Belle to J, 26 July 2008

Do you know what excited me earlier? I googled "nymphet butterfly," following a train of thought to link Lolita to the fact that Nabokov was a lepidopterist, which I'm sure is a key to understanding his writing. I found a lit-crit essay that discussed that scene when HH is on the settee with Lolita that first time, and he believes in his solipsistic way that he's managed to come without her knowing it. Silly me: I myself should have known better than to be taken in by that most unreliable of narrators, HH. The lit-crit essay pointed out key phrases in that passage that indicate that Lolita was fully cognizant of what was going and was sexually turned on by it herself - all that wriggling and squirming on her part, plus head thrown back.

There was something about reading about her as a subject, an actor in her own desire, that turned me on. Nabokov truly is brilliant - he wrote that in - it was there in the text.

***
I think about the little scene I observed - the whole scene of cozy enjoyment in a clean well-lighted space, layered with meaningful activity wedding cake style (I remember having a brief but ever so powerful internship at Van Alen in 1997 or so - the idea of structuring spaces for mutual, easy reinforcement - well, I've forgotten the plannerly terms... but je reviens).

Anyway, vetiver (I forget what that means offhand, but I choose it to mean 'to get on with things'), plannerly me witnessed a beautifully integrated scene in which the lovely daddy, bursting with gratitude, was in a clean well-lighted, neighborhoody space full of reinforcing, interconnecting intersections, books and joy... he sat on the floor, in full delightment for perhaps the first time in his adult life, ecstatic to be in the company of his beloved toddler daughter, he's on the floor, head thrown back.

P.S.
You know, listening to Nina Simone - I cannot get a handle on her. The music flows, I love it, I flow with it, but on some level I must not notice it because whenever the DJ - tonight, of course, the wonderful Jerrice - says we just heard Nina Simone, I'm like - what? It's weird.

Okay, hitting send now, typos and all, and I'll come back (je reviens) from time to time, add a stitch here, a stitch there...