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: [PART ONE] 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 e
xcellent 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.
The Little Nymph: like Fatherly Love (in the same entry), this is an appropriate work for H.H.’s sinister alter ego to have authored.
The Lady Who Loved Lightning: Nabokov confirmed the deduction that this is the unnamed play which H.H. and Lolita attend in Wace, here. Lolita says, “I am not a lady and do not like lightning.” Although H.H.’s mother was killed by lightning, Nabokov intends no cross-reference; he grants, however, that “the connection is cozy and tempting.” The Who in the play’s title was not capitalized in the 1958 edition; the error has been corrected.
in collaboration with Vivian Darkbloom: at the very least she must be called Quilty’s collaborator, since “she” is an anagram of “Vladimir Nabokov” (“Vivian Darkbloom”).
Dark Age: see Dark Age, where H.H. alludes to its author.
The Strange Mushroom: see above, The Strange Mushroom.
traveled 14,000 … New York: H.H. “doubles” Quilty for a change, for he will travel some 27,000 miles with the little nymph (see here), while Quilty’s “play” of that name consumes virtually half of that distance.
Hobbies … pets: the three “hobbies” prefigure Quilty’s pursuit of H.H. and Lolita (“fast cars”), his love of dogs (see Mr. Gustave … spaniel pup), and the pornographic movies he will force his favorite “pet” to act in (see Duk Duk).
Quine, Dolores: “Dolores” is Lolita’s given name (see Dolores), while “Quine” echoes Quilty, sets up an internal rhyme which condemns him (Quine the Swine … my Lolita), and is French for two fives at a game of tric-trac (a form of backgammon). Although Nabokov said he did not intend any allusion, “Une quine a la lotérie” is a bid prize, an advantage, which describes the way H.H. and Quilty variously bid for Lolita, and the way the book’s game-element manipulates the reader (see here); Quilty reads aloud from H.H.’s poem, “because you took advantage of my disadvantage.”
Never Talk to Strangers: this is no idle title. See here (“I would not talk to strangers,” H.H. advises Lolita) and Do not talk to strangers, where he repeats and expands upon this excellent fatherly advice: “Be true to your [husband]. Do not let other fellows touch you. Do not talk to strangers.”
Has disappeared: see next note, and here, where H.H. says, “I have reached the part which … might be called ‘Dolorès Disparue’ ” (a play on Albertine disparue, the title of the penultimate volume of the original French edition of Marcel Proust’s À la Recherche du temps perdu). An error in the 1958 edition has been corrected (the transposing of the concluding bracket and period after “follows”).
I notice … in the preceding paragraph: the “slip” refers to “Has disappeared” instead of “Has appeared,” another foreshadowing of his loss. Lolita will be cast in a play by Quilty, The Enchanted Hunters. See here. It is central to a full sense of the novel.
Clarence: H.H.’s lawyer, to whom the manuscript of this “unrevised” draft is entrusted. See here.
The Murdered Playwright: the prefiguration of the murder announced above is completed here (Agatha). H.H. now explicitly refers to his killing of Quilty (here), which is prefigured several more times (see I shot … said: Ah.’ and kill in my dreams). By strategically placing Who’s Who in the Limelight early in Lolita — like Black Guinea’s list of the avatars of the confidence man in Chapter Three of Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (1857)—Nabokov gives the reader an opportunity to make at least some of these connections as the novel unfolds.
Quine the Swine … my Lolita: Quilty, and for “my Lolita,” see the writer’s ancient lust and my Lolita.
I have only words to play with: even if H.H. has only words, the reader must consider the implications of his extraordinary control of them. The interlacements which lead in and out of this veritable nerve center reveal a capacity for design and order that, given the conditions under which his narrative has allegedly been composed, is only within the reach of the manipulative author above the book. By no accident is Who’s Who in the Limelight a theatrical yearbook, for the involutions which spiral out of it demonstrate that playwright Quilty, H.H., and Lolita, as well as the actor and actress who serve as their stand-ins in Who’s Who, are all performing in another of Nabokov’s puppet shows. “I could not really see him,” says H.H., of Quilty, “but what gave him away [in the dark] was the rasp of a screwing off, then a discreet gurgle, then the final note of a placid screwing on”—sounds from the workshop (here). “Guess again, Punch,” H.H. tells Quilty; and, of their fight, H.H. says, “He and I were two large dummies, stuffed with dirty cotton and rags.” The novel’s first reference to Quilty thus offers a summary phrase (“Vivian Darkbloom”); for the countless involuted verbal figurations and cross-references in Lolita all represent “Vivian Darkbloom” ’s “cue,” and suggest that the authorial consciousness is somehow profoundly involved in a tale that in every literal way is surely separate from it.
Having recognized the novel’s verisimilar disguise, the reader is afforded a global view of the book qua book, whose dappled surface now reveals patterns that seem almost visual. In the Foreword to the 1966 version of Speak, Memory, Nabokov says that in looking for a title for the first edition, he “toyed with The Anthemion which is the name of a honeysuckle ornament, consisting of elaborate interlacements and expanding clusters, but nobody liked it”; it would be a fitting, if precious, subtitle for Lolita (as well as for several other Nabokov works). A grand anthemion entwines H.H.’s narrative, like some vast authorial watermark, and its outlines are traced by the elegantly ordered networks of alliteration, “coincidences,” narrative “inconsistencies,” lepidopterological references, “cryptocolors,” and shadows and glimpses of Quilty.
CHAPTER 9
charming … chap: the cascade of alliterations in this paragraph, so carefully controlled, underscores the significance of Who’s Who, as does a remark on the next page (The reader will regret to learn … I had another bout with insanity).
Pierre Point in Melville Sound: H.H.’s invention, from Pierre (1852) by Herman Melville (1819–1891). An allusion to Book IX’s opening, where a reckless, truth-seeking “Arctic explorer” “loses the directing compass of his mind.… at the Pole, to whose barrenness only it points …” Pierre dies in prison, as does H.H. Melville’s gloomy “Byronic” themes are apposite.
gremlin: a mischievous little gnome reported by World War II airmen as causing mechanical trouble in airplanes. “Drumlins” is the plural for “an elongate or oval hill of glacial drift” (Webster’s 2nd).
kremlin: the name of the governing center of Russia completes this sequence of phonological pairings. The best example is found in Pale Fire (note to line 803). Nabokov continually manipulates the basic linguistic devices—auditory, morphological, and alphabetical, the latter most conspicuously. In Pale Fire, Zemblan is “the tongue of the mirror” (p. 242); and the fragmentation or total annihilation of the self reverberates in the verbal distortions in Bend Sinister’s police state, “where everybody is merely an anagram of everybody else,” as well as in the alphabetical and psychic inversions a
nd reversals of Pale Fire—such as Botkin-Kinbote and the Index references to Word Golf and “Sudarg of Bokay, a mirror maker of genius,” the latter an anagrammatic reflection and poetic description of omnipresent death, represented in Pale Fire by the Zemblan assassin J[y]akob Gradus, who throws his shadow across the entire novel, its creations, creator, and readers.
The reader will regret to learn … I had another bout with insanity: H.H. is right, readers do regret to hear this from a narrator; and H.H. virtually encloses his narrative within reminders of this “unreliability,” for, toward the end (here), he casually says he retired to another sanatorium (“I felt I was merely losing contact with reality” [merely!—A.A.]). Several of Nabokov’s narrators are mad. Among other things, their madness functions as a parody of critical dogma about fiction, and a telling parody of the reader’s own delusory “contact with reality.” Of course H.H.’s is not a credible point of view in the terms laid down by Henry James, refined by Percy Lubbock, put into practice by Ford Madox Ford and Joseph Conrad, institutionalized by two generations of critics, and enforced by thousands of creative writing instructors—and the involuted, patterned surface of Lolita makes this even clearer. H.H.’s copy of Who’s Who and Quilty’s “cryptogrammic paper chase” (here), the two most important concentrations of authorial inlays, typical in method and effect, are thus symmetrically located at the beginning and near the end of the novel, almost next to those declarations of insanity which seem to frame it, though these symmetries cannot hope to be as exact as the one formed by the first and final words of the novel (“Lolita”). See Notes her class at … school through McFate, Aubrey for another concentration of self-reflexive involutions.
The Annotated Lolita: Revised and Updated Page 47