If you haven't read this novel yet: do it now! It's about an introverted Russian chess prodigy who slowly goes completely mad and... well, just read it. It's only a 180 pages or so.
The writing is absolutely stunning. The way Nabokov describes a game of chess (comparing it to, for instance, music) is gorgeously poetic. What's also interesting is how moves in chess and decisions in life are juxtaposed; the protagonist clearly prefers the world of chess, as it is the only place where he is actually in control (as opposed to the actual world).
All in all, even if you're not a big reader, pick up a copy! You won't regret it.
THE ENCOUNTER
enchanted by this strange proximity
Longing, and mystery, and delightβ¦
as if from the swaying blackness
of some slow-motion masquerade
onto the dim bridge you came.
And night flowed, and silent there floated
into its satin streams
that black maskβs wolf-like profile
and those tender lips of yours.
And under the chestnuts, along the canal
you passed, luring me askance.
What did my heart discern in you,
how did you move me so?
In your momentary tenderness,
or in the changing contour of your shoulders,
did I experience a dim sketch
of other β irrevocable β encounters?
Perhaps romantic pity
led you to understand
what had set trembling that arrow
now piercing through my verse?
I know nothing. Strangely
the verse vibrates, and in it, an arrowβ¦
Perhaps you, still nameless, were
the genuine, the awaited one?
But sorrow not yet quite cried out
perturbed our starry hour.
Into the night returned the double fissure
of your eyes, eyes not yet illumed.
For long? For ever? Far off
I wander, and strain to hear
the movement of the stars above our encounter
and what if you are to be my fateβ¦
Longing, and mystery, and delight,
and like a distant supplicationβ¦.
My heart must travel on.
But if you are to be my fateβ¦
I'll give my usual short defense:
Humbert Humbert is insane. His ability to distort reality and have no regard for Lolita's emotional health or well-being makes me think that he suffers from a range of psychological maladies, the principle perhaps being narcissistic personality disorder. That, coupled with his OCD, causes him to make irrational choices that he perceives as genuine love.
All of this said, I am not condoning his actions. Simply, I pity the character and empathize with his suffering.
A little while ago someone here recommended Pale Fire and claimed that it was a clear inspiration for Book of the New Sun. I bought an actual paperback of it that instant and just finished it. After beginning my read I began to wonder if /u/uneducatedhenryadams was being tongue in cheek by saying it is the clear origin for BOTNS, as the "commenter" in this book (who is commenting on a poem by his favorite author) routinely claims inspiration for the poem. After finishing, I doubt that's the case, although I feel it may have inspired The Sorcerer's House more, as the book has you guessing to the true identity of the author, and motive for writing the book.
The author "slips" right at the start, referring to "his father" and then changing the story he was telling, referring to the he from his to a prince, who ends up being a king sharing his first name. As the text continues, however, the slips become more frequent until the veil of secrecy is completely abandoned.
By the end, Kinbote (the commenter) mentions a fictional play or movie where someone imagines themself a king. So at that point I began to wonder if Kinbote was tricking us into thinking that was the solution, as it's obvious from the text. That seemed too simple.
The text frequently tells the reader to "see my note on line X", which is most commonly a note we haven't reached yet. Because of that, and not wanting to spoil the book, I neglected to do that. After finishing, however, I went back and followed the crumb trail in places and a few things jumped out although I'm not sure about them.
One thing I started thinking about was anagrams. The killer in the story is a man who goes by the name Gradus. I had forgotten later in the book, that he also went by other names, and when it refers to someone as Jacques d'Argus (I didn't remember who that was), and noticed his last name is an anagram of Gradus. I was supposed to know this was an alias though, but it tipped me off to the idea of anagrams. So I started looking for anagrams to Xavier (nothing) and Kinbote, and the only thing I could come up with was Botkin, which is close. But the text also mentions that Botkin were makers of Botkine. There is a mention of the name Botkin, and it happens to be mentioned in one of those "jumps" where Kinbote tells the reader to look forward in the book. Botkin is an infrequently mentioned character w
... keep reading on reddit β‘"No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.β
βOur imagination flies -- we are its shadow on the earth.β
If your writing sounds like it was intentionally written by a person, burn it now. It's on your laptop? Then burn that. There is one way to write, and that is to go all-natural so people will forget that this is not an actual thing happening in front of their moist eyeballs right in this second. Now you may remember liking writing that intentionally focuses on its own artifice or on crafty prose or on unnatural structure, but you are misremembering. Literally nobody likes that.
The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.
The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.
I think it is all a matter of love; the more you love a memory the stronger and stranger it becomes
I have a comparative essay due in a few months. The essay is about the themes and devices in three of an American Literature giant's novels. I've come to the conclusion that Nabokov would be interesting as a topic. (My backups are Vonnegut and McCarthy) other than "Lolita", what are two other books that could fit well in this essay? Is there any outside reading that would be a good resource? (I've found some good essays by Zadie Smith so something like that)
>May 20, 1960
>
>To Peter Ustinov
>
>I think the most important thing to say about Lolita is that it is a love story. A sad tender eventually heart-breaking story of passion-love. Humbertβs love is a passion-love. It is in the tradition of the middle ages, the tradition of courtly love, a love that is at once scandalous, masochistic and tortured. It is a very different love than the modern ideal, where the values are placed in βmaturityβ, βtogethernessβ and βhealthβ. The literal meaning of the word passion will quickly suggest how far from the modern ideal it is. The passion-lover is sick with his love. His passion fills his entire being to the total exclusion of everything else. He expects his mistress to make him suffer and submits willingly to her cruelty and enslavement... the censorship thing does not concern me very much. The film will be fairly innocent as far as what the eye will see.
>
>And Kubrick shows that he is against βsexing upβ the film for more liberal European audiences.
>
>October 3, 1961
>
>To Eliot Hyman, Lolitaβs executive producer
>
>Dear Eliot,
>
>RE: Addition Humbert crawling into bed segment.
>
>Needless to say the confusion and chances for screw-ups donβt seem to balance the questionable gain of the sequence. The people who will be disappointed that Lolita is not a filthy picture with slobber love scenes, semi-nudity and outrageous postures will not be appeased, while on the other hand there are some people who will be horrified, shocked and offended by this sequence which is not in the same genre of the film. Artistically it contributes nothing that would otherwise be lacking. I would strongly recommend that we drop the idea.
(Side Note: not sure if Kubrick or Nabokov had read it, but Nietzsche's work, "The Gay Science", which of course was neither about gayness nor science in their contemporary meanings, but referred to the art of composing a genre of poetry during medieval times, poetry that was composed by medieval knights and which was addressed to the Lady in Courtly Love ie what Kubrick is suggesting about Nabokov's novel.)
THEY DO IT FOR FREE
