Short Paper-- "The Refuge of Art"

Early in Lolita Humbert Humbert informs the reader “between the age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human, but nymphic… and these chosen creatures I propose to designate as ‘nymphets’” (Nabokov 16). However, for the “nympholept”, those “lone voyagers” who have this obsessive attraction to nymphs, the idea of this “entranced time” between nine and fourteen supplies a problem (Nabokov 17). As the nymphete ages the nympholept must suffer knowing that he is soon about to lose her on her fifteenth birthday. However, in the last lines of Lolita H.H. offers a potential solution to this problem: “I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita” (Nabokov 309). Within these lines H.H. places special attention on “the refuge of art” as the place where girl-child nymph and her adult-male admirer can escape the problem of nymphic aging and live in immortality. Throughout the course of Lolita the eventual battle between H.H. and Clare Quilty is not only over the nymph Lolita but which nympholept is only a pretender and who will inhabit the “refuge of art”.

As H.H. reveals the qualities of nympolepts early in his narrative he offers the reader a revelation that to be a nympholept “you have to be an artist” (Nabokov 17). With the artistic prerequisite echoing in the minds of the readers H.H. strives to depict himself as an artist in order to establish his identity as a legitimate nymphelept. When reading the class-list H.H. showcases his artistic sensibilities by acknowledging his recognition of the seemingly mundane list as a poem. Also, he frequently writes poetry and references his own artistically trained eye. However, all these artistic displays are overshadowed by the greater text of Lolita supposedly composed by H.H. himself; the reader is led to wonder at the deft composition of the memoir but H.H informs us “you can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style” (Nabokov 9).

H.H.’s nemesis and doppelganger Clare Quilty, another of Lolita’s star nympholepts, also attempts to record and preserve this nymphic time in immortality. When H.H. has finally tracked down Lolita she reveals that she has been at a place owned by Quilty named “Duk Duk Ranch” where “the idea was for all of us to tangle in the nude while an old woman took movie pictures” (Nabokov 276). However, it seems that Lolita refused to partake in the making of these pornographic movies bringing the artistic status of Quilty’s pornos into question. The reader is also only given a brief description of this scene opposed to a prolonged viewing of the film attesting to the fact that it lacked the immortality to even be given a longer duration. The failure of this method to establish an artistic immortality echoes H.H.’s assertion that he is “not concerned with so-called ‘sex’ at all” (Nabokov 134). H.H. continues to essentially juxtapose his status of a nymphelept against Quilty’s by saying how “anybody can imagine those elements of animality. A greater endeavor lures me on: to fix once for all the perilous magic of nymphets” (Nabokov 134). Through this depiction of what a “true” nymphelept must have he confidently proves himself a true connoisseur of nymphs while demoting Quilty to the status of a mere perverted pedophile.

Despite the success of Quilty in stealing away Lolita and leading him on a chase across the American landscape H.H. can be viewed as the novel’s the eventual winner. This is accounted for not in H.H.’s murder of Quilty but that in the end, the glorious “refuge of art”, the ultimate prize offered in the novel, is awarded to H.H. because he has won over the sympathies of the reader. H.H. resounds this when he states “do not pity C.Q. One had to choose between him and H.H., and one wanted H.H. to exist at least a couple of months longer, so as to have him make you live in the minds of greater generations” (Nabokov 309). In this metafictional appeal to the reader, his judge and jury, H.H. reveals that the immortality he speaks of is not found in the physical text itself but in the mind of the reader—the true “refuge of art”.