A. Bouazza wrote about "the recent sciothery or hunt for the waxwing's shadow or, more exactly...",  before recreating the shades of Luzhin's nose creating a kind of sundial -  as precise as if it'd been inspired by Aqua's moustachioed clock. 
He also mentions Proffer's study that creates a "a sciotherical list of what he called "sun and shade images" as they occur in Lolita (and elsewhere), Keys to Lolita, pp. 105-107 (and 121-124)", and indicated pages 105-106 of this book, for the light they shed on [the] enumeration of VN's tessellate and reticular imagery. "
 
There is a wonderful verb in Portuguese for wings, more specifically, for a bird's movement when closing the wings before taking a plunge: "siar" and,at first, I entertained great hopes that, at last, I would find its translation in English. And yet, although I could not find  "sciothery",  I still got to "sciolist" ( a superficial pretender to knowledge, from "sciolous" as in Pope's "dangerous thing"). Ouch?  But thanks for the indication of Proffer's book, for surface tactile effects in VN are always fascinating.  
(Does anyone know if  there is a verb in English for that motion of folding wings, like fluttering eyelids just closing to hide a shameful thought, as we have in "siar"?)
 
I enjoyed Andrew Brown's message about "Lolita" ( he wrote: "I think it was Beckett who said something to the effect that nothing is funnier than pain...The kids are okay. Only the technology and the clothes change; most of us become human beings eventually. All that’s needed are a fair share of the undeserved beatings that life is so eager to mete out to everyone, good, bad, or indifferent."), but I wish I could entertain similar hopes that "the kids are okay". Fortunately some of them might be caught by Lolita's tesselated words and images and return to the book when they grow wiser. 
Jansy

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