In Bend Sinister we
find references to a "bombinating moth" [as Olga's rosy soul...
bombinates in the damp dark at the bright window of my room], to
"bombycina corpus", brownish pink moths and "mothing".
In his introduction, VN recognizes that
his "characters
are not 'types' ...only
absurd mirages, illusions...", "merely my whims and
megrims."...
That
VN was familiar with Rabelais is amply attested by Pale
Fire, we read about Rabelais and his "big potato".
I found an interesting
mention to a Rabelaisian library visited by Pantragruel, in an essay
written by Umberto Eco, where the words "chimera bombinans in
vacuo" called my attention ( I selected only part of the entire
title of the mysterious book on "Quaestio subtilissima utrum chimera
bombinans in vacuo possit comedere secundas
intentiones".
I wonder if
anyone has already called attention to this animated "chimera" that
bombinates in Bend Sinister's last lines to twang and trick
proofreaders into substituting "mothing" for "nothing" and the whimsical mirage
of a library and its titles in
Rabelais.
( as also
to sound of "bombycina" with Shade's
waxwing "Bombycilla")
PS: I
would like to thank Sandor
Pongor for providing the relevant
excerpt from Montaigne's essay concerning VN's disparaging comments on Apuleius,
as also John Mella, for the disquietingly beautiful lines
115-124 of Shade's poem in association to the rocking cradle balancing over two
abyssal infinite
darknesses.