Nabokov, Amis, Atta
Anville Azote
anville.azote at gmail.com
Thu Sep 7 13:04:26 CDT 2006
On 9/5/06, MalignD at aol.com <MalignD at aol.com> wrote:
> I've always taken Lolita as revealing N.'s infatuation with American culture.
>
> But I'll give you one for originality: you're the first I've heard mention
> Lolita as having to do with adolescent boys.
>
My books are packed in various plastic bins right now, awaiting new
and virgin bookshelves, so I can't give exact quotations. However, I
do recall that in his "Annotated Lolita", Alfred Appel notes that
"several Freudians of my acquaintance do interpret nymphets as
substitute boys". I strongly suspect that Nabokov predicted this
reaction, since he took the trouble to incorporate a passage where
Humbert Humbert toys with his psychotherapists (psycho-the-rapists).
He bribes a nurse to get access to his file, and discovers "with glee"
cards calling him "potentially homosexual".
Vladimir Nabokov mocks Freudian psychoanalysis. Film at 11.
Appel was a student of Nabokov's at Cornell. Though I suppose we have
to allow for the glow of fond memory and perhaps a bit of "favourite
student" syndrome, Appel does record that Nabokov was a good lecturer,
able to get a rise even out of the "sea of C-minuses" in the back of
the lecture hall. His recollections and my impression of the Nabokov
recordings I've heard online give me strong impetus to doubt Siegel's
gossip that TRP couldn't understand VN's Russian accent.
-A. A.
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