lolita
Journal of Modern Literature, Fall 2001 v25 i1 p71(11) How unreliable is Humbert in Lolita? Anthony R. Moore. Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2001 Indiana University Press It is notoriously difficult to make sense of Humbert's claim in the novel's final three paragraphs that he "started, fifty-six days ago, to write Lolita, first in the psychopathic ward for observation, and then in this well-heated, albeit tombal, seclusion." (1) He asserts impressive productivity during his confinement. Motivated by his original intention to "use these notes in toto" at his trial (p. 308), we gather that he leaves his fictional editor, Dr. John Ray, Jr., well over three hundred pages of manuscript which Ray publishes "intact" after a few minor corrections (p. 3). But the question remains whether Humbert spends the entire last eight weeks of his imaginary life writing. He is in failing health and faces an imminent trial date, so every day must count. Yet a close examination of the pointedly detailed chronology of his last nine chapters throws his writing time awry by three days. Ray says on the novel's first page that the protagonist "died in legal captivity, of coronary thrombosis, on November 16, 1952" (p. 3). If we assume that Humbert's first and last us
Grammar, syntax and sound conspire in overarticulation. The declarative anticipates fancy in the capital crime (what kind of whodunit solves the mystery at the start?), directs attention to the elaborations of style in Humbert's identity (or identities), and forewarns of the duplicities to be encountered in reading. (18) Leslie Dale Thomas, "The Double in Three Twentieth-Century Novels," DAI LII (1991). 41-61; Brian Boyd, "`Even Homais Nods. As he does so, readers learn from their errors of interpretation how to reconstruct his seriously flawed literary universe through the fictive referents of his words, and thus to minimize further error in their reading. 267), divulged late in the novel, sets his memoir afoot by inducing Humbert to start writing (p. 135) taunts us with our conventional expectations while he teaches us, through parodies of our gullibility, to approach the complexities of the text by sharpening our perceptions. They will want more than one sign that he has disowned all self-deception and is no longer controlled by his perverted past. "Humbert's showy self-consciousness," in Michael Wood's opinion, ". The younger "(almost a child)" of the two demure, dark-haired girls at the Manor pre-game party is pronounced "so young, so lewd" (p.
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