The Narrative and the Narrator

I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita.

Sometime around 1999 I began work on a novel set in the early 1950’s. The story, unfolding during the height of the Red Menace, followed the exploits of two FBI agents assigned by Bureau Director J. Edgar Hoover to monitor the U.S. comings and goings of famed author Vladimir Nabokov. The author of Lolita was indeed, in reality, on both Hoover ’s and Senator Joseph “Tail Gunner Joe” McCarthy’s Watch List.

Eventually I became frustrated with the narrative — well, actually, my ambitions for the book just became too scattered and expansive — and I gave up the effort but my fascination with Nabokov lingered. “Lolita” is one of the finest novels of the 20th Century, a probe deep into a criminal mind that leaves no shadow unexplored. The narrator, Humbert Humbert, is even keenly aware of his pathology, readily explains the inciting incident that unleashed a craving for “nymphets” in his twisted soul. And still he chooses to follow his ill-conceived lusts.

I was capable of believing that Nabokov spun the harrowing tale entirely from his own imagination but when a novel reeks of such authenticity sometimes people “just gots to wonder”. From CNN.com and Jayne Bowman:

It’s easy to think you can judge a man by his fiction. Isn’t the creation, at least in some part, the creator?

Keeping that question in mind, was there then a part of Vladimir Nabokov that was a monster? How else could he write the infamously famous “Lolita” and bring to life its exquisitely amoral main character Humbert Humbert? Surely only a twisted mind, a depraved heart could conjure up such a fiendish narrator, capable of the kidnapping and ravaging of a young girl, but still seemingly human. He maintains such an odd realism and dark humor that Humbert must have — must have — been based on a real man, or at least a slice of the author’s psyche.

This assumption of Nabokov’s perversity swirled in the public mind when “Lolita” was first published, and resurfaced with the release of the latest (1999) film version. Nabokov’s depiction of pedophilia was so heartfelt and nearly sympathetic that some found it difficult to believe that any pure-thinking man could have written it.

And here’s the part of Bowman’s essay that I found more darkly compelling than the absurd, knee-jerk frothings of the mouth by literalists that “Nabokov couldn’t have written so convincingly of such things if he didn’t own firsthand knowledge”:

There are clues to Nabokov the man, buried within “Lolita” and many of his works. Though not the bloody smears of a rapist and murderer, Nabokov’s fingerprints are indeed all over his fiction.

For example, there exists a connection between Humbert the Perverse and Nabokov the Collector. Humbert has two passions — the worship and the possession of Lolita. But in pursuit of these passions, he also manages to study, capture and abuse her, eventually destroying that which makes Lolita desirable — her innocence. Yes, Nabokov penned a bitter consequence to Humbert’s possessive behavior, yet the author himself dallied in this admiration/murder game. A rabid butterfly collector, Nabokov adored these creatures that he found beautiful, rare and frail. He then killed, preserved, cataloged and literally, pinned them down.

The entire article can be read here. Interesting that this thought process is unique to writers in the artistic fields. I mean, no one really believes that Clint Eastwood is Dirty Harry or that Nureyev is The Frog Prince. But words are subject to such scrutiny.