Lolita's Russian Doll of Confessions

Nabokov's  Lolita is structured as a confession, but often bends and challenges that structure and description with varying elements and departures from such. During a moment of "poignant chaos" in the story, when Lolita runs back into the Haze's home to kiss her beloved H.H.'s lips one last time before being deported off to camp (the entire scene playing with the idea of a romance novel or other such work where the characters break away from themselves and fold into their passion; this parody being set with the vast age difference and pseudo-familial relations between H.H. and Dolores). For when after she leaves and H.H. is left with himself and the despair of losing his Riviera nymphet, he is given a "curious-looking letter" by Louise, "written" by Charlotte Haze:

"This is a confession: I love you [so the letter began; and for a distorted moment I mistook its hysterical scrawl for a schoolgirl's scribble!]. (67)

Already the game that H.H. is playing with the audience has begun. By placing (with the aid of his photographic memory) a fully transcribed letter (with a few aesthetic omissions by H.H., of course) from Charlotte Haze, confessing her unadulterated love for Humbert, one that we as readers must accept without question or qualm and must take as literal fact. This confession within the confession that is the novel Lolita plays upon the audiences idea of who is the guilty party, the antagonist within theses confessions and stories. For in Charlotte's confessions we can see H.H.'s cynicism towards her and her falsely cultured ways shine through: her various bastardized-french phrases, her improper use of poetic language (which H.H. is able to flawlessly pull of), her false show of nonchalance and her way of play acting, and her distorted view of the world to which H.H. has skillfully shown us. 

But the most exciting parts of C.H's confessional letter are the happy coincidences that magically seem to lift off the page, causing the reader to connect things that H.H. hasn't already verbosely connected for us, and draws us in deeper to his game. The most poignantly painful moment of this occurs in the middle of Charlotte's letter:

"But if, after reading my "confession," you decided, in your dark romantic European way, that I am attractive enough for you to take advantage of my letter and make a pass at me, then you would be a criminal--worse than a kidnaper who rapes a child."(68)

This passage in particular rings like an alarm bell in the reader's head. For how could C.H. hit the nail so upon the head whilst still being so oblivious to the entirety of the situation? Especially after in H.H.'s confession of Lolita running back to him before leaving and kissing him he said: "...then she was in my arms, her innocent mouth melting under the ferocious pressure of my dark make jaws, my palpitating darling! The next instant I heard her--alive, unwrapped--clatter downstairs."(66) This juxtaposition is meant to challenge and confuse the reader, leading us to further investigate and involve ourselves in this literary Russian doll of confessions.

La Petit Mort

In French, the phrase la petit mort is a euphemism for an orgasm and literally means "the little death." This french idea of sexual release being equated to death is masterfully shown by Monsieur Humbert during an aside about dreams and murder.

First we see Humbert pouring out his worries of Lolita's constantly aging nymphet form:--

"Has she already been initiated by mother nature to the Mystery of the Menarche? Bloated feeling. The Curse of the Irish. Fall from the roof. Grandma is visiting. 'Mr. Uterus [I quote from a girls' magazine] starts to build a thick soft wall on the chance a possible baby may have been bedded down there.' The tiny madman in his cell."

This not only takes the reader out of the story by reminding us of Humbert's current detainment (Humbert, the prince by the sea--the madman in his cell), thereby dissolving the magic of this "puny unfledged phoenix," but also begins the game of two-fold imagery--a girl's first period is both a sign of sexual maturity and blood (which can be related to death). By creating so many complex images for the reader to relate and reflect, Nabokov essentially makes us the "ladies and gentlemen of the jury" that he has previously described, left only to condemn him as we may.

Then, H.H. goes on to talk about his failed murder attempts that coalesce in his dreams:

"Incidentally: if I ever commit a serious murder... Mark the 'if.' The urge should be something more than the kind of thing that happened to me with Valeria. Carefully mark that then, I was rather inept. If and when you wish to sizzle me to death, remember that only a spell of insanity could ever give me the simple energy to be a brute (all this amended, perhaps). Sometimes I attempt to kill in my dreams. But do you know what happens? For instance I hold a gun. For instance I aim at a bland, quietly interested enemy. Oh, I press the trigger alright, but one bullet after another feebly drops on the floor from the sheepish muzzle. In those dreams, my only thought is to conceal the fiasco from my foe, who is slowly growing annoyed."

Here again we see Humbert's words playing games again (both with himself and the reader); speaking about about two types of guns--the metallic and the phallic-- and two types of enemies--the "babas" and the Quilty's. In the mind of Humbert Humbert, sex and death are not the two things us readers have assumed are distinct and separate things and again challenges the reader against themselves, in order to figure out the puzzle that is this Monsieur Humbert.

Indefinite Suspended Disbelief

Throughout Lolita the reader has little choice but play the game (interpret the story) as Humbert (Nabokov) sees it fit. And in doing this, the reader often finds him or herself raising their eyebrows or scoffing at the rules to which we as observers are subjected to. A prime example of this is illustrated at the beginning of chapter 11, when we learn about the secret journal that H.H. kept while staying at the Haze's residence.

Humbert presents the journal to us as such:

"Exhibit number two is a pocket diary bound in black imitation leather, with a golden year, 1947, en escalier,  in its upper left-hand corner. I speak of this neat product of the Blank Blank Co., Blankton, Mass., as if it were really before me. Actually, it was destroyed five years ago and what we examine now (by courtesy of a photographic memory) is but its brief materialization, a puny unfledged phoenix." (42, Nabokov)

This passage is pure literary alchemy; summoning up a long ago cremated journal through the sparse parenthetical sculpting of giving H.H. of photographic memory and giving the reader no choice but to take the following journalistic passages as actual and real, while at their core, they are no better than the machinations of a man obsessed--a magician with the utmost perfect form.

But even in his mastery, Nabokov still challenges the reader by blatantly giving the name of the journal and the company (Blank Blank, Blankton) an absolute zero of a title and subsequent actuality, and turning the game from the reader vs. H.H., to the reader vs. him or herself. Can we even continue reading? Is anything true about any of what is and has been said? It doesn't matter. H.H. has the reader hook line and sinker, and our brow-raised school of fish have all swallowed the hook.

The Surprising Opening Move of J.R. Jr.

          The tongue in cheek beginning of Nabokov's Lolita is a surprising opening move. It is laid out as a foreword from the fictional John Ray and attempts to prep, intrigue, and manipulate the reader into playing Nabokov's, and only Nabokov's, game--the game of words and ideas. But apart from the pretentious language, the overly poetic tone, giving away the ending (a tricky game to play in the books opening pages), and a variety of other novel game beginning devices, the most interesting parts of this foreword are the places that we see Nabokov's mask slip from his many personed visage and his true poetry slips out. A prime example of this is when John Ray says, "But how magically his singing violin can conjure up a tendresse, a compassion for Lolita that makes us entranced with the book while abhorring its author!" (83, Nabokov) it is very clear that Nabokov's authorship is poking through John Jay's artificial mask. For in another of Nabokov's forewords, this time being Invitation To A Bedhedding, he calls his novel "a violin in a void." This clear self-allusion is a fun game in itself between the skilled reader, Nabokov, and himself--each other trying to out due and out think the other two in a melting triad that bends and twists throughout the memory of the story.