Word: lolita
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...ground. Rediscovered by Nabokov, published posthumously by his son Dmitri who also translated it from the Russian, the story is merely a pale version of the great novel. In the introduction, Nabokov characterizes "The Enchanter" as a separate work. Its premise and plot, however, so resemble those of Lolita that, despite ourselves, we search the story for traits of the novel--the same multifaceted richness of character, the same playful verve of language...
...Like Lolita, The Enchanter is about a middle-aged bachelor whose passion for a blithely seductive adolescent drives him to desperate, hapless schemes to gain access to her. His obsession carries him so far as to marry the child's unappetizing mother and to put up daily with her drabness and phlegm...
...mother and daughter are flat characters partly because they are not given voices. The Enchanter lacks the squabbles and banter which pepper the pages of Lolita. While the child in The Enchanter remains for the most part mute, Lolita utters vulgar taunts and slangy witticisms. She knows that she is a "bad, bad girl. Juvenile delickwent, but frank and fetching...
...essay, "On a book entitled Lolita," Nabokov explains how the novel represents "my love affair...with the English language." Having left off writing in his mother tongue, Nabokov, speaking through Humbert, toys with the American idiom, pinpoints his images with le mot juste...
...course, as a short novel The Enchanter can not be expected to have the same artistic complexity as Lolita. Despite its shortcomings, there is much to admire in this piece of prose. Nabokov's unmistakable flair comes across clearly in Dmitri Nabokov's sensitive and painstaking translation. When he spoke at Harvard last Thursday, Dmitri mentioned an "inviolable contract" which existed between the father as author and the son as translator, and which continued to exist even after the father's death...