delicious of literary parodies, and his own afterword “On a Book Entitled Lolita” is, I believe, the last word on the subject of the sensual versus the pornographic. I always wonder why it is not quoted more often in those endless, predictable, and anesthetizing debates that go on about the nature of pornography and eroticism (to which I am inevitably invited).
Here is Nabokov on that dreary subject:
While it is true that in ancient Europe, and well into the eighteenth century . . . deliberate lewdness was not inconsistent with flashes of comedy, or vigorous satire, or even the verve of a fine poet in a wanton mood, it is also true that in modern times the term “pornography” connotes mediocrity, commercialism, and certain strict rules of narration. Obscenity must be mated with banality because every kind of aesthetic enjoyment has to be entirely replaced by simple sexual stimulation which demands the traditional word for direct action upon the patient. Old rigid rules must be followed by the pornographer in order to have his patient feel the same security of satisfaction as, for example, fans of detective stories feel—stories where, if you do not watch out, the real murderer may turn out to be . . . artistic originality. . . . Thus, in pornographic novels, action has to be limited to the copulation of clichés. Style, structure, imagery should never distract the reader from his tepid lust.
Tepid lust, indeed. Those who can’t tell the difference between masturbatory stimulation and imaginative literature deserve, I believe, the garbage they get. The erection of small dorsal hairs is the issue here and not, as is commonly assumed, other sorts of tumescence.
Nabokov thought of Lolita as his best novel in English, and he had been trying to write it at least since his German expatriate days. Perhaps the literary artist is born, like a woman with all her eggs present in their follicles; they have only to ripen and burst forth—and ripeness is all. But sometimes it takes half a lifetime for them to ripen. Nabokov began what was to become Lolita as a novella in Russian called The Enchanter ( Volshebnik ), which he composed in the fall of 1939 in Berlin. It was his last work in Russian and his last work written in Europe before he, his wife, Vera, and his son, Dmitri, emigrated to America in 1940.
In The Enchanter, all the elements of Lolita are present: the lustful Central European lover with a whiff of madness, the nymphet who is aware yet unaware of her charms, and the marrying-her-mother theme. In The Enchanter, however, it is the nymphet’s unnamed lover (who in Lolita becomes Humbert) who is killed by a truck, not the nymphet’s mother. Nabokov claims he destroyed The Enchanter soon after moving to America; but his memory apparently misled him, for the novella turned up in his files and was published in 1986. It seems a pale foreshadowing of Lolita, interesting as a cartoon for a future masterpiece. What is most fascinating is how the theme obsessed Nabokov until he finally got it right—the mark of a real artist. Sometimes one cannot write a certain book because all the elements for it are not yet in place: Life has to catch up with art, providing the flora and fauna of the fictive world.
One of the many glories of Lolita is the evocation of the American landscape, American slang, American teenagers of the fifties—all seen with the freshness only a twice-exiled European would bring. The difference between The Enchanter and Lolita is the difference between a postcard of Venice and a Turner painting of the same scene—and it inheres in the divine details. Even before The Enchanter was written, the idea for Lolita was present in Nabokov’s imagination. In The Gift ( Dar ), Nabokov’s autobiographical Russian novel (published serially in Berlin in 1937-38, and in its entirety in 1952 in New York) there exists this premonition of Lolita:
Ah, if only I had a tick or two, what a
Here is Nabokov on that dreary subject:
While it is true that in ancient Europe, and well into the eighteenth century . . . deliberate lewdness was not inconsistent with flashes of comedy, or vigorous satire, or even the verve of a fine poet in a wanton mood, it is also true that in modern times the term “pornography” connotes mediocrity, commercialism, and certain strict rules of narration. Obscenity must be mated with banality because every kind of aesthetic enjoyment has to be entirely replaced by simple sexual stimulation which demands the traditional word for direct action upon the patient. Old rigid rules must be followed by the pornographer in order to have his patient feel the same security of satisfaction as, for example, fans of detective stories feel—stories where, if you do not watch out, the real murderer may turn out to be . . . artistic originality. . . . Thus, in pornographic novels, action has to be limited to the copulation of clichés. Style, structure, imagery should never distract the reader from his tepid lust.
Tepid lust, indeed. Those who can’t tell the difference between masturbatory stimulation and imaginative literature deserve, I believe, the garbage they get. The erection of small dorsal hairs is the issue here and not, as is commonly assumed, other sorts of tumescence.
Nabokov thought of Lolita as his best novel in English, and he had been trying to write it at least since his German expatriate days. Perhaps the literary artist is born, like a woman with all her eggs present in their follicles; they have only to ripen and burst forth—and ripeness is all. But sometimes it takes half a lifetime for them to ripen. Nabokov began what was to become Lolita as a novella in Russian called The Enchanter ( Volshebnik ), which he composed in the fall of 1939 in Berlin. It was his last work in Russian and his last work written in Europe before he, his wife, Vera, and his son, Dmitri, emigrated to America in 1940.
In The Enchanter, all the elements of Lolita are present: the lustful Central European lover with a whiff of madness, the nymphet who is aware yet unaware of her charms, and the marrying-her-mother theme. In The Enchanter, however, it is the nymphet’s unnamed lover (who in Lolita becomes Humbert) who is killed by a truck, not the nymphet’s mother. Nabokov claims he destroyed The Enchanter soon after moving to America; but his memory apparently misled him, for the novella turned up in his files and was published in 1986. It seems a pale foreshadowing of Lolita, interesting as a cartoon for a future masterpiece. What is most fascinating is how the theme obsessed Nabokov until he finally got it right—the mark of a real artist. Sometimes one cannot write a certain book because all the elements for it are not yet in place: Life has to catch up with art, providing the flora and fauna of the fictive world.
One of the many glories of Lolita is the evocation of the American landscape, American slang, American teenagers of the fifties—all seen with the freshness only a twice-exiled European would bring. The difference between The Enchanter and Lolita is the difference between a postcard of Venice and a Turner painting of the same scene—and it inheres in the divine details. Even before The Enchanter was written, the idea for Lolita was present in Nabokov’s imagination. In The Gift ( Dar ), Nabokov’s autobiographical Russian novel (published serially in Berlin in 1937-38, and in its entirety in 1952 in New York) there exists this premonition of Lolita:
Ah, if only I had a tick or two, what a
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