We also learn that Humbert is mad–mad enough, at least, to have been committed to several mental institutions, where he took great pleasure in misleading his psychiatrists. Is Humbert’s madness an aspect of his sexual deviance or is it something more fundamental? Can we trust a story told by an insane narrator? What is Humbert’s kinship with the “mad” narrators of such works as Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground and Gogol’s Diary of a Madman?
I assumed Humbert chose to go in the mental institutions, as a kind of break. So, I’m not convinced he is insane. I see him as a narcissistic sex fiend, to use a non-medical term. Not being able to share one’s (perverted) feelings with anyone, ever, would drive you crazy, I think. Our human nature is to have an outlet, a friend, someone you can really talk to. No, I don’t think we can trust an insane narrator, but is he truly insane?
I am not familiar with Notes from Underground or Diary of a Madman. But they sound interesting!
Humbert likes to think he’s smarter than everyone else. I think he chose a mental health institution because he could manipulate and maybe have his story viewed as just the ravings a mad man. I think even though we may view Humbert as an unreliable narrator, the story of a mad person - a look into how they think - is worthy of telling. We can learn from this.
We’re not given any information about how he wound up being institutionalized. Was it by choice, and if not, who’d have placed him there? In any event, he appears to pass the time by deliberately manipulating those around him.
Good question Kim. Who would place him there? That’s why I think he went in on his own.
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The story is not so much to be trusted in its accuracy as for its depiction of his obsession. It appears to me that Humbert considers madness an essential component of his art. Without some madness, his story would be that of just another pedophile.
I think he committed himself and I also think we cannot trust his story. I think he probably enjoyed messing with the psychiatrists minds.
I think he not only is a master manipulator but he committed himself.I feel he wanted to tell his story his way and make people feel that he was not a bad person
Humbert’s madness cannot be reduced only to his pedophilia, though that is the most conspicuous symptom. His instability is broader — marked by delusion, narcissism, and paranoia. Because he is insane and manipulative, his story cannot be trusted at face value. Yet Nabokov turns this very unreliability into a technique: the novel is less about “what happened” than about the way Humbert tells it, and what that reveals about obsession, self-deception, and the dangers of turning something into an aesthetically pleasing event though evil.
His madness seems to go far beyond that of sexual deviance. He wanted to possess and control everything and would stoop to any means to do so. It seems he was almost in competition with the other “mad” narrators to perfect the deviant art. It is the narrator’s story, insane or not, so it seems that we should accept it at that; not necessarily trusting that it is the truth of the matter. He was incapable of seeing anything other than what he perceived.
Well said, Karen. HH does love to hear himself talk!