Three Cheers for Madness :: Nabokov Heller Montaigne Essays

Three Cheers for MadnessThree of Psychologys to the lowest level Wanted sit next to my desk and beckon me closer A graying Humbert licks the time out of my eye and throws me a pitifully seductive glance an anxiety-ridden Yossarian repeats everywhere and over that the whole world is trying to kill him, and an almost robotic Montaigne sits as a kind of mediating force between the others, his head snapping back and forth from Humbert to Yossarian era his hands open and close books so quickly one susceptibility imagine his purpose is only to get a whiff of each(prenominal) covers staling odor.I need no special degree to deem them all nutcases. What I know of Humbert and Yossarian comes by way of Vladimir Nabokov and Joseph Heller, respectively, as they ar the creators, surveyors, and closest contacts of the deceivingly fictional characters. Brilliant in their efficacy to characterizeto sculpt flat words into the kind of real live, driving human beings one might rise share a c ab withNabokov and Heller steal a rousing glimpse into the minds of two intensely confusing personalities and succeed in making us forget that the characters are only the brainchildren of the writers, and not the writers themselves. Oddball Michel de Montaigne seems to look on from afar, speculating in an try out entitled On Books about his impatience for a number of acclaimed writers and their works, piece of music confessing his particular curiosity to know the mind and natural opinions of writers. Knowing well that Nabokov is not the sex offender he appears to have studied so intimately, and that Heller is not the soldier living amidst the confusion he so thoroughly seems to understand, Montaigne would understand that from the display of their writings that they make on the world-stage, we whitethorn indeed judge their talents, but not their character or themselves (167). and this is more than I can handle, as my conceptions of these characters as well as the writers who shape d them seem altogether disturbing. While writing out their prescriptions for semiconsciousness therapy (the paranoid soldiers frustratingly ambiguous remarks have earned him a bit more of it than the others), Humbert nudges forward his notebook of scattered words and doodlesa notebook containing his deepest thoughts about Dolores Haze (or Lolita), the twelve-year old girl with whom he has been alone infatuated his entire middle-aged life. I expect to run my look over vile passagesperverse diagrams, evenreflecting his disconcertingly base liking to the pre-teen.