Siri Vane:Currently reading a seminal work about the history of Iraq, the authors' surname "Sluglett" triggered in me a memory of many diminuitive "-lets" in V.N.'s novels and I decided for myself that maybe "sluglet" was a word only waiting to be discovered and put to use by V.N.

 

JM: Amusing conjectures qua "sluglets"! Siri Vane remembered Ada's "goblets of light" and, perhaps, in Bend Sinister we'll find a "Kruglet", following the same inspiration as in "radugalet-rainbowlet"?

 

Until now, I'd always associated "let", quite naturally, to French diminutives (such as nymphet= little nymph and faunlet= little faun) which VN applied to unusual words (such as radugalet, perhaps a rainbowlet?).

From a list dictionary of rhymes I got booklet, rivulet, pallet, valet, tablet, pamphlet, anklet,starlet,bracelet, leaflet, wavelet, springlet, droplet,wallet, gimlet, omelet, droplet, gauntelet, townlet,fruitlet,couplet, coverlet, verselet  but many of them don't seem to be applicable to small items (violet,ammulet, triplet or VN's more complex "driblets" by assuming a fusion of triplet and driblet)" Cf. goblet." Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes. Oxford University Press. 2007. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Dec. 2009 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

Now I'm doubtful about this assumption for faunlet could have become "faunet", just as a verselet takes shape as a tercet (not sonnet?).

When is the "L" added? More euphonic? 

 

[QUERY] Did Nabokov succeed, in "The Original of Laura," to extricate from his writing the satirical instances he might have aimed at poshlost and
philistinism, as it is found in "KQK", "Bend Sinister","Lolita"? (http://www.theparisreview.org/viewinterview.php/prmMID/4310 ) For me the necessary distance and perspective to obtain this result seems to be still waiting to take shape in TOoL