Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov was written in English, being his third novel written in this language, and it was finished at the end of 1954 and published in 1955 at Paris, in 1958 in USA, and at Moscow in 1989, being translated in Russian. The novel is an inconceivable success, becoming an international bestseller, and due to this fact it has been translated over time in many languages. In the preface of the American version Vladimir Nabokov states that he is neither an author, nor a reader of didactic literature and that Lolita is not a moral novel.(Berberova 14-15). Because the book was full of sexual content it was rejected by many American publishers, and the author was about to destroy it. (Connolly 185)
The two main characters of the book are Humbert Humbert, a man with an untenable obsession, pedophilia, and Dolores Haze, the innocent child who becomes the aim of his obsession, his nymphet. When Humbert Humbert gets to the Hazes, after many events, he falls in love immediately, or more precisely develops the obsession for the daughter of the landlady, Dolores, or Lolita as she is called all over the novel.
The whole book concentrates on Humbert’s obsession, and the ways in which he satisfies his desires, for which reason it has sparked controversy from a literal and legal point of view. Also, this important theme represents the key of understanding the linguistic means used by Nabokov. The most important thing about the way in which Lolita is written is the fact that this style creates in the reader’s mind the idea of reality, of truth. Many critics claim that there is a strong connection between the content of a book and the way in which it is written, and this is a reason to understand the language used by Nabokov in his masterpiece. (Berberova 25)
Humbert’s language is somehow manipulative, and we can observe this from the first page of the novel, when he presents in the first line his center of attention during the whole book: ‘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.’ (Nabokov 3) When we, as readers, see these lines, we don’t even imagine what will happen during the novel, and which is the true nature of the man, thinking that he is deeply in love with her. Also from the first lines we understand that Humbert’s voice is always changing, because he is unstable as a narrator.
Vladimir Nabokov writes the novel at first person, singular and that’s why we find out details about the narrator, Humbert Humbert, rather from the way in which he speaks and portraits his intentions, his intonation and gestures, than from his actions. All over the book he uses different wordplays, clinches, and the words and sentences are expressive especially because of the musical associations and the audible gestures than because of their logic, Humbert being an incredible narrator. For example, he manages to divert the readers’ attention from his actions with the words that he uses in order to describe Lolita. Also, sometimes, when the narrator portraits things about her, he succeeds in making the illusion that the time has stopped for a while.
Humbert writes the book while being in prison after having killed Quilty, the man who took Lolita away from him when she had been hospitalized, and, from the position of the narrator ‘he appeals, within the story, directly to the jury which will judge him, and he also appeals to the reader who is outside the story’ (Lokrantz 27)
Musicality is created by the huge amount of epithets that are coupled, and by the repetition of the same sound. In the sentence ‘A dead woman, the top of her head a porridge of bones, braids, bronze hair and blood’ (Nabokov 70), Nabokov uses the phoneme /b/ to emphasize. (Lokrantz 103)
One important quote from the book, is ‘Oh, my Lolita, I have only words to play with’ (Nabokov 20), from where we can understand his main ability is to manipulate with words, being an artist of the language. Nabokov manages to make from Humbert Humbert a believable narrator, who seems sincere, and whose words deceive the readers, making them believe into his genuineness sometimes, and other times feeling tired of him.
The language that he uses helps him to seduce the readers as easy as he seduces the young girl. ,,The author’s dazzling language, self-reflexive patterns, and play-full word-games reflect his artistic and narcissistic, arrogance.’ (Connolly 186) He builds the story being aware of the fact that art means words and procedures, not feelings and sincerity, the words being the instruments which give him the power to manipulate the perception of anyone who reads the novel. (Berberova, 37-38) ‘Words are not only vehicles of thought but are also structurally an integral part of their art’ (Lokrantz 2), and Humbert’s way of revealing his story represents a key to all the writings of Vladimir Nabokov. The author chooses to write in an unique way, and the language represents him from the perspective of an individual artist, making him original. He uses words to tell a credible and unique story, but at the same time he ‘highlights his fiction, his art’ (Lokrantz 2)
This is why there are some readers which are more interested in understanding and receiving the message of his words, then in the fact that he abuses Lolita. Because the book challenges the conventions of realism, the author ‘declares the novel a work of artifice, not the representation of unmediated reality’ ( Connolly 186)
From many points of view, Nabokov resembles with the early Russian Formalist School of literary criticism from 1920, because they use similar artistic stylistic devices paying more attention ‘in the <<how>> than in the <<what>> of literature, how form or style was performing so as to make the work under scrutiny different from another work.’ (Lokrantz 4) He develops the plot following the idea that there is nothing to be explained, everyone understands what is able to understand. (Berberova 47)
During the novel, due to the way in which is used the language, the reader has the illusion that he discovers one of the results of the author’s creative imagination, his work being a model because it gives examples of analogies between world and word. ‘In Nabokov’s words, comprises infinite <<levels of perception>>, the <<reality>> that Lolita evokes is fluid, not fixed. What we, as readers, glean in its structure and design is subject of our own efforts, insights, and levels of perception.’ (Connolly 187) Using his stylistic devices, he manages to make the readers feel even pity for the protagonist, even thou his actions are extremely severe: murder, incest, pedophilia, rape. Thus, the author ‘supplies the reader with fictitious editors and writers of forewords, plus extremely realistic details, but these devices are always used within the context of the story itself.’ (Lokrantz 6)
Another important aspect is the fact that he presents life as a mirror, where everything has a doppelganger, Humbert’s language being apprehended in two ways. In the end ‘he levels the verdict against himself in harsh and spare language bearing little resemblance to the <<fancy prose style>> in which most of his narrative is cast’ (Connolly 188) On the one hand he is writing in a realistic way, and on the other hand he is more fantastical, paying attention on creating the language. The fact that he has a dual speech becomes a volitional act, because he wants to cheat on the readers, to hide his actions with his elevated terms.
The narrator oscillates between praising and mocking himself due to the fact that he constantly changes his moods, ‘spinning comedy out of despair and tragedy out of farce'(Connolly 188)
Humbert Humbert is the intrusive narrator, he writes an autobiography, and reminds the reader that he writes a story that is very difficult to be related in order to arouse pity and to pull the wool over the readers’ eyes. ‘While keeping intrusions within the framework of the story, the author never lets the reader forget that story it is’ and even though we find there many realistic details, he keeps the distance from the reality.
The narrator plays upon words, giving every sentence many interpretations and meanings and using few words. This technic allows him to make several allusions but also to be economic, being one of his specific stylistic mechanisms. There is a certain dramatic irony and tension in a pun, due to its lexical and non-lexical meanings’ (Lokrantz 44) All over the book we can observe that he works with many types of puns, from ornamental, thematic, connective to allusive and ironic.
For example, one allusive punning is used when he enjoys the girl for the first time, without her knowing it: ‘<<Give it back>> she pleaded, showing the marbled flush of her palms. I produced Delicious. She grasped it and bit into it” (Nabokov 39) The word delicious has here three meanings, which prove the hidden aim of the man when he uses it. It means savory, and it refers to the taste of Lolita’s apple, it represents also the name of that type of apple, but also the feelings that he has about that moment, his perverse pleasure. (Lokrantz 48)
The narrator plays with the language also when he gives Lolita many nicknames. Even though her real name in Dolores, he calls her Lolita, Dolly, Lo, her full name, Dolores Haze, and nicknames being chosen on purpose by Nabokov in order to accentuate the main motifs of the novel, the shadow, Humbert’s nature, that of a pedophile, and the light represented by the pure nature of Lolita before having been perverted by the man.
While writing Lolita in the American style, the author turned into an American writer, ‘he infused the American language with new vitality and vision'(Connolly 198), and due to this fact he is considered by many critics an essential author whom concurred to the American and English letters.
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