Come, let's fall down the rabbit hole.

My longest most inter-related blog post yet.

OK.

This afternoon at approximately two o'clock I started my exploration on page 40 of Lolita. My attention was caught by a particular sentence near the bottom of the page.

“May 30 is a Fast Day by Proclamation in New Hampshire but not in the Carolinas.”

The proceeding paragraphs are a parody by Nabokov on the literary devise of a diary, or introverted method of writing, which Alfred Appel points out in the annotations. (see page 356 for quotes from speak, memory about Nabokov's thoughts on “self-analysis” and “carefully created 'honesty'”) The sentence I noted above is another addition to the parody of this devise. Humbert Humbert tries to gain a certain amount of “authenticity” by recalling to his memory the smallest of details as they were in his little black book. He fails at this(produced by the “Blank Blank Co. Blankton, Mass.”), but continues with his mask of “honesty.” Humbert acts as if he even remembers the holidays, as if they had been printed in his black diary.

Of course, the reader will not be too surprised to find that this holiday is reported inaccurately. Humbert Humbert's memory is not what he thinks it is. BUT WAIT! Did Nabokov pick this holiday out on purpose? Possibly.

Fast Day in New Hampshire has had an interesting history. Basically, the president of the council for the Province of New Hampshire fell ill. It was thought by the council that the illness of their president and a recent sighting of a comet were signs of “divine displeasure” and they decided to enact a day of prayer and fasting, to apparently regain the pleasure of the divine and save their leader. Their plan failed. A month later in 1681, John Cutt died, but the holiday lived on. As time progressed, the holiday of public prayer and fasting lost its meaning to the colonists and began to be abolished by the individual state governments. In 1894 Massachusetts changed the holiday to Patriot's Day. Maine did the same. There was a push by the current governor of New Hampshire to abolish Fast Day as well, however the legislature thought differently and made it an official holiday in 1899. The exact day was to be determined each year by the governor, though it was customary for it to occur on the last Thursday of April. (full history HERE )

Does anyone want to guess the name of the governor who pushed to abolish this law that surely Humbert the Sinful needs more than anyone? Anyone? It was George A. Ramsdell. Hmm... interesting.

Of course I had to look that up. It was just so close to the imaginary town Ramsdale that is located somewhere in New England. Is was not surprising to find that the surnames Ramsdell and Ramsdale were closely related. The come from the same origin which just so happened to be Hampshire, England. There was actually a town in Hampshire that went (in the late 1800s) by two names both Ramsdale and, of course, Ramsdell.

I went to Wikipedia for a bit more info on Hampshire. What did I find in the second paragraph? It just so happens that two famous writers are from Hampshire. Who could they be? They are, of course, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.

It also just so happens that these were the two authors that Nabokov lectured on in his 'European Fiction' class at Cornell. These were the authors that his friend Edmund Wilson suggested after Nabokov requested his opinion. That info found Here. Have we made a circle yet? Are we done? Hardly. The bit about the Carolinas has yet to be explored. Could the answer be found in the locations which Humbert and Lolita visit in the Carolinas during their road trip? Go HERE to explore that option. But there are thousands of other trails that lead to thousands of other connections.

Obviously, the web of connections never ends, and the more you look for the end, the farther the horizon appears, and the crazier you probably get. I only stopped my searching for a quick dinner, then it was on again. I have felt, for the better part of the day, as if lost in a web. I have been following a white rabbit down the hole, spending hours falling. It has been wonderful, yet at the same time maddening. Coincidence. I must confess I don't believe in coincidence.

Here are the sources of great information that I have used in this post, and that I ran across and just found interesting, if not entirely related to my search.

Lectures on Literature By: Vladimir Nabokov, Fredson Bowers, John Updike (page xxi) link to google.books

Lots of interesting Nabokov and Lolita insights here: http://www.d-e-zimmer.de/index.htm

Great essay on Nabokov and place names: http://ejas.revues.org/document7550.html

Info on Fast Day in NH: http://www.nh.gov/nhinfo/fast.html

Stuff about the Ramsdale / Ramsdell connection: http://www.ramsdale.org/hamlet.htm#T4

and of course the wonderful time-stealer: http://www.wikipedia.org