What does this sentence mean?

Question

She would mail her vulnerability in trite brashness and boredom,
whereas
I,
.... [using for my desperately detached comments
............ an artificial tone of voice
............................................. [ that set my own last teeth on edge] ]

did what?

I did what? The sentence is incomplete, so it sho

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

She would mail her vulnerability in trite brashness and boredom,
whereas
I,
.... [using for my desperately detached comments
............ an artificial tone of voice
............................................. [ that set my own last teeth on edge] ]

did what?

I did what? The sentence is incomplete, so it shouldn't be called a sentence.
________

Have you looked up all the words you don't understand? Which ones are troubling you?

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

This is a quote from Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. It is only a small part of a longer paragraph where Humbert is speaking about his young lover, Lolita, whom he refers to as Dolly. Humbert has assumed up to this point that Dolly is a foolish girl with no deeper substance and he is a mature deep thinking man. This is his moment of realization that Dolly isn't as empty headed and vapid as he had assumed and that maybe he's not as deep as he always thought.

AnonymousShe would mail her vulnerability in trite brashness and boredom,

Here the word, mail, is referring to chain mail like a knight would wear for armor. What he's saying is that she hides or protects her vulnerability by intentionally seeming to be a thoughtless and loudly obnoxious teenager.

Anonymouswhereas I, using for my desperately detached comments an artificial tone of voice that set my own last teeth on edge

This is Humbert realizing that the bored tone with which he speaks isn't because he is so sophisticated and intelligent but is instead an affectation to make him seem like his is when he's really not that awesome. That's why he refers to his comments as "desperately detached."

And in fact he has probably known this all along since the "artificial tone of voice" he uses annoys even him. "Set my teeth on edge" is an expression intended to evoke the feeling you get when you hear nails scraped down a chalkboard or the screech of metal on metal. To say that "it sets his own last teeth on edge" is to give it a superlative that indicates it's an ultimately annoying behavior. A combination of "setting your teeth on edge" and "getting on your last nerve."

The rest of the sentence that you haven't included is, "...provoked my audience to such outbursts of rudeness as made any further conversation impossible, oh my poor bruised child." This is just more example of Humbert annoying all of the people around him. And his final realization that he has fundamentally harmed Dolly by taking her at face value and treating her like an empty headed idiot when in actuality he's the vapid one.

What does this sentence mean?

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions