Nabokov, ou le vrai et l'invraisemblable
by Jeff Edmunds
page twelve of twelve

Raguet-Bouvart, Christine. Lolita: un royaume au-delà des mers (Talence: Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, 1996). ISBN 2867811732. 313 pp.

Like Lolita, Raguet-Bouvart’s detailed study is two-part, consisting of original essays followed by an extensive anthology of articles on the novel, most of which were originally published in the late 1950s, soon after Lolita’s appearance in the United States. Like the eponymous heroine’s name, the essay section is sexpartite and composed of three duads. Although each essay can be read alone, the elements in each of the three pairs complement one another and, taken altogether, the six parts form a pleasing whole. They are: 1. Roman du déplacement 2. Doubles et reflets / 3. Exil 4. Amérique mythique / 5. Obstacles 6. La conquête du tyran [1. Novel of transference 2. Doubles and reflections / 3. Exile 4. Mythical America / 5. Obstacles 6. The tyrant’s conquest].

In the first essay Raguet-Bouvart cites Eugene Onegin and argues that “l’auteur a recours à toutes sortes de procédés d’écriture qui ont pour objet de susciter le passage de la matérialité qu’offre l’objet-livre au monde imaginaire qu’il présente [the author has resourse to all kinds of writing devices that have as their intent to instigate the shift from the materiality offered by the object-book to the imaginary world it presents] (15). Moving to Lolita, we find a series of similar shifts or tranferences(déplacements), the first of which involves blame. Raguet-Bouvart asks how the society’s collective unconscious could “gommer l’image négative du nympholepte assassin” [erase the negative image of the killer nympholept] and “transférer toute la charge négative sur Lolita, sa victime” [transfer the entire negative charge onto Lolita] (19).21 To answer the question she begins with the “rusalka” theme of Russian folklore, making reference to Pushkin’s unfinished play on the theme, Alexander Blok’s 1906 poem “L’inconnue” [Neznakomka], and Nabokov’s own poem “L’inconnue de la Seine.”22 Raguet-Bouvart offers thatLolita can be read as an variant of rusalka story, in which a young girl, seduced and then abandoned, drowns herself out of despair, and becomes a nymph who entices men to a watery doom. The details of this discussion will have special relevance in essay 5, “Obstacles,” in which the theme of water is re-examined.

A second, and more crucial, transference is from the “real” Lolita to the Lolita created by Humbert: “L’attention du lecteur est regulièrement attirée sur l’écart existant entre la vision que Humbert a de son environnement et la réalité fictionelle … la Lolita de ses rêves est très différente de la Lolita de cette Amérique des années quarante [The reader’s attention is regularly drawn to the gap existing between the vision Humbert has of his environment and the fictional reality … the Lolita of his dreams is very different from the Lolita of this America of the 1940s] (24). Raguet-Bouvart lists several examples of the methods Humbert uses to solipsize his darling, including hypallage and catachresis, noting that the transference from the real to the solipsized manifests itself “dans diverses formes d’associations lexicales, vocaliques ou syntaxiques qui reflètent une opération de mémorisation et de projection…” [in diverse forms of lexical, vocal, and syntactical associations that reflect a process of memorization and projection] (27). The end result of Humbert’s (or Nabokov’s) wordplay is “un transfert de jouissance, la lecture activant dans le cerveau les mêmes circuits sensoriels que les sensations tactiles, visuelles, auditives ou même gustatives et olfactives qui font naître le désir et conduisent à l’orgasme [a transfer of pleasure, the reading activating in the brain the same sensory circuits as tactile, visual, auditory, or even gustatory and olfactory sensations which engender desire and lead to orgasm] (37). The careless reader risks finding himself simultaneously complicitous with Humbert and blissfully unaware of his own complicity. In pointing out this risk, Raguet-Bouvart implies that more than a few of Lolita’s readers have fallen into the narrator’s and author’s snares.

In her essay on “Doubles and Reflections,” Raguet-Bouvart begins by noting the oft-overlooked double title (Lolita, or the Confessions of White Widowed Male) suggested by Humbert and by listing the familiar roster of the novel’s doubles: John Ray, Jr. [JR, Jr.23], Gaston Godin, Harold Haze, etc. etc.. Remarking that “il ne peut y avoir de mémoire sans oubli” [there can be no memory without forgetting] (61), Raguet-Bouvart offers an original explanation for all the duplicates wandering throughout the text: the narrator’s “mémoire amputée” [amputated memory] (62). Because of it, Humbert “transfère une partie de ses qualités et de ses défauts sur d’autres personnages, voire même sur des objets. C’est pour cette raison qu’il ne parvient pas à se révéler dans son intégralité, et qu’il parsème ses confessions de doubles de lui-même” [transfers a portion of his qualities and faults onto other characters, or even onto objets. It is for this reason that he does not succeed in revealing himself in toto, and that he besprinkles his confessions with doubles of himself] (62). Because Humbert is both narrator and protagonist, he is a double double: Nabokov “nous montre Humbert en double de l’auteur en train de placer des indices pour son lecteur, mais aussi Humbert en double du lecteur qui perçoit des indices qui ne servent pas son enquête. Nous assistons à une mise-en-abyme du télescopage des actes d’énonciation et de lecture…” [shows us Humbert as a double of the author placing clues for his reader, but also Humbert as a double of the reader who perceives the clues that do not serve his investigation. We are witnesses to a mise-en-abyme of the telescoping of the acts of enunciation and reading] (56). This duplicity of Humbert is what makes Lolita such a tricky text.

Lolita, too, is reflected and refracted as she passes through the prism of Humbert’s mind: “Lolita ne se contente pas de se multiplier, elle se reflète ou se fond dans le reflet observé” [Lolita is not content to multiply, she is reflected or blends into the observed reflection] (58). Beginning from Valéry Larbaud’s discussion of the name “Lolita” and its variants (which bears a striking resemblance to the opening of Nabokov’s novel), Raguet-Bouvart demonstrates how “l’heroïne change de nom, selon les facettes de sa personnalité, ou la perception que le narrateur a d’elle” [the heroine changes names according to the facets of her personality or the perception the narrator has of her] (44). Lolita is, in effect, fragmented into managable bites, and “le processus de division doit aboutir à l’unité rêvée de Humbert, le «Toi-en moi» de Larbaud. C’est-à-dire qu’en devorant, il y a solipsisation pas assimiliation” [the process of division should end in the unity dreamed of by Humbert, Larbaud’s “You in me.” That is, in the devouring there is solipsization by assimilation] (59-60).

Raguet-Bouvart discusses extratextual doubles as well, literary precursors whose work is cited or obliquely referred to (sometimes by Humbert to justify himself, sometimes by Nabokov to undermine Humbert’s efforts to do so), including Baudelaire, Emerson, and, of course, Edgar Poe. “Annabel Lee” is quoted in full, and after pointing out its many parallels with Lolita, Raguet-Bouvart notes that, like Humbert’s tale, which was to be published only after the deaths of both Lolita and Humbert, Poe’s poem was first published in the New York Daily Tribune on October 9, 1949—two days after Poe’s death. Reference is also made to Poe’s “Eurekâ,” a text written in 1848, in which the author “pose le problème de l’unité et de l’unique ainsi que du référent” [poses the problem of unity and uniqueness as well as that of the referent] and examines “l’idée obsédante de l’absence de l’autre, qui s’exprime dans la répétition et le reflet” [the obsessive idea of the absence of the other, which is expressed in repetition and reflection] (54). (Poe is revisited in the essay on mythical America.)

In “Exil,” Raguet-Bouvart characterizes Humbert as “le prototype parfait de l’exilé” [the perfect prototype of the exile] (72), a person who “semble déjà voué à l’errance” [seems already destined to wander] (73) as a child growing up in a palatial hotel on the Côte d’Azur. As an adult expatriate in America, “Il est doublement exilé : d’une part il n’habite pas dans sa patrie … et d’autre part sa passion le situe à l’écart du monde ordinaire” [He is doubly exiled: first, he is not living in his homeland … and second, his passion places him apart from the ordinary world] (75). Humbert finds himself occupying and working in a void between two worlds. “Or, travailler dans le vide n’a de sens que si le créateur parvient à le combler” [But working in a void has meaning only if the creator succeeds in filling it] (70). It is significant that Humbert chooses in his tale to “toujours demeurer au niveau de l’intangible, au lieu de combler le vide de l’exil par une réalité tangible” [always remain on the level of the intangible, instead of filling the void of exile with a tangible reality] (83). Because Humbert the narrator creates a wholly personal homeland of words, we are “sans cesse invités à couvrir la distance qui sépare la représentation de la verbalisation” [ceaselessly invited to cover the distance that separates representation from verbalization] (82). This is a classic Nabokov tactic: requiring us as readers to realize that words can screen meaning as effectively as they can reveal it.

Raguet-Bouvart sees Humbert’s existence as no more than “un long déplacement dont l’objet serait la transcendance d’un état inacceptable, l’exil, dans l’intention de parvenir à rétablir l’équilibre entre les deux états de son être : soi et soi ailleurs” [a long displacement whose object would be the transcendance of an unacceptable state, exile, with the intent of suceeding in reestablishing the equilibrium between the two states of his being: self and self elsewhere] (74). This situation might also explain, she adds, “la fréquence de tous les doublets rencontrés dans le roman” [the frequency of all the doublets met with in the novel] (74). Ultimately Humbert makes of Lolita an exile too, for “il exclut Lolita du monde normal des enfants pour l’attirer dans son univers corrompu” [he excludes Lolita from the normal world of children to draw her into his corrupt universe] (87). And in so doing he dooms her to death, because “pour ce personnage qui se trouve en exil dans le monde des adultes, il n’est d’autre vie que l’enfance donc pour préserver cette vie il faut l’arrêter” [for this character who finds herself exiled in the world of adults, there is no other life but childhood; thus in order to preserve this life it must be stopped] (88).

“Amérique mythique” continues the theme of Humbert’s creation of a mythical homeland, which “se bâtit progressivement au cours du récit par un jeu permanent de reflets et rappels” [is built progressively in the course of the tale by a continuous game of reflections and recurrences] (95), such as the “red rocks” and their variants that occur throughout the novel as “Roches Roses,” “Red Rock,” “rosy rocks,” “red rocks,” etc. Much of this essay is devoted to establishing a parallel between Humbert’s discovery (and mythicization) of America with his discovery (and solipsism) of Lolita: “La construction du paysage mythique se met en place autour de Lolita puisqu’elle apparaît comme la terre promise …. Mythe et histoire se superposent pour transposer la confusion de Humbert sur l’environnement qui lui sert de support” [The construction of the mythical landscape is situated around Lolita since she appears as the promised land …. Myth and story are superimposed to transpose the confusion of Humbert’s mind onto the environment that serves as its support] (97). Raguet-Bouvart quotes from a MS draft of Nabokov’s Lolita screenplay (housed in the Nabokov Archive in Montreux), which makes explicit reference to Poe’s “Eleonora,” a poem that, like “Annabel Lee,” is an enlightening pretext of Nabokov’s novel.

The alternation between precise description and obviously (or somewhat less obviously) fabrication “place le roman dans un entre-deux ambigu, et ne permet pas d’en définir rigoureusement son statut” [places the novel in an ambiguous interval and does not allow a rigorous definition of its status] (99). But in the back-and-forth, the two Lolitas (“l’objet de son désir … et … Lo, la petite Américaine” [the object of his desire … and … Lo, the little American girl]) and the two Americas (“celle à laquelle il voit s’identifier la Dolly-Lo qu’il exècre, et celle en laquelle il voudrait voir se fondre la Lolita qu’il vénère” [the one he sees the Dolly-Lo he loathes identify with, and the one into which he would like to see the Lolita he reveres dissolve] [113]) become one: “En fait, cette Amérique-Lolita imaginaire est bien l’espace dont rêve Humbert” [In fact, this imaginary America-Lolita is indeed the space Humbert dreams of] (120). In Raguet-Bouvart’s estimation, Lolita attains “le stade suprême de la réalisation fictionelle artistique … puisque ce roman réussit à rendre réel au lecteur l’irréel” [the ultimate phase of artistic fictional realization … since this novel succeeds in rendering the unreal real for the reader] (109).

In “Obstacles,” Raguet-Bouvart reads Lolita as a conte [tale] and posits that “Il n’est pas d’exploration, de découverte, de récit de voyage, fût-il initiatique ou allégorique, qui ne rencontrent des obstacles” [There is no exploration, no discovery, no travel account, be it initiatory or allegorical, that does not encounter obstacles] (123). Humbert, as narrator, “va organiser sa confession autour des obstacles qui gênent son succès” [will organize his confession around the obstacles that hinder his success] (124). His dual status as protagonist and narrator pleading a case, his pedophilia, and, more specifically, his interrupted possession of Annabel, incite Humbert to raise “une barrière entre le lecteur et le livre, dans l’intention, semble-t-il de reproduire dans le rapport entre le narrateur et ses lecteurs, la même distance que celle qui isole Annabel du reste du monde dans son «kindom by the sea»” [a barrier between the reader and the book, with the intention it seems of reproducing in the relationship between the narrator and his readers the same distance as that which isolates Annabel from the rest of the world in her “kingdom by the sea”] (126). The resulting “parcellaire et décousu” [fragmented and disconnected] text requires “un travail d’assemblage” [a work of assemblage] of both Humbert and us as readers (126-127).

Humbert’s narrative strategies and the motives behind them are analyzed at some length. Ragieu-Bouvart shows how in those parts of the text most likely to offend, Humbert becomes hyper-ironical to distance himself as narrator from himself as protagonist by depriving the latter of any semblance of reality. By fictionalizing his particpant self, he aspires simultaneously to wash himself of responsibility for his actions and to guarantee himself, as narrator, the immortality true art can provide. In the end, “Le seul véritable monde dans lequel Humbert puisse retrouver Lolita et surmounted les obstacles qui les séparent est celui de l’écriture” [the only true world in which Humbert can find Lolita again and overcome the obstacles separating them is that of writing] (147).

The latter part of the essay is devoted to a discussion of water as both obstacle and theme: “L’eau constitue un axe thématique qui, outre les moments marquants toujours associés à des métaphores aquatiques, sous-tend la construction narrative” [Water constitutes a thematic axis which, besides the key moments always associated with aquatic metaphors, underlies the narrative construction] (144). Raguet-Bouvart shows how in the course of his quest Humbert must always cross water to reach Lolita and demonstrates that an important turning point in the novel is marked by a shift in the prevalence of aquatic themes: “Un changement s’est subtilement opéré sur la personne de Lolita qui se manifeste clairment à partir du chapitre 15 du livre II, après l’épisode de Beardsley, qui est pratiquement exempt de métaphores aquatiques, pour bien marquer l’état transitoire et tranformationnel qu’il représente dans le schéma général” [A change has subtly overcome Lolita’s character which is clearly manifested beginning in chapter 15 of Book II, after the Beardsley episode, which is practically devoid of aquatic metaphors, to mark well the transitory and transformational state it represents in the general scheme] (146).

In “La conquête du tyran,” Raguet-Bouvart examines Humbert’s tyranny and Nabokov’s undermining of it. As protagonist and narrator Humbert is doubly despotic: “En abolissant les obstacles, en imposant sa volonté et en oppressant un être faible qui n’a pas pu lui résister, il commet déjà un acte de tyrannie. Mais en voulant contrôler les destins fictionnels et par là s’arroger la souveraineté, il usurpe la place du créateur” [In suppressing the obstacles, in imposing his will and in oppressing a weak being who could not resist him, he is already committing an act of tyranny. But in wanting to control the fictional fates and in so doing to appropriate sovereignty, he is usurping the creator’s place] (151). We are reminded that “chacun des livres de Nabokov était un coup assené a toute form d’omnipotence, fût-elle politique ou intellectuelle” [each of Nabokov’s books was a blow struck against every form of omnipotence, be it political or intellectual] (153), and Raguet-Bouvart goes on to demonstrate how Nabokov traps Humbert (or has Humbert trap himself) in the web of his own weaving. Lolita is rife with references to tyranny: Miss Pratt’s four D’s (Lolita, 177), Hitler (188), the social tyranny of advertisements (80), racism (79) and antisemitism (297) and, of course, Humbert’s continuous use of the possessive my before “Lolita.” Although as narrator doing his best to win us over he makes use of stylistic devices which tend to “détourner l’appréciation du lecteur en faveur du despote” [deflect the reader’s judgment in favor of the despot] (168) and ultimately “se réfugie dans le monde de la création pour garantir sa puissance” [takes refuge in the world of creation to guarantee his power] (168), Humbert is no match for Nabokov, who “le démantèle mot après mot en tournant contre lui ses propres paroles, pour recréer le chaos dont il est issu” [dismantles him word by word in turning against him his own words to recreate the chaos from whence he sprung] (170).

The six essays are followed by an anthology of articles by F.W. Dupee, Granville Hicks, Maurice Girodias, Bernard Levin, Graham Greene, Philip Toynbee, Orville Prescott, V.S. Pritchett, Robertson Davies, Harold Nicolson, Elizabeth Janeway, Mathieu Galey, Denis de Rougemont, François-Régis Bastide, Alfred Owen Aldridge, E.S. Seldon, Bernard Kreise, Conrad Brenner, E. Rubenstein, Paul Lauter, Erica Jong, Donald Malcolm, John Hollander, and Richard Schickel.

Raguet-Bouvart brings to her task a keen sensitivity to Nabokov’s thought and language and a flair for lucid exposition. Her critical acumen and the splendid collection of texts she has assembled here make this book a must for Nabokovians and Dolorologists alike.

21. A recent example of this is to be found in Dominique Desanti’s book, wherein she implies, by putting words in his mouth, that Nabokov had only contempt for the girl.

22. For a detailed study of the latter, see D. Barton Johnson’s article in the special issue of Europe described above, pp. 28-37.

23. It might also be noted that, pronounced à la française, “J.R.” gives “J’y erre,” which is particularly resonant given Raguet-Bouvart’s subsequent emphasis on Humbert’s errance.