October 29, 2013

I noticed in these chess problems how, like in Nabokov's writing, but perhaps not unique of chess problems generally, the most obvious move is not always the right one to complete the problem within the parameters. In problem five, as the description states, "the tempting discovered check on the fifth rank never materializes" (186). There are often red herrings, like in problem 14- the bishop on a 7 plays no part. The pieces, like in many problems, create the world, and in Nabokov's, the simple and unassuming pieces, like pawns, often play a large role. The obvious material gaining moves are not always the best. It's in the set up and in drawing black out.

October 24, 2013

"Lines Written in Oregon"

The poem is written in ten stanzas of, for the most part, perfectly rhymed triplets.  The poem seems to be addressed to Esmeralda, a woman or girl who may be likened to Lolita. Especially in light of the "bewitched" forest, that is enchanted or otherwise transmogrified by an external agent. The voice of the poem, furthermore, was in or near a "dungeon" or prison, much like Humbert Humbert, where it is thought Esmeralda is dead. Stanza four invokes the color blue, the color often associated with Lolita, as well as the image of the moth, a peacock moth, also blue, but more importantly, a parallel to the symbolic transformations in the novel signified by the butterfly and moth. Lake Merlin in stanza five recalls the many lakes in the novel as well as an association to magic, enchantment, and bewitchment. Also, the sign which is insignificant of any Peak... it is an anonymous peak. The sixth stanza, in a parenthetical, reads, "Europe, nonetheless, is over" recalling the dichotomy between old world and new world; which, in turn is recapitulated in the next stanza by the "burn" signifying the death of old growth forest.  The "Latin lilies climb and turn/ Into Gothic fir and fern" represent the new, secondary growth- a transformation or rebirth in its own right. Stanza nine breaks the address to Esmeralda and the poet's voice says, "And I rest where I awoke/ In the sea shade..."  Possibly, this suggests that Esmeralda really is dead. Furthermore, the "sea shade" recalls the beach where Humbert and Annabel failed to love, and, at the same time, sets up a juxtaposition of the sea with the forest. Both are spaces which contrast with normal, civilized, delineated spaces in their ubiquitousness of matter. Esmeralda is the word that begins both the first and last lines of the poem, these are the only instances of her proper name, and set the whole of the poem in context of her and her relationship with the poet's voice. In the last line her name is followed twice by the German, "immer," meaning always.

October 21, 2013

Phyllis A. Roth, in "Aesthetic Bliss" tackles the problem of multiple realities: the inherent "reality" in a work of fiction, and the inherent fiction (or the application of subjective, or, "internalized", perceptions, which need not be factual, i.e., have a basis in an "objective" sense) in "reality."  Humbert is a prime example of the latter (in spite of his obvious fictitiousness): "his falsifying perceptions... distort reality" (Roth 35).  As the writer, the artist, of Lolita, the memoir, Humbert is creating a reality, a world, which operates within certain parameters, rules.  Furthermore, Humbert's so-called delusions are a part of that reality, informing it and unforming it: "the two-fold nature of the paradise is a function of Humbert's dual perception, the simultaneous perception of reality and of illusion" (38).  This is to say also, that, the reader is aware of the fiction, but, that Humbert relates, and we must allow him to, his experiences and perceptions as a reality, the reader becomes an arbiter of sorts over multiple realities in competition with one another, being: one, the implied reality of Humbert, as Nabokov's artistic creation; two, the reality, the existence, of delusions and fantasy, in general, and in Lolita, as viewed as Humbert's artistic creation: "the created nature– the fictive nature, if you will– of art"; and three, the reality of "reality" (35).       

(The big, and unfortunately, unanswerable, question is: how do we know what is real?  Reality relies on agreement.  A society and a culture, respectively, through processes of normalization, create ontological and epistemological paradigms that are adopted by individuals within these larger categories in order to facilitate comprehension and mutual understandability.  Without such, there would be no "reality" (the inverted commas here should suggest both the protean nature of the word, and the aural/visual physicality (from the Greek, phusis- "nature") of the symbol (perhaps, in some sense an indexical, too.)))        

October 7, 2013

2.  Humbert, from the preface, and, Humbert's mother, Humbert's uncle, Annabel, Quilty, Lolita's younger brother, Charlotte, Mr. Haze, Valeria and Maximovich, by way of narration.

4.  Ruined Russian princesses (10) King Akhnaten [sic] and Queen Nefertiti (19),  Prince of Wales' Island (33), king and his hounds (39), royal robes (61), 'glorify the home' (77), Mrs. Knight (78), Prince Charming (109), King Sigmund (125),

5. Pup here has got hold of my sock (72), Colonel Lacour- small bulldog of a man (84), Beale, with his bulldog jowl & Junk dog (102). leaving the dog as she would leave me (118),