Blindness and Obsession: Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita and Laughter in the Dark

Abstract

Z mnoha knih a studii, ktere byly napsany 0 dile Vladimira Nabokova, se maloktera zabyva jakymkoli srovnanim dvou z jeho del, Lolity a Smichu ve tme. Jde 0 romany, ktere vznikly ve velmi odlisnem prostredi - v dvou ruznych etapach Nabokovova zivota. Roman Smich ve tme byl vydan v roce 1933 rusky pod nazvem Kamera Obskura pod pseudonymem Sirin, Pozdeji nebyl Nabokov spokojen s jeho prekladem do angli6tiny a sam ho v roce 1938 prelozil pod nazvem Laughter in the Dark. Naproti tomu Lolita jiz byla napsana primo anglicky a po ur6itych problemech s vydavateli byla publikovana v roce 1955. Jde 0 dva romany zdanlive velmi odlisne, Smich ve tme je kratsi, komornejsi. Je kritiky opomijen jako jeden z Nabokovovych slabsich romanu. Nicmene dIe meho nazoru nabizi velky prostor pro srovnani prave s 0 mnoho uznavanejsi a dokonalejsi Lolitou. Srovnani se nabizi predevsim v ustrednim mileneckem trojuhelniku obou pribehu: Lolita-Humbert-Quilty a MargotAlbinus- Rex. Muzeme ale porovnat take motivy slepoty, posedlosti, svobody a smrti a v neposledni rade take osudu. Lolita navic nabizi nekolik zajimavych rovin vyprave6skeho stylu.

Many books and essays have been written on the works of Vladimir Nabokov, of which my bibliography contains only a tiny fragment. Yet, most of the studies make comparisons within either Nabokov's Russian works or his American works, while the comparison of the two novels I have chosen, Lolita and Laughter in the Dark, is very rare. Most novels by Vladimir Nabokov display the themes of obsession, blindness, manipulation, freedom, and morality. Most of them also are about games, including language games, and the love of language in general. Nabokov switched from writing in Russian to English and experienced a great deal of pain in relinquishing his native tongue, becoming a phantom in his own prose, as if, he said, he had created the person who wrote in English but was not himself doing the writing. 1 Bearing this in mind, it is also important to state that he had translated two of his Russian novels into English (Laughter in the Dark and Despair) . This split in Nabokov's life into two periods is also why it was of great relevance to me that I should compare two of his novels that were written at different times, in different languages, and with different backgrounds. It might seem more natural to compare two novels originally written in Russian that have quite similar plots and characters, Laughter in the...