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BARBARA WYLLIE
teases his audience, safe in the knowledge that they can have no grounds to suspect
him.
Clare Quilty serves a specific function in the plot and psychology of
Humberts book. He is Humberts double and arch rival, and it is appropriate that it
should be Quilty who steals Lolita away from Humbert, for he possesses a key quality
which Humbert lacks glamour. Quilty also serves as a psychological foil and an
object of Humberts paranoid delusions. Humberts mistake is in believing him to be
passive and the number and range of references to Quilty which occur throughout
the narrative indicate Humberts attempt to regain the control which he only ever
tentatively possessed. That Quilty should remain obscure is essential to the success
of the plot. Humberts achievement is in his ability to scatter bits of Quilty into a
saturated text, establishing a sense of presence without allowing him to emerge until
the right moment. There are holes in Humberts intricate design which he attempts
only cursorily to conceal. These chinks in the novels fabric provide an insight into
the sophisticated artifice of Humberts artistry. Particularly distinct is the reference
to Whos Who in the Limelight, in which he spots Quiltys name, but leaves the play
The Hunted Enchanters out of his biography and replaces it with The Strange
Mushroom. At this point in the novel, Humberts audience would be unaware of the
significance of this, but if he had referred directly to The Hunted Enchanters at this
stage he would have given the game away completely. Instead, Humbert indulges in
a little private irony, (I notice the slip of my pen in the preceding paragraph, but
please do not correct it, Clarence). For Humbert, the Quilty conspiracy is a
convenient means of vindicating himself as avenging hero, but it also renders any
speculation as to the reality of events futile. The murder of Quilty is no more than a
literal act of poetic justice. Humbert Humbert may well be a refinement of Hermann
Karlovich but he is also, more importantly, a nascent Charles Kinbote.
If, as Martin Green suggests, John Ray Jr. is a creation of Humberts in the
same way that Quilty is, what purpose does he serve? If Humbert Humbert has so
carefully contrived to deceive his readers, why should he use another narrator to
expose himself? What makes better sense, is that John Ray Jr. is Nabokovs
character. He relates the most crucial information about Humbert and Lolita, but it is
not acknowledged because it comes before the story and therefore seems to provide
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merely a frame of actuality and a rather weak and dubious moral prognosis. What
would have been the impact if Nabokov had placed his commentary at the end of
the book? As an epilogue, the details John Ray Jr. divulges would have been far more
thought provoking. As it stands, the Foreword is easily forgotten and could well be
skipped altogether by some readers.
Martin Green defends Nabokovs morality as a morality focused on the value
of art, and that Lolita as a work of art cannot be judged as morally reprehensible.
Yet, this would be to argue that Nabokov was essentially amoral, that he had no
concern for such things. As he states, Lolita has no moral in tow, but this is not a
denial of its existence in the novel. Nabokovs position is oblique and his comments
must be interpreted as such. Rather than resort to crass didacticism, Nabokov is
pointing his reader towards the nerves of the novel. Once these secret points have
been seen, they cannot be unseen, and in Lolita the single detail, 16 November 1952,
is the most forceful indication of Nabokovs moral position, for its implications lead
irrevocably to an indictment of Humbert Humberts behaviour. Nabokovs scenario
then is this. Humbert Humbert is arrested on 22 September 1952 for a minor driving
offence for which he is to be prosecuted. He is admitted to a psychiatric unit for
observation pending trial, in which time he writes his confession. It is unclear as to
whether the facts about Lolita are known to the authorities. If they are, then
Humberts book has a specific purpose, as he says, to save his soul and to
immortalise Lolita in the refuge of art. As far as the novels structure is concerned, if
the visit to Mrs Schiller and the Quilty shooting are removed, the last few chapters of
the book are made up of a series of regretful and nostalgic reminiscences following
Humberts collapse. This may not be as exciting as Humberts version, but it is as
plausible and its implications establish in Lolita the stylistic and thematic
preoccupations which had their genesis in The Gift and which were to continue to be
a feature of Nabokovs later work.
Barbara Wyllie
School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London
September 1994 (uploaded to Nabokv-L, November 1994)