“Lolita, or the Confession of a White Widowed Male”—from the first sentence, we as the befuddled reader are presented with an analogy—that of the web which is spun as we turn the pages and which we become entirely tangled in, seduced or enchanted even, just as Humbert seduces Lolita, or enchantment seduces them both; and that of the red shape of an hourglass located on the belly of a black widow spider. This naturally leads to Hourglass lake, where Humbert almost kills Charlotte, and also to the concept of time slipping away from Humbert (Humbert the Wounded Spider) as dear Lolita progresses through her nymphet years.
A major quality to this book is in the style of the prose—it creates a world, in some places, of aesthetic bliss. In places such as him describing in dreamy detail Lolita playing tennis, or, of course, the moment he first lays his slithery eyes upon her, the timelessness he desires comes to light, “A polka-dotted black kerchief tied around her chest hid from my aging ape eyes, but not from the gaze of young memory, the juvenile breasts I had fondled one immortal day” (39). His passionate descriptions of Lolita are his attempt to twist the key, lock Lolita into his Never land of the eternal Nymphet, his enchanted fairy tale. He even admits at one point that his image of her is not what she really is; he has created it like an artist, and we are given it in his descriptions of her, which come to us in the form of frozen segments of remembered time. “I find it most difficult to express with adequate force that flash, that shiver, that impact of passionate recognition… All I know is that while the Haze woman and I went down the steps into the breathless garden, my knees were like reflections of knees in rippling water, and my lips were like sand, and—
“That was my Lo,” she said, ‘and these are my lilies.”
“Yes,” I said, “yes. They are beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!” (39-40)
Nabokov the enchanter, the trickster, shows off his mastery of symmetry by opening the book with a reference to passing time—the hourglass—and ending it with the expression of failed immortality (I am restraining myself from filling this paper with Lolita quotes). Or perhaps it is realized immortality, for Humbert’s story, and Lolita, are brought back to life every time it is read.
Lakes are connected with time (Hourglass lake), with Lolita’s first sexual experience, with the fantasy of murdering Charlotte, with memory. Humbert thinks that, had he been a painter (ring any bells?), he may have thought up this: “There would have been a lake. There would have been an arbor in flame-flower… 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)
What we have is Lolita becoming a part of this painting, a part of his lake (Lake Climax?), a part of his frozen segment of remembered time, a part of his Zembla. Like a spider he weaves her into the web of his memory, his fantasy, his imagination. He is a spider, and we are lured by his poetic style into the web of his grotesquely beautiful mind, where we are stuck, and we will never be the same. He hides his true nature in the web of his deception, in the guise of his personality. A poetic white spider; a wolf in sheep’s skin. Perhaps the lofty goal of immortality has been achieved by being lodged forever in the mind of the reader.
A major quality to this book is in the style of the prose—it creates a world, in some places, of aesthetic bliss. In places such as him describing in dreamy detail Lolita playing tennis, or, of course, the moment he first lays his slithery eyes upon her, the timelessness he desires comes to light, “A polka-dotted black kerchief tied around her chest hid from my aging ape eyes, but not from the gaze of young memory, the juvenile breasts I had fondled one immortal day” (39). His passionate descriptions of Lolita are his attempt to twist the key, lock Lolita into his Never land of the eternal Nymphet, his enchanted fairy tale. He even admits at one point that his image of her is not what she really is; he has created it like an artist, and we are given it in his descriptions of her, which come to us in the form of frozen segments of remembered time. “I find it most difficult to express with adequate force that flash, that shiver, that impact of passionate recognition… All I know is that while the Haze woman and I went down the steps into the breathless garden, my knees were like reflections of knees in rippling water, and my lips were like sand, and—
“That was my Lo,” she said, ‘and these are my lilies.”
“Yes,” I said, “yes. They are beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!” (39-40)
Nabokov the enchanter, the trickster, shows off his mastery of symmetry by opening the book with a reference to passing time—the hourglass—and ending it with the expression of failed immortality (I am restraining myself from filling this paper with Lolita quotes). Or perhaps it is realized immortality, for Humbert’s story, and Lolita, are brought back to life every time it is read.
Lakes are connected with time (Hourglass lake), with Lolita’s first sexual experience, with the fantasy of murdering Charlotte, with memory. Humbert thinks that, had he been a painter (ring any bells?), he may have thought up this: “There would have been a lake. There would have been an arbor in flame-flower… 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)
What we have is Lolita becoming a part of this painting, a part of his lake (Lake Climax?), a part of his frozen segment of remembered time, a part of his Zembla. Like a spider he weaves her into the web of his memory, his fantasy, his imagination. He is a spider, and we are lured by his poetic style into the web of his grotesquely beautiful mind, where we are stuck, and we will never be the same. He hides his true nature in the web of his deception, in the guise of his personality. A poetic white spider; a wolf in sheep’s skin. Perhaps the lofty goal of immortality has been achieved by being lodged forever in the mind of the reader.
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