The Annotated Lolita: Revised and Updated (61 page)

préfecture
: French; police headquarters.

“
Mais qui est-ce
?”
: French; “But who is it?”

quite a scholar
: the ten-volume
Jean Christophe
(1904–1912), by the Frenchman Romain Rolland (1866–1944), is a panoramic novel of society, admired no more by Nabokov than by H.H. (see
Pnin
, p. 142).

j’ai demannde pardonne
: French; “I beg your pardon.” The tense is incorrect (should be “
je
”); and the wrong spelling—an extra
n
in both words—indicates a Russian accent.

gredin
: French; scoundrel, villain.

Maximovich … taxies back to me
: see
here
.

fructuate
:
rare
; to bear fruit, to fructify.

Agatha
Christie
:
A Murder Is Announced
is the actual title of a 1950 novel by Agatha Christie (1891–1976), the well-known English mystery writer. A murder
is
announced on the next page (Clare Quilty’s; see
The Murdered Playwright
).

Percy Elphinstone
: Elphinstone and his books are also genuine, according to Nabokov, though it has been impossible to document this. Nabokov
recalled finding
A Vagabond in Italy
“in a hospital library, the nearest thing to a prison library.” But the town of
Elphinstone
is invented. H.H. calls Annabel “
the initial fateful elf in my life
” (p. 18); and Lolita’s original home town in the Midwest was “
Pisky
,” another form of
pixie
or
elf
. H.H. allows how “
elfish chance offered me the sight of a delightful child of Lolita’s age.
” When H.H.
deposits Lolita in the Elphinstone Hospital
, it is the last time he will see the nymphic incarnation of his initial “elf”; for him, the “fairy tale” (and he imagines himself a “
fairy-tale nurse
”) ends in Elph’s Stone just as it had begun in the town of “elf.” Quilty in pursuit is seen as the “Erlkönig,” the king of the elves in Goethe’s poem of that name (see
heterosexual Erlkönig in pursuit
). At The Enchanted Hunters hotel, on the night that H.H. first possesses Lolita, he notes, “
Nothing could have been more childish than … the purplish spot on her naked neck where a fairy tale vampire had feasted.
” Quilty’s Pavor [Latin: fear, panic] Manor turns out to be on Grimm Road (
p. 291
), and when H.H. goes to kill him, the door “
swung open as in a medieval fairy tale.
” As a birthday present, H.H. gives Lolita a de luxe edition of Hans Christian Andersen’s
The Little Mermaid
(
The Little Mermaid
); and allusions are made to
Hansel and Gretel, Beauty and the Beast, The Sleeping Beauty, The Emperor’s New Clothes
(
Hansel and Gretel
), and
Bluebeard
(
sister Ann
). “
What a comic, clumsy, wavering Prince Charming I was!
” declares H.H. The simplicity of
Lolita
’s “story,” such as it is—“plot,” in the conventional sense, may be paraphrased in three sentences—and the themes of deception, enchantment, and metamorphosis are akin to the fairy tale (see
not human, but nymphic
); while the recurrence of places and motifs and the presence of three principal characters recall the formalistic design and symmetry of those archetypal tales (see
Never will Emma rally … timely tear
). But the fate of Nabokov’s “
fairy princess
” and the novel’s denouement reverse the fairy-tale process, even though H.H. offers Lolita the opportunity of a formulaic fairy-tale ending: “
we shall live happily ever after.
”

The fairy-tale element has a significance far greater than its local importance to
Lolita
. Several of Nabokov’s novels, stories, and poems are “fairy tales” in the sense that they are set in imaginary lands. These lands extend from five of his untranslated Russian works (1924–1940), to
Bend Sinister
’s Padukgrad (1947), to
Pale Fire
’s kingdom of Zembla (1962), culminating in
Ada
(1969), where the entire universe has been reimagined. Held captive in his own Zemblan palace, King Charles helplessly looks down upon “lithe youths diving into the swimming pool of a fairy tale sport club” (p. 119); after making his
escape, he stops at a warm farmhouse where he is “given a fairy-tale meal of bread and cheese” (p. 140). Because it is Nabokov’s most extensive fantasia,
Ada
naturally abounds in fairy-tale references (see pp. 5 [“Lake Kitezh”], 87, 143, 164, 180, 191, 228 [“Cendrillon”: Cinderella: “Ashette” on pp. 114 and 397], 281, and 287). God is called “Log” in
Ada
, and Hermann in
Despair
(1934) says that he cannot believe in God because “the fairy tale about him is not really mine, it belongs to strangers, to all men …” (p. 101–102). When in
Invitation to a Beheading
(1936) Cincinnatus extolls the powers of the imagination, M’sieur Pierre answers, “Only in fairy tales do people escape from prison” (p. 114). “The Fairy’s Daughter,” an untranslated fantasy in verse for children, is collected in
The Empyrean Path
(1923, the same year that Nabokov translated
Alice in Wonderland
into Russian [see
A breeze from wonderland
]); and the émigré story “A Fairytale” (1926) tells of a timid, erotically obsessed man who imagines a harem for himself. He makes an arrangement with a woman who turns out to be the devil. She offers him a choice of as many women as he desires, so long as the total number is odd. But his hopes are dashed when he chooses the same girl twice (a nymphet), for a total of twelve instead of thirteen (translated as “A Nursery Tale,” the story appears in
Tyrants Destroyed
, 1975). Before describing Hazel Shade’s final poltergeist vigil, as imagined in his playlet
The Haunted Barn
, Kinbote notes, “There are always ‘three nights’ in fairy tales, and in this sad fairy tale there was a third one too” (
Pale Fire
, p. 190). “Speaking of novels,” Kinbote says to Sybil Shade, “you remember we decided once, you, your husband and I, that Proust’s rough masterpiece was a huge, ghoulish fairy tale” (pp. 161–162); and mentioned in
Ada
are “the pretentious fairy tales” of “Osberg” (Borges; an anagram [p. 344]).

At Cornell (where the annotator was his student in 1953–1954), Nabokov would begin his first class by saying, “Great novels are above all great fairy tales.… Literature does not tell the truth but makes it up. It is said that literature was born with the fable of the boy crying, ‘Wolf! Wolf!’ as he was being chased by the animal. This was
not
the birth of literature; it happened instead the day the lad cried ‘Wolf!’ and the tricked hunters saw no wolf … the magic of art is manifested in the dream about the wolf, in the shadow of the invented wolf.” As suggested in the Introduction, Nabokov goes to great lengths to show the reader that the boy has been crying “Wolf!” all along, and that the subject of Nabokov’s art is in part the relationship between the old boy and the nonexistent wolf. See
I have only words to play with
.

dazzling coincidences … poets love
: evident everywhere in Nabokov’s work is his “poet’s love” of coincidence. The verbal figurations and “coincidences” limned in
Who’s Who in the Limelight
are of great consequence, for H.H. alludes to “actors, producers, playwrights, and shots of static scenes” which prefigure the action of the novel. The three entries in this imaginary yearbook represent H.H., Lolita, and, obviously, Quilty. Although no “producer” is listed, it will shortly be seen that he reveals his name covertly (
in collaboration with Vivian Darkbloom
), and shows his hand throughout. The importance of
Who’s Who in the Limelight
is also discussed in the Introduction,
here
and
here
.

Pym, Roland
: Pym is the title character in Edgar Allan Poe’s
The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym
(1838); he is also mentioned in Nabokov’s poem, “The Refrigerator Awakes” (1942), in
Poems
(p. 12). The name suits H.H. well, because, like Pym’s, his is a first-person narrative that begins in the spirit of hoax but evolves into something very different. See
James … Hoaxton
for “Hoaxton.” As for “Roland,” Nabokov intended no allusions to the medieval
Chanson de Roland
, to the character in Ariosto’s
Orlando Furioso
, or to Browning’s Childe Roland. For Poe, see
Lo-lee-ta
.

Elsinore Playhouse, Derby, N.Y.
: both exist. The former, invoking Hamlet’s castle, is a common name for a theater.
Hamlet
is often referred to in Nabokov. In
Invitation to a Beheading
, M’sieur Pierre and Cincinnatus are “identically clad in Elsinore jackets” (p. 182); in
Ada
, a reviewer of Van Veen’s first book is called “the First Clown in
Elsinore
, a distinguished London weekly” (p. 343); and in
Gogol, “Hamlet
is the wild dream of a neurotic scholar” (p. 140). Nabokov’s own considerable Shakespearean scholarship is evident in Chapter Seven of
Bend Sinister
, which offers a totalitarian state version of the play. Nabokov himself glossed this chapter in his Introduction to the Time Reading Program edition (reprinted in the Vintage edition of
Bend Sinister
). The narrator of
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight
, who is Sebastian’s half brother, demolishes a biography of Knight by demonstrating that the biographer, Mr. Goodman, has incorporated several bogus stories into his book, simply because the leg-pulling Sebastian had said they were so: “Third story: Sebastian speaking of his very first novel (unpublished and destroyed) explained that it was about a fat young student who travels home to find his mother married to his uncle; this uncle, an ear-specialist, had murdered the student’s father. Mr. Goodman misses the joke” (p. 62). Recognizing that Sebastian’s trap telescopes Nabokov’s methods, some readers will no doubt sympathize with hapless Mr. Goodman. For
another
Hamlet
allusion in
Lolita
, see
by Polonius
. For further Shakespeare allusions, see
here
,
here
(
The Taming of the Shrew
),
here
(
Romeo and Juliet
), and
here
(
King Lear
), as well as
Shakespeare … New Mexico
,
interrelated combinations
,
as the Bard said
(
Macbeth
), and, for a summary note,
God or Shakespeare
.

Made debut in Sunburst
: see
here
, where H.H. refers to Charlotte Haze’s impending death as “the ultimate sunburst,” for it will indeed allow him to make his debut with her daughter. Unless they are annotated, the titles in the
Who’s Who
entries are non-allusive and of no significance.

The Strange Mushroom
: it is a “dazzling coincidence” that “Pym” should appear in a play authored by Quilty (see next entry). As for the specific origin of the “mushroom” image, literary history may be served by the strange fact related by Nabokov: “Somewhere, in a collection of ‘cases,’ I found a little girl who referred to her uncle’s organ as ‘his mushroom.’ ” The plant is in fact a sex symbol in many cultures. In
Ada
(p. 405), a photo reveals “the type of tight-capped toadstool called in Scots law … ‘the Lord of Erection.’ ”

Quilty, Clare
: although alluded to by John Ray, Jr., in the “Foreword” (see
“Vivian Darkbloom”
), this is the first time that the omnipresent Quilty will be identified by his complete name (Quilty’s role is discussed in the Introduction,
here
passim
.). H.H. withholds Quilty’s identity until almost the end of
Lolita
, and adducing it by virtue of the trail of clues is one of the novel’s special pleasures. His importance is most vividly demonstrated by gathering together all the Quilty references and hints as follows: [P
ART
O
NE
]
fwd.1
,
c08.1
,
c08.2
,
c11.1
,
c14.1
,
c14.2
,
c16.1
,
c18.1
,
c20.1
,
c27.1
,
c27.2
,
c28.1
,
c29.1
,
c32.1
,
c32.2
; [Part Two]
c01.1
,
c02.1
,
c02.2
,
c03.1
,
c08.1
,
c11.1
,
c13.1
,
c14.1
,
c14.2
,
c16.1
,
c16.2
,
c16.3
,
c18
,
c19.1
,
c19.2
,
c20.1
,
c20.2
,
c21
,
c22.1
,
c22.2
,
c22.3
–
c23.1
,
c26.1
,
c29.1
–
c29.2
,
c29.3
,
c31.1
,
c33.1
,
c35
,
c36.1
,
c36.2
, and
c36.3
. Each appearance or allusion to Quilty will be duly noted below, but a reader armed only with this telescopic list should be able to identify Quilty whenever he appears or is evoked on a page. This compilation also appears in my 1967
Wisconsin Studies
article, “
Lolita
: The Springboard of Parody” (p. 225), and there is more on Quilty in my 1968
Denver Quarterly
article, “The Art of Nabokov’s Artifice” (see
bibliography
). See also
Keys
, pp. 57–78. An excellent ancillary text is
Stories of the Double
, Albert J. Guerard, ed.

The
killing of Quilty
was written well out of sequence, early in the composition of
Lolita
. “His death had to be clear in my mind in order to control his earlier appearances,” said Nabokov. Nabokov
removed from the final version of
Lolita
three scenes in which Quilty figured conspicuously: a talk before Charlotte Haze’s club (see
4640 Roosevelt Blvd.… mattress
); a meeting with Lolita’s friend Mona; and an appearance at a rehearsal of his own play, featuring Lolita. All three scenes were omitted because such foreground appearances interrupted the structure and rhythm of Quilty’s pursuit of Lolita, and undermined the mystery surrounding his identity. Moreover, the latter two scenes created a most awkward narrative problem. Since H.H. couldn’t narrate these scenes, Nabokov had to wait and let Lolita do it during their important confrontation scene (
here
), and that proved unwieldy. See
house … burned down
for mention of another omitted scene.