''Vladimir Nabokov's Comic Quest for Reality' - Nottingham eTheses

- 102 -
by a sensitive reader well be applied to him in
earnest.
More echoes from the "commentator's books, almost
overgrown by their parodistic surroundings, indicate
quite plainly and seriously what the approach to Lolita
should be. The reader should accept it for what it is:
a magical work of art that can "entrance" the reader
even though he may abhor its author. In a genuine piece
of art everything has its place, even that which may
by the "paradoxical prude" be felt to be offensive.
Anyway - and Ray now speaks in Nabokov's very own voice:
'offensive' is frequently
...
but a synonym
for 'unusual'; and a great work of art is of
course always original, and thus by its very
nature should come as a more or less shocking
surprise (6).
Alfred Appel has said with reference to Nabokov's
novels: "... one must penetrate the trompe-l'oeil, which
eventually reveals something totally different from
what one had expected. "9 For this task and process John
Ray's Foreword prepares the reader.
This trompe-l'oeil, which complicated the publica-
tion of Lolita and which excited so much moral indig-
nation once it was published, is the familiar story
of Humbert Humbert, the middle-aged nympholept, who
makes twelve-year-old Lolita his mistress after her
mother has been killed in an accident. This story and
its sequel, their two mad journeys across the United
States, Lolita's escape with Clare Quilty, Humbert's
pursuit of them, and his eventual murder of Quilty, is
told in an essentially comic manner.
"Oh, my Lolita, I have only words to play with! " (33)