NABOKV-L discussion

I created this a while ago, and meant to post it once I furnish it better. It's a search engine, for Nabokov's oeuvre. If you were like me, whose mind sometimes teases and tortures its person, its plaything, you, by reminding you of one word, one phrase, whose parental sentence (you know) you know word for word, and whose birth-book (which one?

From Simon and Schuster:

From a New York Times review:

“Half His Age” is McCurdy’s first novel, a reverse Lolita tale that dares you to flinch…

Besides the obvious Nabokovian echoes (underage girl/old schmuck)…

And the cover. :(

Hi everyone, 

I'm so happy to have met so many IVNS members at the Destabilizing Nabokov Conference in Princeton 2 weekends ago.

A few of you asked about the Nabokov-themed T-shirts that I was wearing during the conference. I did make them and they're custom printed. I've been wearing them out and about on my own for the past year and no one has ever gotten the reference ... until the Conference, so imagine my delight!

I've put together a small shop where you can order them: www.nabokoviandesigns.com

I've seen a reference to this; but being ignorant of Russian I'm  unable to check for myself. Does anyone know why Nabokov decided to omit it from "Laughter in the Dark", or where it was placed in the original ?

Upon studying Pnin, I have encountered a phrase that has not been talked about by the Forum at least in a way that answers my question. I am referring to the titular 'feminine feet', a term used to describe Pnin in the very first paragraph of the eponymous novel.

I'm sure that VN used this phrase somewhere.  "It's hardly a Royce, but it rolls"  I suspect it was either in Pnin or Pale Fire - but maybe an interview. Can't find anything via Google or AI or Nabokovian!  Anyone know? I think it's pretty witty.  

Zadie Smith writes in Changing My Mind (2009):

Just before Humbert Humbert meets Mrs. Haze, the mother of the girl who will go on to obsess and destroy him, his gaze falls on “an old gray tennis ball that lay on an oak chest.” This tennis ball has nothing whatsoever to do with the grand themes of Lolita—it “just is,” and in this is beautiful. (208)

Greetings, 

We posted last April about our book, Rhyming with Redeemer, and were so grateful for your emailed feedback! We've written two new articles on Lolita, which we wanted to share here as well: 

"Nabokov, Cruelty, and the Puzzle of Lolita" 

"World War II and the Buried Solution in Lolita" 

In an article in today’s New York Times (Nov. 25, 2025), “I’m a Professor. A.I. Has Changed My Classroom, but Not for the Worse,” Nabokov features in a return to the blue book.

Many teachers have changed the way they test students. That often means returning to old-school pen-and-paper exams — thereby contributing to the comeback of the blue book, a horseshoe-crab-like relic of primordial ed tech that A.I. has saved from extinction….

Here is the reference: