NABOKV-L discussion

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:

I would like to give a “shout out” to Marilyn Edelstein.

I just read Marilyn Edelstein’s most excellent paper, “Pale Fire: The Art of Consciousness,” in “Nabokov’s 5th Arc.” (1982). I was stunned to find someone who had (in 1982) a take on Pale Fire that so closely aligns with my first reading of it in 2017. That is, her understanding of the three-part consciousness of man, as manifested in Kinbote, Shade, and Gradus.

From Shelley’s The Cenci:

What does everyone think of the new Vintage International edition covers for a few VN books, attached?  I've seen them in bookstores already.  Overall I'm not that impressed.  I guess I'm glad they reverted to The Defense.  Lolita has a new introduction too, which I'm also not that impressed by.