Essay Questions

What does the relationship between Nabokov and Colette tell us about young love?

Nabokov and Colette feel love so intensely that they consider eloping. This would be wildly romantic if they were in their early 'twenties, or even in their late teens; however, they are barely more than young children and this is their first experience of puppy love. The intensity of their feelings for each is caused partly by the fact it is the first time both are experiencing any kind of romantic attraction, and partly because, as creative and sensitive children who both go on to become writers, they feel emotions more intensely than others of their age. The state of the world they are growing up in also causes kids to grow up more quickly than children raised in generations where war is not a threat or where adults have a constant air of uncertainty.

The fact that after their summer vacation is over the two never see each other again is also very illuminating about young love; they have the youthful tendency to, one moment, feel like if they are not together than they may well die of a broken heart, and the next moment to be able to put it behind them and go back to their normal, everyday life.

Nabokov is a writer who displays multiple obsessions that repeat throughout his work. What signs of this obsessive compulsive behavior are shown in his early life?

Nabokov becomes very easily obsessed with things and takes his obsession to first one level, then another. A key example of this is his obsession with butterflies. For a time, he is content to study them in books and learn as much about them as he can. This is soon not enough for him and he begins to venture outside and chase them, trying to catch them. Very soon he is never seen without a butterfly net, and he is catching butterflies, asking his mother to kill them with ether, and displaying them on the wall.

This tendency to become obsessed is evident in his writing as in most of his books there are subjects he is obsessed with and explores time and again. The main example of this is his obsession with pedophilia, exemplified in his best-known work, "Lolita". He also obsesses about being unable to fit in and being an outsider, something that occupied him throughout his youth.