Achtung Baby!

he doesn’t know that a world exists outside himself

"Vladimir Nabokov claimed that the “initial shiver of inspiration” for “Lolita” came from a newspaper account of an ape in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris that produced the first drawing ever made by an animal. “This sketch,” he reported, “showed the bars of the poor creature’s cage.” The story neatly encapsulates the tragedy and comedy of Humbert Humbert: for all his preternatural brilliance — no one of his kind has ever set such things down on a page — he knows less than nothing because he doesn’t know that a world exists outside himself."

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he doesn’t know that a world exists outside himself

"Vladimir Nabokov claimed that the “initial shiver of inspiration” for “Lolita” came from a newspaper account of an ape in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris that produced the first drawing ever made by an animal. “This sketch,” he reported, “showed the bars of the poor creature’s cage.” The story neatly encapsulates the tragedy and comedy of Humbert Humbert: for all his preternatural brilliance — no one of his kind has ever set such things down on a page — he knows less than nothing because he doesn’t know that a world exists outside himself."