Chekhov’s Mistess

Reading Lolita in Manhattan

Topic: Nabokov, Annotated Lolita, Borges and Joyce, Speak, Memory, Strong Opinions, Zembla.

In regard to literature, you could call me a late bloomer, except for the fact that my petals are still huddled close together reading the exemplars of the art, awaiting the day that I will consider myself well-read; that glorious day, I project to arrive upon entering nonagenarianhood. That’s a pretentious way of aying that for someone who loves reading, there’s a lot of obvious stuff that I haven’t touched yet. Among hem: I have not read Lolita, Vladimir Vladimirovich’s American masterpiece.

The funny thing, considering that I’ve not spent much time on his works, is that Nabokov is aesthetically right up my alley. His use of language, like Borges and Joyce, astonishes me and sends my imagination floating so that I have to use a pencil to keep my place and to take notes on the thoughts provoked by it to keep my feet on the ground. Although there’s a part of me that wishes that I already had all of Nabokov’s work as part of my consciousness, I relish still having the experience of reading Lolita and so many others ahead of me (actually that’s a big lie, I wish I was at least on my second reading of everything, everything!).

I have previously read some of VN’s short stories, which are amazing, and his Lectures on Literature from Cornell, which are occasionally tedious, but well thought out. I have also been tempted to read his translation of Eugene Onegin, but shied away because of his opinions on the translation itself.

I am reading The Annotated Lolita, which Alfred Appel put out nearly thirty years ago (It probably has the worse cover design of any book I’ve seen, but I’ll let that slide). I have only started the lengthy introduction and VN’s afterward. I can say so far that I’ve enjoyed Mr. Appel’s contextualization immensely and would gladly pick up another of his books (His personal anecdotes with VN are entertaining (themselves.)

I will probably read Speak, Memory and Strong Opinions alongside and have begun to search for articles relating to VN’s works on the web. I don’t want to overdo it so much that my Lolita reading gets lost in the critical muck, but I do like to chew my food thoroughly.

So far, I have found some reviews at the New York Review of Books archive (subscription service), although there is not much there that relates directly to Lolita. Zembla on the web looks like an interesting source of information as well, and through that site I found that among the many places that Mr. & Mrs. Nabokov lived/stayed was 35 W. 87th St, a place he described as “A dreadful little flat.” 60 years later, I lived at 50 W. 87th and can say that our place too was dreadful. There are other websites, but Zembla seems to be the most interesting and the others can be Googled, so there’s no need for me to go into them now.

I intend to share a few thoughts and perhaps a portion of my swelling vocabulary as I begin in earnest my Nabokov experience. If it proves to be boring for you, please stop me; my wife certainly will.

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About this Post

• Posted by: Bud Parr
• Date: July 13, 2004
• Filed Under:
  Wise Men Fish Here: Literature

• Comments:0
• Links to this Post: Technorati

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