragedy almost something out of Greek literature.
Even throughout the whole story Humbert refers to young girls as “nymphets” including his focus of desire, Dolly, to whom he called “Lolita.” This is also reminiscent of Greek literature where young Grecian men chase after mythological nymphs. After reading the end of the book,it seemed that the characters were destined to end tragically.Even in the beginning the story begins with tragedy. Humbert lost his mother at age 3 and his wife Valeria to a Russian colonel. He lost Anabel, the true love of his life and the catalyst for his desire for Lolita,Charlotte lost a baby son and her husband and Rita suffered 3 divorces. Finally in the end of the story, Lolita dies giving childbirth and even the baby dies.The book is really a collection of misery yet Nabokov does offer elements of humor especially during times when Lolita innocently seduces Humbert and how Humbert passionately professes his love with very colorful words.
What is most ingenious about this particular book, despite being written in 1955, is the type of interactivity that is created in a metafictional format. For example there is an interchange from 3rd person to 1st person in several chapters of the narrative when Humbert pleads for the reader’s sympathy and explains to the reader about his plight and that he has just reason to love Lolita.
Nabokov tactfully and gracefully smatters an infinite amount of puns throughout the text. One interesting pun I noticed was on page 137 where Humbert (HH) refers to a lake as “Lake Climax.” Because of many previous puns in the text, we cannot know whether or not this lake is actually identified as such. However the mention of the lake’s name, with regards to Lolita’s escapades at Camp Q with Barbra Burke and Charlie Holmes spurns curiosity. Another pun of equal value occurs on page 157 where HH refers to a Mexican border town as “Conception Park.” Again, this pun calls question to HH’s motive (as if this is a surprise) and illustrates a boundary that HH himself might not be willing to cross. HH daydreams of crossing the border in to Mexico, but their journey never crosses this border. Conception Park, with its virile allusion to sex and conception, helps HH set up a metaphorical boundary as well.
On Guns
After HH takes possession of the gun, and after Lolita’s departure from the main story line, I felt that the gun took on a more direct role in HH’s evolving master plan. It’s like the gun spoke to HH, and programmed in a sick outline of deterministic events. On page 268 HH refers to his pistol as, “solid death in my hip pocket.” This is a direct foreshadowing for events to come. Another aside HH plops in the middle of his departure from Lolita occurs on page 280 stating, “Then I pulled out my automatic…” This aside, placed firmly in the middle of his goodbye, further illustrates HH’s growing instability. A third gun reference happens shortly after on page 292 where HH refers to his gun as, “Full Blued. Aching to be discharged.” I’m no expert on guns, but from what I’ve seen, blueing is a more traditional sort of “old world” finish on barrels and slides. Most modern hand guns are made of solid color steel or stainless steel. The blueing is created by dipping the barrel (or other treated parts) in chemicals which cast on to the metal an eerie, almost gasoline-like effect. (A parallel treatment (from the art world, for example) is marbleized wall paper where, because of the random nature of dyes suspended in solution, no two pieces are identical.)
I’m still reading, but I ran across this article today:
British Stores Halt `Lolita’ Beds
So many things that could be picked up on in this book, it makes it very difficult to focus on one thing, but I will try. The one thing that keeps coming back to me as I think about it is how awful the women are treated in this book and seem fairly disposable. In the beginning two females die fairly quickly and randomly; Humbert’s mother and his first nymphet Annabel. One is struck by lighting and the other dies of typhus I believe. No wonder Humbert comes across so emotionally detached.
Unfortunately, the women continue to be victims in this book. We have the prostitutes that Humbert uses. We have Valeria his first wife who he finds intellectually inferior and wants to severely beat her upon finding out she is having an affair. Then there is poor Charlotte, man what a tragedy. If you love Humbert you seem to die in freak ways. Charlotte gets hit by car after finding out her lovely Humbert is obsessed with her daughter.
Then there is Lolita, who is (so you think) a victim in many ways. Over time Humbert just uses Lolita for sex acts and it progresses to the point where Lolita starts to bribe him for money and in return she will do sexual favors. Not sure who is the victim here as the lines get blurry and it seems that both Humbert and Lolita are victims and just play on each others sickness and neediness. Ultimately, Lolita dies in childbirth.
Overall, the women in the book are loathed, disgusted, drugged, found to be intellectually inferior, sexually abused, lied too, obsessed over, plotted against (Humbert has many fantasies where he is either beating or murdering his wives) — man I am not sure the women catch a break in way shape or form, except that maybe for a brief time Lolita gets away from Humbert, but even then what she ends up with isn’t all that great. If there is a theme that stood out for me I would say this book makes women sex objects and victims (not a great book for women to be in as it seems they all wind up dead sooner or later)…
The book was also interesting because in the beginning it had more of a romantic novel feel and then the second half of the book it took on more of a detective novel feel. There was lots of foreshadowing and word play that made the book entertaining, although I can say like some films that should have done a better job editing — parts of the book that had Lolita and Humbert traveling all over the US could have been scaled down as they seemed unnecessary and distracting.
I had to post today because tomorrow I am progressing, no advancing, no moving toward the Uverse experience. Not sure if it will work – technology is always finky.
After reading the first 10 or so chapters of the book I decided to go and read what Wikipedia had to say about Lolita. After reading the rest of the book it seems to give a farely precise synopsis I guess for the most part. One of the most interesting notes I read on Wikipedia though was toward the bottom under the heading, “Nabokov’s afterword”. It is the part that talks about how an American critic characterized the novel as, “the record of Nabokov’s [love affair with the romantic novel].” After which, Nabokov writes that the substitution of “English language” for “romantic novel” would be more correct. I thought about that allegory while reading the rest of the book and tried to pay attention to different connections that could be made from it.
I tried to make some other conclusions, or ideas if you will, from the reading as well about how I often overlook other underlying morals to a story because I get caught up in the face value of it. Trying to relate the story and the alleged allegory of it somehow to game development and game playing in general was difficult for me. It did however remind me not to be so quick to judge a book by it’s cover if you will.
I’m interested to hear the discussion about this in class for Monday. The ties it has to the realm of digital narrative are not as apparent to me now as I am sure they will be.
Something that Dave mentioned early in last week’s class seems to be at the forefront of Lolita. When we reveal something, we also conceal something else. In reading Lolita, I noticed that Humbert’s character uses flowery language to mask his despicable behavior, almost as if he were doing nothing wrong and that his decisions— in his own mind— were practical and even wise. In doing this, he conceals his evil heart. We hear only as reference that HH has been in a number of sanitoriums, but it is clear that he needs mental help.
During the long tour, HH describes in great detail the places they went and the things they saw, as mentioned in the earlier post by Bsherma. I would venture to guess that the descriptions mark the passage of time, but more interestingly, they mask the debauchery that is going on in the motel rooms. Again, the concealment for each thing revealed.
HH’s description of all of the deaths appears dissociated, passive (for example, his mother’s death: picnic-lightning). And yet he is obsessive about Lolita during her “nymphet” years. He describes her beauty in such a way to make us all agree that she is a beautiful girl. We almost forget that she is a child. As you read the story, you find yourself forgetting that time will doom everything. This concealment is like an oncoming train, yet we are shown the beauty of it, especially in the first part of the story.
The first part of the book seems to be filled with the seeding of Humbert’s ideas. His lust for nymphets and in particular for Lolita is described in flowery detail. I think he tries to warm up to the reader and emphasizes a number of excuses for inexcusable behavior. I found myself dismissing the inexcusable as inevitable, though despicable. The second part of the story deals with the ultimate destruction and loss (which was inevitable)and the ultimate goal of hunting down Q.
I’ve never read Nabokov before, but this book was a fascinating narrative. It reminds me of a lot of the fiction of Jim Thompson (The Grifters, Pop. 1280, The Killer Inside Me) in the 1950’s. The genre was termed Roman Noir. Thompson’s characters were more passionate about their violent behavior, but much like Nabokov’s work, they concealed their secrets to establish a social norm (toward society) on the outside until their nature overtook the character, sliding into tragedy in the end.
Principally what interests me about Lolita is what I will refer to as Layers of Narrative, although there almost certainly is another, more conventional term for what I am talking about. Upon reading (ignoring all introductions and such that are unique to certain editions of the text) one is thrust into a letter written by John Ray, Jr. about a found text. This found text is the main text of the novel, consisting of two parts of Humbert Humbert (who I’ll refer to as HH from now on) recounting his tortured story while in jail. This is much like the Found Footage technique used in some movies (The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield), where the story is told by the people in it. This creates Layers of Narrative. Instead of long exposition I will simply draw a diagram, as best I can with words, to show how this idea works in Lolita, which has many layers. Think of this as rings of a tree. I will start at the centermost layer and work outwards.
> The centermost layer is HH’s actual account, which I will simply call HH. This is what actually happened to him, not his recounting of it later. This is what he really thought, felt, and did.
> The next layer, which circles the that last layer, is what I will call HH on HH. It is HH’s recounting of his story. This account is filtered through his eccentricities and colored by his obsession, but with the benefit of hindsight. A good example of this can be found on page 38 of The Annotated Lolita, when he is being given a tour of the house he will live in: “I inspected it through the mist of my utter rejection of it…”
> The next layer is what I will call John Ray, Jr. on (HH on HH). Here this fictional character discusses the relevance of HH on HH. He doesn’t know what actually happened. He only knows what HH recorded, and develops an opinion based on that: “He is abnormal. He is not a gentleman.”
> The last layer (that I can think of, at least) I will call Vladimir Nabokov on Lolita. This includes (but is not exclusive to) Nabokov’s commentary on his work (the preceding three layers).
So, in summary, I have outlined four layers to the narrative of Lolita, all of which, together, make up the text:
> HH
> HH on HH
> John Ray, Jr. on (HH on HH)
> Vladimir Nabokov on Lolita
I think I will pick on how the doppelganger parody plays out in the novel before moving into the digital narrative. Because doppelganger is a fun word to say/type and it’s an alter-ego named Humbert Humbert. What’s not to like about that!
I wanted to look up and see if there was a meaning behind Humbert Humbert, and found it…but not on Wikipedia. The Russian translation means “man” and “shade,” where shadows form a theme in the novel and are traditional symbols for doubles. Part of the fun language context that Nabokov plays with.
What I found interesting was the play between Humbert and Quilty. Quilty is much like Humbert, but are separated to be protagonist and antagonist. The characters positions in the book become the hunter and the hunted, flipping back and forth and blurring the differences between the two characters. Nabokov uses the slight differences between the two supposed opposites and reveals their similarities. Nabokov’s parody would be more on a question of morality. I think that there is more to say about Humber Humbert if you look into Quilty.
What makes this a digital narrative, other then it is annotated like crazy, are the multiple layers of story. Clint’s previous post says it very well. I could easily imagine this as an online hypertext where you can choose which layer to focus on, and move from one to another. Not that it can’t be done with the book. Just for the fun of it I read Ch11, then 28, and back to 5. Try reading a book that way and tell me how much more interesting it is!
I wanted to comment quickly bsherma’s comment about how women are abused in the book. I would argue that Lolita was as much invested in the relationship, at first, as Humbert, if not more. It wasn’t just Humbert going after a nymphet, rather, a chance for Lolita to escape her life and look for something else out in the world. The first time Humbert and Lolita have sex, Lolita seduces Humbert. The drugs that Humbert gave her had almost no affect. There is another moment in the book where Lolita seduces him again, but I can’t seem to find that chapter. >_< I’m not saying it’s a tragic life and the way that she is described as an object, by Humbert, should be thrown away, but I don’t think Lolita should be considered a victim in the arms of Humbert.
I will attempt to parallel Lolita with Ryan’s topologies and taxonomy. The first thing I noticed is how the narrative/medium calls attention to itself. The reader is addressed as “ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” “gentlemen of the jury,” “frigid gentlewomen of the jury,” “the reader” etc. (pp. 9, 69, 87, 103, 132, 217, 238, 250, 257, 299 (“this book”), 308.) The narrative reminds us it is a narrative and in doing so creates nodes in the structure of the story. The first person account begins in a fictional point in time and ends at this point suggesting Ryan’s “plot as travel in story world.” Within the boundary of start and end points, the story resembles Ryan’s “vector with side branches.” Some of those branches are loops back into time, revealing more information of from past events, which deviates from her model a bit. This creates some layering of stories within stories with the nodes creating some resting points where the layers collapse before they build up again, or so it seems.
If it is possible to compare the story to the types of interactivity, or if Lolita was a hypertext of sorts, it would most resemble Ryan’s “internal-exploratory.” The player/reader cannot influence the outcome; only discover the whole story one clue at a time in a game that might be analogous to “Where in the world is Carmen San Diego meets Bad Day on the Midway.” Humbert is the avatar in a fall-myth that deteriorates from bad to worse, which seems like a Russian story, doesn’t it?
Lolita could not be transmogrified in good taste to one of Ryan’s other interactive styles. What a horror Lolita the first person shooter would be. The other choices seem even more ghastly. What techniques in this narrative might be useful in a digital narrative? A fascinating element was the story as told from inside the narrators struggling and failing intellect. Perhaps another bar graph for the first person shooter is the sanity meter.
By the way, I found a FREE copy of Lolita online:
http://www.arlindo-correia.com/lolita_1.html
What interested me the most in reading Lolita was Navokov’s style of writing. Though I didn’t pick up on it until Chapter 2 of Part 2, the book is written much like a blog or other type of online journal. As there were no blogs when this book was published, I have to assume that Navokov meant to tell the story in this manner to make the reader feel personally connected to the characters. As in many blog writers, Navokov wanted the reader to feel like a good friend rather than a passive observer. He wanted us to feel like we were reading someone’s diary rather than a narrated account of one’s life.
This is particularly the case in the section in which Humbert Humbert details he and Lolita’s travels that first year after Charlotte’s death. (page 158) Rather than feel constrained by the limited amount of space a book allows, he rambles on and on about every single place the pair visited. Had this been an online narrative, I could have easily seen a myriad of hyperlinks to other pages where readers could discover more about the places they visited that fateful year. Given the various layers of story within Lolita, I actually think it might be best told online as readers/viewers could pick and choose which storyline they found interesting.
That said, the idea that Lolita would make a spectacular online narrative leaves me with the following questions: What about Lolita would make is such a successful online narrative? What does it have that other, similarly acclaimed books don’t? Could any book be reformatted into an online narrative and be successful? Would Faulkner’s The Sound & the Fury or any of James Joyce’s works invoke the same passion if they had been written as online narratives rather than traditional books?
A note about annotations.
The one thing that became quite clear for me, as I read the book (going from whatever page I happened to be, to its designated link in the Notes section at the end), could be stated in the following questions: Would I be reading the same Lolita without these annotations? Would I make sense of the story as I did without their help? Would I have been aware of the multiple literary allusions included in this book? (Some of which could be considered relevant in the process of understanding the novel, while some could be of importance exclusively to researchers or experts in literary subjects)
The answer is obviously no. It would have been a completely different experience, and I’m not sure if I would have appreciated all the details the book has to offer without them. For example, there’s no way I could have found on my own that Vivian Darkbloom is an anagram of Vladimir Nabokov, not on a first reading, or even a second one (a fact that could be considered crucial, from a certain point of view). But on the other hand, by revealing the identity of Humbert’s nemesis right from the start it took away all the entertaining aspect of finding the clues and solving the mystery myself.
And it’s precisely with these annotations that I find a link with digital narratives, most specifically with video games and all the additional information available on the web for people having trouble solving the puzzles presented by their game of choice, or looking for a greater knowledge of the tools with which to achieve a more successful record, or perhaps to delight in the intricacies and effort that went into creating the world they are enjoying.
I found this book really fascinating… the story line and HH’s obsession with “nymphets” was a bit disturbing, especially at first, but the narrative helped me understand his motivations and obsessions. But rather than focus on the story line, I will just consider the elements of storytelling. What was most intriguing to me about the narrative, besides the references to the audience reading it, were the direct references to the other characters in the book. The parenthetical comments to Lolita, Charlotte, Valeria, Annabel and others really made the text feel more realistic. Although some of these characters were already dead within the context of the story, HH’s comments to them showed that they were still alive in the consciousness of his character, which made him more human. I often have thoughts specifically directed toward those who aren’t around anymore, and the narrative often felt like a stream of consciousness. All of the word play was so fun and intriguing, and nuances like calling the lake Our Glass Lake, then later stating that he had realized it was Hourglass Lake really made the story feel more real. As far as the notations go, I found them helpful to translate the French dialogue and a few other things, but many times I preferred to draw my own conclusions. For example, when HH said he “tiddled his winks into a cup”, I of course realized the reference to the child’s game, but I also felt an innuendo in that statement that wasn’t reflected in the notation, and it seemed the way I interpreted the statement was more interesting, so I skipped the notations for the most part and tried to derive the meaning from context, and still felt I had a solid understanding of the story. The way the story was told kept me turning and burning the pages, I had a hard time putting it down!
I get it. Nabokov, as Borges might describe, has a great skill at the craft of verse. There are not many things to say about the text that have not been said or discussed before, and what there is can still be passionately discussed.
I will hit on a sentence that has not been talked about. Since other classmates seemed to have had a broader look at the book, I wanted to pick something that mattered to me. Here is the sentence I chose: “It is strange that the tactile sense, which is so infinitely less precious to men than sight, becomes at critical moments our main, if not only, handle to reality.” What could be humorous about this statement, is that this text is all about the tactile sense. A textual description of the memories of HH…of Jay…of Nabokov. This book is an attempt to textually tactilize the mind of a pedophile. I got it. It is a great work of verse. Nabokov has a fantastic handle on creating a world and then creating world on top of that one to describe the underlying world. It has some comedy in it, but it is a best overtly sarcastic and caddy. The meat of the narrative is very serious. At times I had to stop, go hug my son and remind him about who a stranger is, and who is allowed to touch him and take him somewhere…for my sanity’s sake. The fact that I held the book reminded me that this was a story and that I was not reading the newspaper (though it could be argued that the news[paper] barely qualifies as reality). Even though I knew is was a story, I still had real emotions come from it. I do not want to compare story telling between Nabokov and Lucas in terms of quality, but reading this was very much like the idea of watching Star Wars Episode III. I knew it would look good, but in essence it is the story of the fall of a man, and all the consequences that befall that world from that choices a troubled man makes. I get it, the book has layers, it has narrative, it has form, it is challenging and it is provoking. But, to me it is like the elephant in the room, it is defended as a great work of literature, but the fact that it deals with making me want to feel for the pedophile as a victim and a hero that exasperates me.
…now I am going to wash my brain with soap…not because of the text…but because of the [con]text.
One of the first things that struck me was the notion of the part of Lolita that is inside the text and the part that is outside the text, and related to this is the idea of what is being revealed and what is being concealed. Nabokov, a skilled craftsman, is concerned with and aware of the reader. He believes that a good reader is a re-reader and thus crafts narratives that will reveal more and deeper levels with successive readings and yet he doesn’t reveal all. In addition, he hints at the world outside the text and, as we see in Lolita, he is in constant dialogue with the reader. He, and HH as narrator, purposefully engages the reader, invites the reader to use her imagination; he wants to make an impact on the reader, woe and convince the reader. He presents the story to us, reveals as much as he wants, yet the reader is always aware that there is something that is being concealed, hidden just outside the narrative. The precursors, the life of HH outside of the story at the moment he is recounting it from his prison cell, the forks not taken, Lo’s story and Charlotte’s story, the audience(s)—all these are living just outside the text. HH is plagued by the memories of choices and alternatives not taken. Who—aside from each one of us and the reading public—is the reader? Specifically, the ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the lawyers, the doctors, and perhaps Lolita herself…
A note on the French: from my observation the instances in which the French is misused or misspelled are those in which it is (mis)used by characters other than HH (such as the Russian taxi driver or Charlotte Haze).
First/third person use in Lolita
How often do we come across a book in which unspeakable content turns our stomachs while incredible narration keeps us glued to the pages? (If I’m the only one, I’ll take it as a sign and seek help.)
I attribute this addictive quality to good writing, or course, but more specifically to the narrator’s varied use of person. He moves between first and third person with a fluidity that keeps us from jumping on his manipulation, but in a way that allows us to immerse ourselves in the narrator’s story without getting too close to Humbert’s criminal activity.
The fictional non-fiction character John Ray, Jr., PhD. brings us into the story at a two-person distance from Humbert’s actions, for which Jr. (J.R.) tells us the monster has suffered punishment. Then, throughout part one, the narrator speaks of Humbert’s longings and Humbert’s illicit actions, but of his (the narrator’s) memories.
This separation works two fold: first, it distances the narrator from his earlier actions, second, it allows us to distance ourselves from those same actions by reading about the monster Humbert instead stepping into the narrative “I” until the narrator has some more humane emotions/moments.
Throughout part one, our narrator tells us about Humbert Humbert following in a young prostitute’s wake, about Humbert striking V, and about Humbert holding Lolita in his lap when she is just a child. Humbert has a pet and plans to pull the bigger Haze under the lake, but the narrator can’t kill the woman.
As we come into part two, the narrator becomes accountable for his actions, to some degree, and uses the “I” to describe some of his actions with his young hostage. Of course, the occasional Humbert comes in when things are really bad, but he progressively loses the third person in favor of the first as his feelings for Lo become warmer. He stops calling her his pet, his monkey, etc. as he progresses toward what comes across as remorse, or as close to remorse as narrator Humbert can come.
The funny thing is that the narrator can’t stand the thought that Quilty kidnapped, raped and sodomized a girl of such a young age, which he told us Humbert had already done. The loving father avenging his stepdaughter is all first person, but Humbert’s attraction to new nymphettes brings back the third.
The narrator keeping himself out of the “bad” parts allows us to stay with him, even though we know he is H.H., as he tells us about the horrible Humbert. And the knowledge that Jr. introduced us to the story because H.H. died in a facility brings us to it with a sense of final justice before we get started.
So, are we (or am I, should I say) more likely to empathize with a pedophile because he really did love her (uck!) or is Nabokov just able to manipulate me (us?) into taking H.H.’s words without associating them too closely with his actions?
What interested me while reading Lolita is how the narrative is setup like a game between the author and the reader; where the author is pulling the reader into the plot while the reader is following to get to the end.
It was very fascinating how much the narrative forces us to use our imagination. As long as the reader is seeking a good story, the author is willing to provide one but only if the reader is clever to find it or imagine it.
Through out the narrative Nabokov reveals to us some but yet conceals others to keep us pulled to the novel and interacted with the narrative, which I think played a big part in finishing the whole book to get to the end.
While reading the book I felt as if I was reading two stories in one. Because at one point Nabokov makes you disgusted by Humbert and at other you feel pity for him. Where Humbert in one paragraph he feels sorry and realizes that Lolita is not an object for him own and in the next paragraph he talks about revenge from the person who took something that is his but yet he doesn’t realize he is hurting her; which goes back to the revealed and hidden parts.
I think the author did a good job manipulating my focus through out the story, where sometimes i had to slow down and indulge in the details and descriptions of the narrative.
The author was very clever in making the reader expect something but yet surprises him with a totally different thing. Some parts of the novel where unexpected yet many parts where very predictable.
This narrative pulled me to the story and got me through finishing the book. The way the story was written makes you get over the disgusting parts and focus on the narrative and the plot.
I tried to get past the uncomfortable content of pedaphilia and focus on the narrative structure. I found the narrative to be quite creative. The narrative was a combination of both comedy and tragedy almost something out of Greek literature.
Even throughout the whole story Humbert refers to young girls as “nymphets” including his focus of desire, Dolly, to whom he called “Lolita.” This is also reminiscent of Greek literature where young Grecian men chase after mythological nymphs. After reading the end of the book,it seemed that the characters were destined to end tragically.Even in the beginning the story begins with tragedy. Humbert lost his mother at age 3 and his wife Valeria to a Russian colonel. He lost Anabel, the true love of his life and the catalyst for his desire for Lolita,Charlotte lost a baby son and her husband and Rita suffered 3 divorces. Finally in the end of the story, Lolita dies giving childbirth and even the baby dies.The book is really a collection of misery yet Nabokov does offer elements of humor especially during times when Lolita innocently seduces Humbert and how Humbert passionately professes his love with very colorful words.
What is most ingenious about this particular book, despite being written in 1955, is the type of interactivity that is created in a metafictional format. For example there is an interchange from 3rd person to 1st person in several chapters of the narrative when Humbert pleads for the reader’s sympathy and explains to the reader about his plight and that he has just reason to love Lolita.
On Puns
Nabokov tactfully and gracefully smatters an infinite amount of puns throughout the text. One interesting pun I noticed was on page 137 where Humbert (HH) refers to a lake as “Lake Climax.” Because of many previous puns in the text, we cannot know whether or not this lake is actually identified as such. However the mention of the lake’s name, with regards to Lolita’s escapades at Camp Q with Barbra Burke and Charlie Holmes spurns curiosity. Another pun of equal value occurs on page 157 where HH refers to a Mexican border town as “Conception Park.” Again, this pun calls question to HH’s motive (as if this is a surprise) and illustrates a boundary that HH himself might not be willing to cross. HH daydreams of crossing the border in to Mexico, but their journey never crosses this border. Conception Park, with its virile allusion to sex and conception, helps HH set up a metaphorical boundary as well.
On Guns
After HH takes possession of the gun, and after Lolita’s departure from the main story line, I felt that the gun took on a more direct role in HH’s evolving master plan. It’s like the gun spoke to HH, and programmed in a sick outline of deterministic events. On page 268 HH refers to his pistol as, “solid death in my hip pocket.” This is a direct foreshadowing for events to come. Another aside HH plops in the middle of his departure from Lolita occurs on page 280 stating, “Then I pulled out my automatic…” This aside, placed firmly in the middle of his goodbye, further illustrates HH’s growing instability. A third gun reference happens shortly after on page 292 where HH refers to his gun as, “Full Blued. Aching to be discharged.” I’m no expert on guns, but from what I’ve seen, blueing is a more traditional sort of “old world” finish on barrels and slides. Most modern hand guns are made of solid color steel or stainless steel. The blueing is created by dipping the barrel (or other treated parts) in chemicals which cast on to the metal an eerie, almost gasoline-like effect. (A parallel treatment (from the art world, for example) is marbleized wall paper where, because of the random nature of dyes suspended in solution, no two pieces are identical.)