Final Packet

This packet, I spent the majority of my time really immersing myself in Andre Dubus' Selected Stories. Although I went back and reread sections of Lolita and began looking at Denis Johnson's Angels, I read and reread so many of the Dubus stories because I believe they offer some direct advice and inspiration to my own writing. I also read a couple critical essays that I hadn't sought out, but was instead turned on to by classmates from VCFA just out of interest. In the next few weeks leading up to the residency, I am going to start working on a clear idea of the direction I want to take with my critical thesis next semester. I am glad I have kept this blog of critical writings, although sometimes a bit thin admittedly, so I can look back on what inspired and impressed me in my reading this semester. I feel we picked a good selection of works to examine, and truly feel I grew as a writer because of them. Hopefully this continues in my last two semesters.

Lolita Pt. 2

In Lolita, Nabokov establishes a line that is constantly toed throughout the novel, as well as crossed. Ultimately, the use of the first-person narrator is necessary to successfully presenting the subject matter that would normally be entirely and uncompromisingly offensive. However, in the first pages, long before we are presented with Humbert Humbert as a middle-aged man, we see him as a young boy, encountering love with a young girl in an obviously acceptable situation. The narrator draws in his audience by realistically presenting the vulnerability and excitability that is young love. He discusses his love for Annabel honestly, to the point of excess even, saying they were “madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other” (12). This same language continues on and on, perfectly setting up the reader for a sort of romantic suspension of disbelief. The author draws in the reader with the language, placing them in the situation whether they approve of it or not. On the beach, it is as if the reader is with Annabel, seeing “her hand, half-hidden in the sand…its slender brown fingers sleepwalking nearer and nearer” (12). It is because of these early passages, seeing Humbert Humbert as a young, vulnerable, sick-with-love man that there is a level of forgiveness when he becomes an older man, a predator, and ultimately, a child-molester.
Although the language used in the previous scene to describe young love is enthralling and stirs up those emotions in the reader that they are sure to have felt in their younger, formative years, it is still pretty straight-forward and honest. That is what one feels as a young person experiencing love for the first time. It becomes much trickier when Nabokov must navigate around the physical fruition of Humbert’s love for Lolita as an older man. As I mentioned in my previous essay, the author literally must find a way to describe a sexual act between a man and a child while maintaining his reader’s vested interest instead of stirring up feelings of hatred and disgust. It would be possible to use similar language as in the first scene, making Humbert out to be ignorant of his actions as a child is, but that would be dishonest, both to the character and to the point of the entire novel. Humbert is aware of what he is doing and that it is wrong. He uses the childish obsession with the O Carmen song to whimsy, Lolita’s carefree fancy as she explores something sexual, but still innocent as far as she is concerned. Humbert even shows his awareness in this after their brief romance on the couch by admitting he had “delicately constructed [his]ignoble, ardent, sinful dream; and still Lolita was safe” (62). This is not only a reassurance for himself, but a reassurance for the reader as well. But it is the act itself, not its omission, but its direct representation that is written so masterfully.
Something I touched upon in my previous essay that I should expand upon now is the importance of creating Humbert as an intelligent, extremely educated individual. He is able to draw upon this as he romanticizes his act of taking advantage of Lolita’s playfulness and flirtations towards him. Rather than describe his physical reaction to her touching, he alludes to it as “the nerves of pleasure had been laid bare, the corpuscles of Krause were entering the phase of frenzy, the least pressure would suffice to set all paradise loose” (60). He even describes his approach towards climax nearly scientifically, as “suspended on the brink of that voluptuous abyss,” which he says is “a nicety of physiological equipoise comparable to certain techniques in the arts” (60). It is literary language meant to stir up literary appreciation, a manipulation of language to take the place of his manipulation of a young, innocent girl. This, coupled with the witty self-degradation that exists throughout the novel, presents a fiendish character that is not entirely unworthy of the reader’s sympathy. He enjoys what he does, despite his awareness of its immorality, but is also powerless against it, and ultimately, entirely powerless against Lolita. By delicately evoking the youthful whimsy of young love, Nabokov is able to allow Humbert to both avoid and assume responsibility for actions that he sees as divinely romantic, while the rest of the world sees them as sick and depraved. It is the undertaking of a literary heavyweight, and Nabokov executes it with the same deftness of a practiced hand that Humbert boasts, and this is where the beauty and success of Lolita truly lies.

Fathers in Dubus

In Andre Dubus’ Selected Stories, the father subject comes up often, whether it is an examination of fatherhood and all that composes it, or a particular quirky or otherwise extraordinary father. In fact, the collection is so permeated with fathers that even shorter stories having nothing to do with fathers will still somehow mention it in some capacity. It seems that, as in life, fathers simply exist in Dubus’ world of short fiction. I became aware of this fairly early in my reading, and started thinking about the different fathers I was presented with in each story. The idea to write an essay came naturally after that, because it began to be such a dominating factor in my reading. Although I wish I could go through each story in order and comment on what role, big or small, a father plays in each of them, I had to pick a smaller focus, and decided to look at a story told from a father’s perspective as well as one told from a child’s.
In “The Winter Father,” Dubus uses a close third-person to examine the relationship that begins with his children following the divorce of the man from his wife. I say begins rather than changes because I believe that is the point the author is making in the story. The father isn’t just making a few adjustments in his new life with his children, but is starting a new life with them altogether. I believe he intentionally sets the tone for this in the first paragraph, discussing the actual point where the marriage ends, saying that the couple became a couple again in their last days, where they “wept together, looked into each other’s eyes without guile, distrust, or hatred” and even “without a word, made love” (20). Other than their few conversations throughout, this is the only point in the story where the author discusses the two of them together. From then on, it is all about the father and how he lives both alone and in the time he is able to spend with the children.
The first weekend he spends with his children as a single father, he feels as though “he [is] giving birth, stirruped, on his back” (22). This is further proof that he is embarking on a new life, not a changed one, and must go back to the point where his children were born, seeing them as new creatures in a new world where there is no precedent or experience. Dubus beautifully weaves together scenes where the father and his children are constantly doings things; going to movies, museums, the beach. It’s not merely a list of activities, but a documentation of the man’s creation. He no longer has a partner who participates, but is solely responsible for the world these children are coming into and living in. Dubus consistently reinforces this by playing out discussions he has with the children, characterizing the father entirely by the present and showing nothing of his previous fatherhood. Although there are vague mentions of him being closer to his children than when they lived in the same house, the author shies away from comparisons, evoking both the pain and excitement one feels from creating an entirely new existence.
Dubus also brings another subject to this story, which appears often in his work: what role a sexual relationship occupies. In this story, the sexual relationship that the father begins with Mary Ann has its role questioned and defined by the obvious circumstances surrounding his divorce, particularly how involved she is meant to be with his children. In the first direct conversation between him and his ex-wife, Peter shows his concern about this particular part of their relationship by nervously asking “what the kids would think if Mary-Ann came along” on an afternoon outing (33). Here, Dubus clearly shows that Peter is experiencing a much more unnatural response to the situation than his wife is, as she casually replies “what they’ll think is Mary-Ann is coming along…” (33). Perhaps Dubus is making the point that father’s naturally have a more difficult time to adjusting to being a single parent, or maybe it’s simply the fact that the children live with their mother, and he has a less familiar situation. Either way, this short conversation adds to the internal conflict seen in Peter throughout the story as he literally begins a new life as father to his children.
In the opening story “Miranda Over the Valley,” Dubus presents the narrative from a daughter’s perspective, and shows the role of father as distinctly contrasted with that of a mother. Although most of the action in the story revolves around Miranda going off to college and discovering she is pregnant, the decisive point in the story, where she decides to have an abortion, is directly influenced by her parents. Although Dubus actually resigns the father to a fairly static role, I believe it is an important one. The story shows Miranda in a position that all children find themselves in at one point or another. She believes she knows what she wants, believes she understands the importance of love and marriage, but naturally looks to her parents for guidance on a still unfamiliar territory. Her mother is heavy-handed, never questioning her experience and decisiveness in the advice she gives Miranda on having an abortion. Her father tries to simply be supportive, but in his lack of resolve, helps to alienate Miranda further from himself and his wife.
The father speaks up one time, really, at least in any significant way, by telling Miranda “[he’s] never forced Miranda to do anything, and [he’s] not now, [he] only wants her to look at it from a different side for a while” (10). This admission of his lack of influence is meant to empower his daughter, but that doesn’t seem to be what she is looking for or needs from him. Ultimately, she is left only with her mother’s words telling her to take care of the pregnancy and avoid what is certain to be misery and the ruination of her life. She has the abortion, and rather than teaching her a lesson of responsibility, it seems to change her approach to men entirely. She has a one-night stand with her roommate’s lover, she becomes cold and unaffected towards the man she had until recently considered the love of her life, the man she wanted to marry. And although it remains unstated, or at the least ambiguous, I see her father’s lack of resolve as being the actual catalyst to this, rather than her mother’s calculated, straight-forward advice, which doesn’t even seem like advice, but rather a command.
This is only a brief look at the roles fathers occupy in Dubus’ work. I could write another entire essay on “Killings,” where Dubus presents a seemingly normal man whose son is murdered by the ex-husband of his lover. The father ends up executing an elaborate plan to kill his son’s murderer, and it is not simply the loss of his son that moves him to such extreme measures, but the reminder of it, as he and his wife constantly see the man around town, as he awaits his trial. The story is so haunting and provocative because this is not a man who has done this before, obviously, but his violent love for his son moves him to do something never thought to be within his power. This is perhaps Dubus’ greatest gift as a writer, as his stories constantly place ordinary people in subtly extraordinary situations, and the grace with which he presents them allows the subsequent decisions and actions to always come across as reasonable and believable. Andre Dubus’ Selected Stories is an incredibly vast landscape of American fiction, and it was difficult to focus it down even to the vast subject of fatherhood in his stories. Although his stories cover a wide area of subject matter, I think he presents an impressive embodiment of a very unique America, similar to Ray Carver, and I found his stories especially helpful in thinking about my own subject matter. Hopefully I’ll have the chance again to examine and write about his work, as I feel this limited scope left a lot on the table.

A River in Egypt: Characters in The Spot

First, I should probably clarify something I wrote previously in my introduction to these essays. With specific examples already written down and cited, it seems as though I was focusing on the specifically physical description of characters in his stories, and that is an oversimplification. While I have examples of exactly that to include in this essay, I meant something a little more. What David Means does in most of these stories and especially well in “A River in Egypt,” is create his settings through the character’s involvement in them. I’d say that includes the characters themselves, their reactions, expressions, etc., but rather than taking a few sentences to describe the environment and then move on to the characters within them, Means combines these two necessities so that the reader is constantly involved in the same space as the characters themselves.
With “A River in Egypt,” I may have been a little forgiving of Means in my introduction as well. He does a bit of “telling” near the end of the story, however, I don’t think it is weak exposition by any means. I believe it is intended to show the neuroses of a father, especially in the unbearable situation that he finds himself in with a seriously ill child. However, I want to focus on the development of the hospital/diagnosis dynamic in the first couple of scenes, and how he places his reader in the position of the father. Means does a wonderful job of showing the pain that a parent feels watching their child in pain; it is something that cannot be described emotionally, only presented in order to evoke empathy, and he does this well. He forces the reader to stand in the father’s position and see the child’s face, “his tiny mouth a tight rictus of pink next to which his cheeks bunched to reveal a remnant of his original baby face – womb wet with sweat, blue with blood, and dramatically horrific” (25). This is an image that anyone can imagine, and somewhat understand the pain of, but once the reader assumes the role of the parent, that this sick, hurting child is yours and your responsibility and there’s nothing that you can do, the pain becomes real, as well as the hopelessness.
The other part of this scene that Means establishes well is the paranoia of the father, which is triggered by the reaction of the nurse. Merely telling the reader that the father was holding his son with his hand over the boy’s mouth when the nurse walked in would do little to convey the high emotional state of the situation. However, Means describes the action in short, specific terms, once again placing the reader in the father’s shoes and, in a way, making the reader responsible for the action. That is to say, the reader is just as responsible as the father. Anyone who has been a parent with a small child, or even a pet (on a smaller scale), understands the actions of a frustrated, hopeless parent in a moment of despair. One’s actions are hardly ever a result of clear thinking, but rather a reaction to a moment of insanity. Means takes his reader, who is now standing there with a hand over the child’s mouth, and makes them feel judgment, insecurity, and shame with the entrance of the nurse. Again, he does this entirely through the facial expressions, aside from a simple, “Oh, dear” spoken by the nurse. As the father stands there, holding the sweaty child roughly, the nurse is described “from the nose up, her intensely blue eyes and a single raised eyebrow seemed to be saying: Something funny’s going on here” (26). Although the father seems to find some kind of understanding in her face, he spews out a series of explanations, frantically spoken, until he looks again at the nurse as “something stony seemed to enter the nurse’s features as she listened, taking another step into the room, nodding slightly, looking down at the boy and then up at Cavanaugh” (27). This is a perfect portrait of the encounter, the kind of paranoia that can only come from someone else believing you have abused or are abusing your child. It’s the kind of accusation, similar to the pedophilia of Humbert Humbert, that immediately puts the kindest, most honest person in a horrible shadow of doubt. The type of accusation that owes nothing to the truth and everything to the impression, regardless of its accuracy. Deftly, Means is able to portray this perfectly in a couple of pages, and it is not only a portrayal, but an actual involvement on the part of the reader. The use of third-person POV is interesting; despite my initial reaction to that, which was heavily doubtful that it was the correct choice, I feel that the writer accomplishes everything he needs to, as well as giving the story a unique voice from the typical first-person, neurotic narrator.

Packet 4 Intro

This packet, I decided to read Lolita as well as The Spot at the start of the month. I also began reading some of Andre Dubus' stories, but am going to wait until I finish them and write on them for the next packet. I had been wanting to read Lolita for a long time, and was delighted when I finally was able to dive into it. Sometimes books like this carry with it so much of a buzz or hype that one has doubts going into it. I'm not sure if "doubt" is the right word, but I was certainly unsure about how I would respond to it. I, of course, knew the story more or less, and had seen the movie years ago as well. It's most likely because of this (seeing the movie already) that I decided to focus on the prose of the novel in my blog entry on it. While the movie is far from being bad or poorly done, it really doesn't have anything to do with the book besides the fact that a man named Humbert Humbert is in love with a very young girl named Lolita. And some of the events are maintained as they happen in the novel(la). But the beauty of the book, the universality, and its ability to stand up to all the controversy around it for the last 50 years is entirely in the mastery of language Nabokov demonstrates. It truly is spellbinding, and, as a writer, I can't imagine making a very long list of books that would inspire me to write better prose than Nabokov's classic did.
Something I found extremely motivating in Means' short story collection was his ability to derive emotion from his descriptions. He has an uncanny knack for not only presenting a scene, but establishing that scene almost entirely by the people he places in it. He would be an MFA dream candidate for a campaign on "Show Don't Tell". Every curve, every breath, every grimace is placed and described so uniquely that every person holds their own place on the page and in the story. This is something I feel I struggle with quite a bit, and I can only hope that his other works do its characters the same justice. I really enjoyed reading it, and I believe that, along with Lolita, I was able to take something away that not only impressed me, but will make my own writing much, much better. I specifically chose to write about "A River in Egypt" because I thought it was a great, provocative story that presented a perfect example of his descriptive character language.

The Prose of Lolita

When examining a text like Lolita, especially in the context of its history and reception, an obvious question or standard that comes to mind is how the author was able to produce a piece with this subject matter that has become a revered classic. Obviously, there are valid points of contention that come up around a work written from the perspective of an openly honest pedophile. I doubt there are many people who would look at the bare objectivity of Humbert Humbert’s sexual obsession with young, prepubescent girls and seek to defend him. Pedophilia, especially when acted upon as it is in Lolita, is despicable; it’s an abhorrent existence, period. So how does that objectively disgusting person become a somewhat sympathized-with narrator, or at the very least, someone who is able to garner an audience willing to listen to him? The answer is the same thing that makes Lolita so wonderful and able to stand the test of time.
The prose of Lolita is marvelous, quite simply, and creates a comical, honest, and almost persuasive narrative. I use that last adjective loosely, because as I established in the first paragraph, I doubt many people would say they were persuaded by Humbert’s tale to accept pedophilia as a proper way of life. Anyone who might be persuaded would surely never admit to it, anyway. But Nabakov’s mastery of language and voice is so compelling that his audience wants to know Humbert, is curious about how he has come to this point in his life and what he is going to do about the love he is seemingly unable to control. After all, when you forget about Lolita’s age (if you can), it’s a story about unrequited (or somewhat requited) love, and who can’t relate to that? I suppose the easier way to put that is that it is a modern love story. No one is interested in reading a story where a 28 year-old man meets a 27 year-old woman on page two, and the next 300 pages describes them living a beautiful, happy life. That’s boring. But even with a piqued interest, you’re not going to keep an audience around for long if your narrator is using simple, crude language where he discusses his desire to bang a 12 year-old. That is what makes Lolita more than just an indulgence of morbid curiosity.
In the opening pages, Humbert recounts many previous fantasies and obsessions, girls he’s watched, thought about, and actions he’s taken with grown women as a means of appearing normal or trying to normalize himself. All of this is tolerable, though slightly disturbing, because there’s no consummation, no real action taken on his desires. However, things become extremely difficult for Nabokov when Humbert does begin to take action. The first, and possibly most extreme, instance of this occurs on the couch when Humbert’s flirting evokes a similar reaction from Lolita, and their touching moves past the innocent brushes they’ve engaged in before. If our narrator were to describe his physical, sexual reaction to this, it would give us a creepy, disgusting visual image of him and he would cease to be the Humbert Humbert that is so necessary to the story. However, instead, he tells us that “with the deep hot sweetness thus established and well on its way to the ultimate convulsion, [he] felt [he] could slow down in order to prolong the glow” (60). I could write a thesis-length essay consisting only of examples of this kind of language, an elaborate description that tiptoes around what is actually being discussed. However, it is not the complicated language, the exaggerated descriptions, that speaks to Nabokov’s masterful stroke, it is his ability to implement this type of language into a narrator that doesn’t sound gimmicky or contrived, but reads naturally and honestly. And it does. As a reader, I never once found myself questioning Humbert’s voice or language. He is well-established as an educated European man with a distinct way of thinking and speaking, and this translated into his writing believably. This is a testament to Nabokov’s overall success and what it took to toe the very fine line he gave himself with such an undertaking.
I don’t see the need in picking out multiple examples of the aforementioned language, because you could blindly point at any point on any page and probably find a strong example. It infuses the entire novel. However, the other facet of the narrator Humbert’s voice that is integral to the success of this controversial narrative is the honesty in his recounting of events. Part of the image of pedophiles that disgusts people so much is their secrecy, the fact that one could be lurking around your children at any time, unbeknownst to you, and that fact is a terrifying one. It is also the exact reason that a convicted sex offender now has to be registered, and that their proximity and existence can be accessed by anyone. It’s the not knowing that is so frightening. And although Humbert embodies this in his own day-to-day existence, our relationship with him as a reader is one of open honesty. We know what he wants, what he thinks, what he feels. We know that he is aware that it is wrong, but that his lack of control is so great that the death of a woman is literally seen as a lucky break, simply because it puts him in a position to act on his impulses. While this reality is obviously reprehensible and inexcusable, there is some level of understanding that is created between narrator and reader, even if that understanding is simply that he has to do these disgusting things because he lacks self-control. It’s genius, actually, and it’s just one more addition by Nabokov to an incredibly potent formula.
The honesty of the narrator forces the audience to sympathize, or at least empathize, with the situation because it really gives them no other choice. This is why Crime and Punishment is so revered and considered ahead of its time. The amount of interiority in that novel was modern before modernism had arrived. It put the reader inside the head of narrator, making him a part of the action (or the crime) instead of just a witness. That’s what Lolita does in a different, but somewhat similar manner. Nabokov doesn’t present a grown man’s relationship with a young girl in a way that allows for some third-person judgment. In a sense, you’re asked to struggle with both the knowledge of the immorality of the actions along with the urge to do anyway. And with that kind of connection, that kind of involvement, it’s impossible to remain neutral or removed. What results is a level of understanding for Humbert, and maybe some sort of sympathy/empathy as well.

Under the Volcano Intro

As you mentioned in your e-mail response and I commented on in my cover letter, this novel is incredibly dense and involved. I attempted to write an essay that discussed both the specific style and language choices as well as glossed over the main points that I focused on in my reading. In itself, this was a difficult task to take on. Each character and their story would be enough for an involved essay, let alone all the style choices Lowry makes, the historical and political points of reference, and the setting of the novel which becomes a character and story in its own right. However, this essay is intended to show the effect the novel had on me as both a reader and a writer. I mentioned this in my cover letter as well, but when I read a novel like this, I am spellbound by the sheer vastness it is able to cover. When I sit down to write a short story, I usually choose a setting I want to work with or a type of character that I feel drawn to, either one producing a fairly simple story that I try to quietly morph into something of importance, or at least pertinence. It amazes me when a writer is able to tackle such a huge undertaking, especially when that writer is able to create such a beautiful story out of something that seems unbearably daunting to me. I felt the same way when I read Eugenides' Middlesex. I don't know if I am able to even apply that type of amazement to my own writing yet, but I do think that the appreciation I have for such a different approach is beneficial, that I am able to pick out techniques and language that speak to me from such a different place. And although I feel my essay may have ended up being a little scattered, that is what I was trying to accomplish, a record of my experience as both a reader and a writer taking the journey through the truly epic account of the human experience in Lowry's novel.