Away,away, for I will fly to thee...

Where has time gone? This is the longest I have gone without a post. I finished reading "Glory" by Vladimir Nabokov on Monday, which is very late, really, for a 200 page book. Work has kept me occupied most of that time, and starting classes this week didn't help at all. The story involves a young emigre from Russia, right at the start of the new Bolshevik rule. He and his mother move to England where they adapt very quickly. There are some other characters of major interest. Darwin, a classmate of Martin's, had distinguished himself in the Crimean conflict and leads intellectual debates at Cambridge. Of course, Martin and him fight over a woman, Sonia, who turns a terrible flirt--some say psychopathic--and ruins the friendship between the men. They (Martin and Darwin) duke it out in the most gentlemanish fashion, a fist-fight. After they make amends, Martin's soccer team reaches the championship game. Expecting Darwin and Sonia to be in the audience, he distinguishes himself as the goal-keeper, only to find out later that Darwin and Sonia had left much, much earlier than the end of the game. Martin feels betrayed. For some reason he abandons Cambridge and works as a laborer for months before deciding to return to Russia; a risky venture by all measures and an extreme act that concludes the novel.

I believe this is one of Nabokov's least known novels, and I mainly support my argument with the fact that it is one of his translated novels, not originally written in English or without the knowledge of the language. I believe it was his son who translated it (with father keeping a close eye on the proceedings). It was an interesting read and I recommend it as I would recommend everything by Nabokov--simply a genius.

I have struggled to make time to read. School being back in session, the three courses I am teaching this semester have kept me away from any good reading and also away from this blog. It is a shame, really, that things do not seem to be getting better in that sense, but rather getting much worst. I begin my second Master degree tomorrow, which will probably mean less time to read and blog. But I suspect that those things are simply temporary--like everything else--and nature being what it is, I'll be back on my reading list for this year in no time.

Vladimir Nabokov's "Glory"

I must clarify something about the essay I posted yesterday. I believe that the hasty generalizations I made were "tounge-in-cheek" and purposeful. However much I may hate assumptions and generalizations, they are a part of/and a device of rhetoric. Teaching writing for years now, I have taught myself to make the "faults" but not believe in them.

My reading has been on and off the last two weeks. I am reading Vladimir Nabokov's "Glory," and because of the lack of time it has taken me a while to work myself through. I took a trip to Washington DC for a conference on international exchange teachers. It was nice to be back in Washington. I took enough time to go to Olsson's and spend some hard-earned money that I shouldn't have. I got a couple of titles on poetry (mainly interpretative essays), and a collection of essays by Jonathan Lethem. It was all pretty hazy to me because I had just gone to dinner with my Dean of Students and our new Chinese teacher and I had just ingested enough Sangria to kill a small horse. I also picked up a copy of "The Philosopher and the Druids," by Philip Freeman. What's sad about this book is that I was so excited when I actually first read about it (when it was published in January of this year), and now I found my copy in the "remainders" stack at Olsson's. Not that I mind paying $5.95 for a $25 book, but it is still representative of what people are/are not reading.

I will report on "Glory" tomorrow... today I am in an all-day training session for our new grading system.

Nabokov's Genius

After reading "Lolita" a few months ago, I was given to the opinion that Nabokov is one of the greatest geniuses of the 20th Century. Now, reading "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight," I have become convinced, once again, that this man was born to be one of the greatest writers of the century. Here's a passage from today's lengthy reading:

She entered his life without knocking, as one might step into the wrong room because of its vague resemblance to one's own. She stayed there forgetting the way out and quietly getting used to the strange creatures she found there and petted despite their amazing shapes. She had no special intention of being happy or of making Sebastian happy, nor had she the slightest misgivings as to what might come next; it was merely a matter of naturally accepting life with Sebastian because life without him was less imaginable than a telurian's camping-tent on a mountain in the moon.

This is absolutely brilliant. The fact that she sees "creatures" there and not just a creature (Sebastian) alludes to the fact that Sebastian was a multi-personality visionary at the moment she met him. He envisioned a fiction--she saw the non-fiction of living with him without a judgment. Here's another passage about the writing process:

His struggle with words was unusually painful and this for two reasons. One was the common one with writers of his type: the bridging of the abyss lying between expression and thought; the maddening feeling that the right words, the only words are awaiting you on the opposite bank in the misty distance, and the shudderings of the still unclothed thought clamouring for them on this side of the abyss.

Who among those who claim to write hasn't at one point or another felt this way? The limitless possibility of language while being the most marvelous of gifts is also the most demanding addiction. One word over the next... who could make sense of the writer's world like Nabokov? I see him describing his own challenges writing in English (this novel is the first he wrote completely in English), and the struggle to get it right. Like "Lolita," "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight" is a masterpiece! Highly recommendable.

The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

The half brother of Sebastian Knight is the narrator of this Nabokov classic. The narrator embarks on the mystery of his brother's life. Along the way, there is some heavy criticism from the narrator to one of his brother's biographers. Right now nothing much has happened, but the narrative is soon to snowball, I can feel it.

So I broke down and went to the bookstore and read the first two chapters of "The God Delusion" by Dawkins. He makes a compelling argument, and one is tempted to follow his critical examination of religion, but the truth is that he is a scientist and not a theologian. That, I believe, is the only draw back of the book. He should have co-authored it with some expert on hermeneutics.

The End of Lolita...

The end came suddenly, the way it does in high-tension filled movies. Humbert Humbert finally meets face to face with his rival and ends his miserable and horrific life. The scene didn't take long, although they had comparatively quite a bit to say to each other. The whole affair seems anti-climatic due to the fact that the reader already knows Humbert's mind is made up. At the moment when he is about to leave Lolita, Humbert surrenders himself to fate; a life without Lolita is no life to him. I am not quite sure why he didn't kill himself instead, although I suspect there was a quite a bit of satisfaction to gain. He, nevertheless, states that instead of a weight being lifted from him he feels more pressure on top of him after the murder. Strange, really, because it has little to do with his sense of guilt--either for having murder Quilty or for robbing Lolita of her childhood. Since there is really no redeeming quality for Humbert at the end, the reader is left with a sense of void that is not representative of whatever other emotions are evoked by the announcement of Lolita's own death at child-birth. Quilty's death seems like an endless puppet show, really, compared to other parts of the book. Everything seems like one of those special lens effects that make everything blurry and dream-like. The culmination is no end at all. One feels the books is quite a literary masterpiece and the disgressions of the narrator are all but forgotten by the end of the story. All in all, I have to recommend this book highly for its literary value and its highly experimental use of language, allusion, and stream of consciousness.

Reading Lolita in Westlake #005-A

I didn't get a chance to finish "Lolita" last night due to a Christmas concert I was scheduled to perform in. I simply got home to late for reading. Nevertheless, I wanted to write some today dealing with the language of the novel. As I said before, "Lolita" is full of stream of consciousness, puns and other tricks of lingustic style. One critic observed that "Lolita" is not for "passive readers who resist being drawn into linguistic games." I have enjoyed the novel a great deal, and, despite its controversial topic, I feel the novel has gotten a bad rap by the literature police. The fact is inarguable, really, that one could defend the novel's basic content; there is no amount of psychology that can justify a relationship between an adult and a mere child of twelve. What is perhaps Nabokov's greatest social commentary in the work is that of the narrator living a life full of consequences. He loses his young love to typhus and as a result sees the girl transmutated into Lolita. The narrator also pays for disrrupting Lolita's life. His soul is tortured, scarred. Even though I haven't finished reading it, I can sense that Humbert Humbert's decision to kill his rival stems from the fact that he has given hope of recovering his Lolita. I keep wanting to bring the book to work and read in my prep block, but I can imagine what the reaction of people I work with would be. That's the image of "Lolita" that most people have--not the grand masterpiece of literature it really is.

Reading Lolita in Westlake #004

"Lolita" is a book about cruelty, I am now convinced. While it didn't take me long to see that, I had to over-step the depravity of the book before I recognized its true deviance. Last night I read the scene where Humbert Humbert visits the pregnant Lolita and her "lamb of a husband" Schiller. The devastation is total as the narrator realizes how far he is from his bliss. His act of giving Lolita money becomes a delayed act of reversed prostitution; the narrator not paying for the services but the other way around... him paying for his role as seducer and child molester. Martin Amis explains the cruelty of the late part of the novel this way: "Humbert is surpassingly cruel in using Lolita for the play of his wit and the play of his prose--his prose, which sometimes resembles the 'sweat-drenched finery' that 'a brute of forty' may casually and legally shed (in both hemispheres, as a scandalized Humbert notes) before thrusting 'himself up to the hilt into his youthful bride'". The cruelty of his act is then felt through the stylistic language the child-girl cannot understand. He is a manipulator, an executor. And just when things cannot get worst (or so it seems) the 'executioner' decides to kill his rival and in a way kill himself (cruelty towards self using a vehicle from without). I can't wait to see where the book might turn next. Reading "Lolita" has been an academic exercise of sorts, but it has also been an enjoyable trip through a real gem of modernist/postmodernist literature. The last installment to come soon!

Reading Lolita in Westlake #003

I continue to plunge forward with "Lolita." What still strikes me is its use of language and the avid depiction of the narrator's mind by use of stream of consciousness. The parenthesis indicating internal thought also add to the equation. Last night, as I was entering page 200 something, the scene where Lolita gets sick drew a barrage of disgust from me, but I continued reading. The reason I thought it was bad was that Humbert states that he "gives up all hope for intercourse" as Lolita burns up with a high fever in bed. I hate the degenerate selfishness. My only sympathies come when he is finally alone (before he meets up with Rita), as he bounces from one corner to the other not knowing what to do. This scene is the only place in the book where the narrator becomes human, or more than human, the quintessential heart-broken lover left to pick up the pieces of his life. The sense of alienation is terribly painful to any reader who has experienced the desolation of being abandoned by a loved one. It is only then when one feels some association to him.

I have been reading some critical analysis of the novel and I am in agreement with those that feel the ugliness of the book is necessary to counter what is otherwise a blissful use of language. Humbert speaks with a refreshing command of English and French, and this only goes a long way to make the reader appreciate Nabokov's ideas and use of language. This is not to justify the book or its subject matter. As one critic observes: "The moral structure of "Lolita" is surely strong enough to support and contain the anti-moral material the novel permits itself. A novel is not pornographic (except in the case that it can be used as pornography)when its interest in sexual excitement is a necessary part of such large and serious interests. It is not anti-cultural when its cynicism (Humbert's cynicism) dramatizes an alienation which is so moving, though unobtrusively, placed and judged." I have to agree with this assessment. Compared to "Memoirs of a Beatnik," "Lolita" is a school primer.

The Perversity of the Perverse

It seems to me (while reading "Lolita") that this country has a fascination with kicking people when they are down. In no way would I say that what the narrator has done is justifiable, but at the same time we "pious" ones tend to vilify a bit too fast. Case in point: NBC has a new series on "Dateline" entitled "To Catch a Predator." This is a worthwhile program, and it does a great deal to protect children in the United States. The problem with the program is that since it is televised, and the directors and powers that be need to produce "good television," the entire show has turned into televised lynching. For example, they go to great lengths to depict the alleged predators as the most evil of evil beings. I am in no way supporting what these men have done, but there is a problem when we turn the entire endeavor into "entertainment." And that is what NBC has done. The viewer WANTS to see the people get caught, and they want to see it in all its "gotcha" sort of distorted perversity. How does this tie to "Lolita?" Very simple. We want the narrator, Humbert Humbert, to get caught, to suffer, to pay for the damages he has caused. Our inclination to such sentiments stems perhaps from the deep ingrained idea that we would never--on any account--do something similar. But the truth is deeper than appears. We enjoy vilifying others and watching them be choked and be humiliated and shamed. Their perversity gives way to a more complex one--our own unwillingness to recognize and forgive human fault and folly.

Reading Lolita in Westlake #002

I haven't written anything down about "Travels in the Scriptorium" because I really didn't give too much thought to writing about it. I was primarily engaged in getting the links up for the Paul Auster website, etc. I did enjoy the book a great deal and found it incredibly brilliant and experimental.

About "Lolita..." Last night I read a bit more than I originally expected. I started early, as soon as I got back from work. The narrator is disturbing in his description of Lolita, but there's something complex and totally human about his attraction. In my opinion, his attraction to the "nymphets" stems from his early failed experience at the beach. He tells of this experience and his frustration early on the narrative. The more indepth the reader gets into the narrative, the more experimental language Nabokov uses. The stream of consciousness is aptly used during his journal writing. The scenes leading to the visit to the lake is full of Joycean streams. It is particularly sensory, following the lineal and bordering on the hyper. There some confusing parts. The narrator daydreams of having contact with Lolita and the way he describes is so real that the reader might get confused about whether or not it has taken place. There's no real validation or justification for his pedophiliac inclinations, but there is something deeply human about his distorted views.

Reading Lolita in Westlake

You would think that after my experience with "Memoirs of a Beatnik" I would not venture to read another book dealing with extreme intimacy. Wrong. I have decided that after owning the book for a long time (five years) it is time I finally pick up "Lolita" and make an attempt at getting through it. What strikes me as I read the first few chapters last night was the Joycean style. Although more cohesive and lineal, "Lolita" offers some of the same experimentation with language that made me read "Ulysses" twice (yes, that was a task). From what I read so far, "Lolita" is a precursor to the postmodernist movement. The many allusions and literary references even at the very opening of the novel is enough to tantalize the academic in most of us. The little that I know of the narrator already sheds light into the complexity of his character. I have heard that one cannot hate this narrator for what he does even if one tries. That to me is the sign of a "human" character, a character the reader identifies with and from whom he can accept a little (or a big) imperfection. So, I'll be updating on and off about "Lolita." If you've read it and want to comment, please do so.