Hooked on the First Line: The Sensual Syntax of Nabokov's 'Lolita,' 'Ada,' and 'Laughter in the Dark'

[00:00:00] This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show. Welcome back to Hooked on the First Line, where we analyze some of the best first lines in all literature.

[00:00:26] And the reason we do this is because to understand and to analyze the first line of something helps us as creators, artists, writers, whatever. The first line is the most important line, maybe in the book, next to the last line because

[00:00:40] if the first line's great, get to read the second line, the third line, the fourth line. And we all want to create things that people continue to either view or read or whatever. So Cal, welcome back. Thank you very much. Do you ever want to write a novel?

[00:00:57] You know, I think when I was young, I had it in my mind, but I always felt that I needed more experience with life. And then as my life pushed forward, a lot of things got piled on.

[00:01:20] And so if I do, it will be something that happens toward the end. Yeah. That could be. I had the ego and hubris to think that I could write a novel at a young age.

[00:01:33] So I wrote novel after novel after novel when I was from the ages of like 21 to 26, and none of them were good. None of them were published, but maybe it helped me hone my skills a little bit.

[00:01:45] One thing I realized when I was first starting to write is that you have to constantly read so that you're always feeling juiced up and inspired. Like reading gave me energy to write, particularly when I read great books.

[00:01:57] That's why I love analyzing these first lines because I would think about them so much at that time. Well, the line I picked is actually very easy to identify. Let's do your line. Okay.

[00:02:11] It's a very simple short line, but imagine you pick up the book and it's chapter one. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. You know once you read that line whoever's voice that is is in trouble. Yeah. Right.

[00:02:37] Because also the name Lolita is so it's not like almost, it's not like a serious name somehow. It's like a very playful name. So you know, and you know the fact that his love is more about the fire in his loins, that

[00:02:53] it's not going to be a, how should I say, long deeply maturing relationship. No, and I know this is all about the first lines, but I'll just read on because it addresses everything you just said.

[00:03:14] So Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins, my sin, my soul. Lolita, the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palette to tap at three on the teeth. Lolita. That's really beautiful too.

[00:03:42] So read that last line again, the three step tap. The tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palette to tap at three on the teeth. Lolita. So this is Vladimir Nabokov. He wrote Lolita in English.

[00:04:04] It's one of the books he wrote in English. Many of his first novels were written in Russian and then he moved to the U.S. And his later novels, including Lolita, were written in English.

[00:04:15] So it's interesting the consonants, you know, the use of the T over and over again that is interesting there because it almost sounds like someone tapping down steps. The ta-ta-ta. And you know what? He keeps it up in the next paragraph.

[00:04:33] She was low, plain low in the morning standing four feet ten in one sock. Man, what does that tell you? I know. Was she short or obviously we're getting to the point that she was young. There you go.

[00:04:51] And also he's so verbal it kind of implies a little bit of age to him. And manipulation, the ability to manipulate because he's very adept at language. And now he's got a woman, young girl we don't know, four feet ten in one sock.

[00:05:15] I mean obviously this is not a 42 year old woman. Right. And also there's the kind of contradictions. Like first he says the light of my life, but then he says the fire, you know Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.

[00:05:37] And then the second one, my sin, my soul. So everything's a contradiction. Let's say I'm acknowledging my wife in a book. I may have an acknowledgment page. I'm not going to say fire of my loins.

[00:05:50] I'm going to say light of my life, my soul, you know and then the person's name. So it's a contradiction in every sentence or at least it's a positive negative in each sentence. And look how he continues.

[00:06:06] So we already saw she was low, plain low in the morning standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line, but in my arms she was always Lolita. Yeah.

[00:06:29] And this guy is in deep trouble. Right. Because she was Dolly at school. She's four foot ten. So now we definitely know she's young. Again we could kind of assume he's older just by the literary aspect of the poetic aspect of the writing.

[00:06:46] And I really like the fact that the third sentence, the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps. You know I like how that sounds just saying it out loud sounds like what he's writing about. Like it sounds like someone stepping down steps.

[00:07:06] And then the fact that you know she was Dolly at school so that's like with her friends. She's low in the morning but in his arms Lolita which is the most kind of seductive of the versions of her name.

[00:07:21] Again I like these first lines where you could kind of get a sense of what the entire novel is going to be like from the very first few lines. And every line makes you want to read more.

[00:07:32] So like fire of my loins obviously we want to read more of that. My sin, my soul so he's going to be tortured at some point. Emotionally or mentally. And then again just the playfulness of how he's you know saying the next things, the

[00:07:49] three steps on the tip of his tongue and so on. Well you definitely get the feeling when you get to the end of that second paragraph that this guy is about to take a tumble down those steps. I just pulled it up.

[00:08:05] He says you could always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Which by the way I don't know if you can always count on a murderer for that. We already know he's unreliable. It's interesting that maybe we can't count on a murderer for a fancy.

[00:08:20] I don't necessarily associate murderers with fancy prose styles. Well I mean that sentence alone I mean you could have used that as a first sentence but it would not have had the same impact because once you've set it up with this girl, this woman, this object of desire

[00:08:44] and you see her in all these different ways and now the word murder is thrown into it. You gotta keep going. What would have been the difference if he had started with that line? You could always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.

[00:09:19] I guess since we haven't seen an example of the fancy prose style yet and we don't have a reason yet to continue. And the sentence is perfectly placed where it is because he's got you. This is sort of like watching a boxer throwing eight shots

[00:09:41] to set up the ninth one that's on the jaw which is you can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style because he's got you leaning in

[00:09:53] and then when he hits you with that line you're saying oh shit how far down the steps does he tumble? Yeah and so we basically have sex and sin in the first paragraph. In the second paragraph we firmly believe and are told she's basically younger than him

[00:10:15] and then in the third paragraph somehow there's a murder that has happened. We don't know who was murdered, we know he did the murder but we don't know who is murdered. Is it Lolita? How was he caught?

[00:10:26] Because he's caught actually it's revealed in the next paragraph that he's testifying to a jury and we know we're in for a ride now. And I don't want to spoil anything but you know the last sentence of the intro is look at this tangle of thorns.

[00:10:45] So he's basically just invited you in and you gotta go, you gotta go. He's a master of that. There's another book I don't know are we allowed to on this podcast? Yes, we're allowed to do anything we want.

[00:11:05] Okay I want to reference the same author because he's a master at opening books Nabokov. And this book that I got in front of me is called Laughter in the Dark and he starts it with a sentence that is not what I would classify as an amazing sentence.

[00:11:30] It's a very routine sentence and it just starts once upon a time they're lived in Berlin Germany, a man called Albinus. Okay so where does that take you? It's just it's almost like you're being invited into a fairy tale

[00:11:51] and you're saying all right there's a once upon a time so what's the next sentence going to be? And then writing continues he was rich, respectable, happy. One day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress.

[00:12:10] He loved, was not loved and his life ended in disaster. Yeah so that one the first it's almost like he sets you up to be like oh okay one time there

[00:12:22] was this rich guy but then he kind of takes you he sort of sets you up to feel good about about what's happening like you say like a fairy tale almost and then he immediately plunges it into

[00:12:33] darkness. And basically delivers the whole story for you there so you have every reason to say okay I know what's going to happen. He was not loved and his life ended in disaster

[00:12:46] but look at what he does in the second paragraph. This is the whole of the story and we might have left it at that had there not been profit and pleasure in the telling and although there is

[00:12:59] plenty of space on a gravestone to contain bound in moss the abridged version of a man's life detail is always welcome. He's like he's hooked you he's just he's told you everything you need to know

[00:13:19] and yet you're smiling and I smiled when I hit the words this is a whole of the story and we might have left it at that had there not been profit and pleasure in the telling.

[00:13:33] You know and there's something else interesting there which is that he starts this off in this very just a very basic third person voice okay he you know there's a man albinus he was rich

[00:13:50] his wife he loved was not loved but then he gets kind of meta and it becomes a sort of plural first person this is the whole of the story and we might have left it at that

[00:14:04] so now kind of this interesting mix of what person is this story being told in is also compelling like who's we why isn't it I might have left it at that and then there's

[00:14:16] also this meta aspect where the writer doesn't usually most books we read the writer doesn't usually refer to the fact that this is a book you're reading that he wrote so like when you read a

[00:14:27] john grisham novel and by the way no knock against john grisham I've read every john grisham novel I love legal thrillers but you don't say john grisham would never say you know oh I could have

[00:14:39] left this novel at you know young lawyer gets rich and famous and then has disaster so I decided to keep going he never refers to the author in the writing of a book and most

[00:14:50] authors don't but this is a very interesting experiment navikov is doing yeah and it's basically showing a strength and control of the language and where he's going he's narrating it's his tail here you hear right off the top it he may be doing this just to make money

[00:15:15] yeah that's okay you're intrigued and are coming along yeah and and by the way this is another like this lolita and I don't know if you ever read his book eta but they're all examples of someone

[00:15:31] loving essentially either a little girl or someone much younger yeah well it's it's pretty obvious that there's some something deep going on I think this is why um navikov never won the Nobel prize

[00:15:46] actually it's because there's a little bit uh you know too much speculation that there was something kind of wrong with him it might have spooked a bunch of people you're right you know um one of my favorite novels uh you know there's there's quite a few novels

[00:16:03] where chess is involved like we all we all saw the tv show the queen's gambit which was based on a novel written in the early 80s called the queen's gambit and uh one of my favorite novels by navikov

[00:16:17] is one called the defense about uh someone who's at the level of a world chess champion who gradually goes insane and navikov himself was a chess master when he was younger I that I didn't I never

[00:16:30] read that so it's a great it was one of my favorite novels ever you know what thank you because you've just proved the merit of this podcast because you've got me very curious to read that book

[00:16:44] and and and then if you want the extreme lolita style there's eta which was not only someone loving a little girl but that someone is if I remember correctly that someone is the little

[00:16:56] girl's brother so it kind of it's almost like a trilogy of novels uh laughter in the dark I think was first then then lolita then eta well it's interesting because when you pair them or when

[00:17:12] you put them together it it's really does give you a look uh into the writer who wrote it and I I'm going to read that book so that I can step back and see what's at the depth I just saw a quote

[00:17:53] it said something simple along the lines of once you see what's underneath the surface the surface never looks the same again it's true and the fact that there is a surface I think makes a work of art interesting the fact that there is layers deeper have you ever

[00:18:16] watched the tv show lost no so I love this show again a lot of people don't like it for various reasons and there's hundreds of videos on youtube explaining different aspects of lost because there's that much depth to it it's really interesting but I've watched the whole series

[00:18:37] there's six seasons of 20 episodes each I've watched the whole series at least four or five times what is it that's so compelling you know I won't go into the whole plot or anything but

[00:18:48] there's layer after layer after layer after layer there's little clues from the first few scenes even that don't become more clear until the sixth season and obviously you don't remember oh that's

[00:19:03] why this woman was holding her wrist right in the middle of the very first show the first season so you have to watch it again in order to start connecting the dots that's great writing

[00:19:14] often when I go back and watch a movie a second time I see the setups that are just either overlooked or where focusing on something else but they're there they're planted and subliminally we're

[00:19:34] going with them and that's why quite often seeing a movie the second time is a really enjoyable experience yeah every series that I thought was a great series I've probably watched them all

[00:19:46] three or four times like mad men I've watched easily three or four times uh Rome which was a two season series on HBO I've watched that probably like five times Breaking Bad, Battlestar Galactica

[00:19:59] these are all like my favorite series I've watched them all many times and same with books I will read a great book over and over and over again there's one book collection of short stories actually

[00:20:09] that I let you Jesus Son by Dennis Johnson I've easily read that 200 times well well I can see why because as soon as I started to read it I was just kind of overwhelmed by the great lines

[00:20:24] uh also I I gotta admit that it's something that if I had read uh decades ago I think it would have had much more impact on me than reading it from a vantage point of having read

[00:20:45] a lot of books and kind of getting at where he was going where if if I had read him at a very early age I would have not had an idea where he was going and he would have just be transporting

[00:21:01] me to these places but through an older point of view I have a sense of where he's taken me even though I'm not quite sure and then when the line explodes on the page I just smile and said oh

[00:21:16] yeah that's great we talked in the last episode about the importance of last lines even though this is a podcast about first lines he is the master of the last line like I just love all his

[00:21:28] last lines and also very important thing that he does which also you see in a lot of great literature ranging from James Joyce's portrait of an artist as a young man to Hemingway's old man in

[00:21:40] the sea to Thomas Pynchon's gravity's rainbow but what I'm talking about is that the style itself is almost a character in the story so again when you read like a legal thriller the style is very

[00:21:54] like there really is no style and that and that's done with a purpose because you want to focus on the fact that it's a thriller not that it's this stylistically told story but with Jesus

[00:22:04] son and another one is a million little pieces by James Frey is like this the style itself changes throughout the book as the character changes but again the style it's written in changes as the

[00:22:18] character evolves well I think it's a good way to circle back to Nabokov because that is at the center of his opening there was just a sense of style that you know you are reading Nabokov

[00:22:36] you're not going to read anything like this from any other author it's totally unique to him which is in my mind a great calling card and that same thing with the Gabriel Garcia Marquez first line

[00:22:57] of 100 years solitude you know nobody else has written like that and it's the very essence of style converging with all the other magic that makes you lean forward well I've got a great one for

[00:23:18] episode three I'm looking forward to telling you it all right now I can't wait let's see where this goes