Post for 10/3/13

I would like to focus my attention in Lolita to the fictionality of the story, as my thesis for the class. I'm interested in the way Nabokov breaks the realism of the story with interruptions of all sorts. The book has an incredible self-awareness. But not only does the book have great self-awareness, but the characters also seem to know they're in a story. (Lolita's 'you sound like a book' comes to mind.) Nabokov is constantly breaking from what is expected of him. He breaks radically from the realist tradition. But what's fascinating about his break with realism is that it's (in many ways) more radical a break from realism than a movement like surrealism, or a fantastic tale is. Surrealism, for instance, places itself in a way that's nearly antithetical to realism. The game is (partially) based on breaking the rules of reality. In that way, surrealism becomes reliant on realism as a foil. Nabokov's reality is much more threatening to realism, because it doesn't seem to regard the rules. It's not an inversion of realism, but it's also definitely not a support of realism. It's an odd third thing. Being that it doesn't play by the rules, but is also not simply reversing them, Nabokov says that the rules of realism are meaningless. This is, clearly much more threatening than surrealism, because surrealism's dependence on realism still validates the existence of realism, where Nabokov's abrealism (normal/abnormal, realism/abrealism) doesn't rely on the rules of anyone else's games. Ambiguity is always threatening in a world of extremes.

But I'm also fascinated in Nabokov's interest in seeing others complexly. The book is absolutely racked with the dichotomy between image and reality. One of the central themes of the book, in my opinion, or rather, is Nabokov's discussion of how quickly we write people off by their labels. It's true, it's an incredibly American thing to do. (My mother always goes off on these rants about how obsessed America is with ways of categorizing, labeling, and dehumanizing people. She is Italian, and didn't grow up hearing ridiculous terms like "baby boomer" and "middle child syndrome.") By labeling these personalities, we reduce people to words, to ideas, and thus to one dimension. It is not as though Nabokov is merely resistant to this idea. The weight of this very story relies upon a reader with humanity to see and understand Humbert Humbert. Not because he's a good person, deserves redemption, or anything else. But rather, because he's a person. He deserves the three dimensions of portrayal others get. (Well, some others get.) Deep within this story is an absolutely massive amount of humanity. Nabokov asks us not only to be good readers, but he also asks us to be good people. We should try to understand and listen to Humbert Humbert because he's fascinating. He's complicated, horrible, brilliant, and full of the inconsistencies in personality that make us human.

There must be a way these two intersect. I will find it. Once I can find it, that is the thing I want to write about.