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Re: THOUGHTS: Shade's Mockingbird
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Re: [NABOKV-L] THOUGHTS: Shade's MockingbirdStan K-B: Yes, "stiff vane" is Archery-speak. Much scope there for ribald sniggery?[...] Associations, unlike lunches, are free! Throw in veins, vanities, Ve-en, and my Welsh uncle Evan. Unintended allusions are part of the Nabokovian illusion[...]when meeting an unusual turn of phrase in VN's corpus delectable: these words have been chosen with an almost inhuman devotion, precision and purpose. Even in the context of weather vanes, the predication "stiff" is meaningful. Weather vanes indicate the wind direction, but should not be over-sensitive to tiny transient gusts.
JM: "Unintended allusions", plus "words have been chosen with an almost inhuman devotion, precision and purpose" represent a fabulous chance to the games of chance and further fabulations.
Take a recent example. James Veitch asked: "Can anyone confirm that there was a printing of both volumes together? " with an image of a "double monster" shaped as a customer's binding of "Lolita". After A.S wrote about Abraham Milton and Ibrahim, Matt was reminded of VN's short-story about the Lloyd and Floyd double monsters, frontally joined together by a "bridge of gold" Nabokov designated scientifically as "omphalopagus diaphragmo-xiphoidydimus"...
Googling the name only carried me onto strictly Nabokovian references, but an isolated xiphoid led me to the correct anatomical reference in relation to the externus bone and abdominal diaphragm. I was familiar with "Xiphopagus Conjoined Twins" (siamese twins) but I could not fanthom the sequence of Greek accretions which certainly serve another allusional purpose. The point of the story "alluded" me, though.
I loved isolated renderings such as "suddenly, the aitch would seen an eye, the Roman two a one, the scissors a knife", mainly the image of two-bladed scissors being separated and to becoming single again, as in the knife.The lay-search for "xiphoid" revealed a connection to "sword". Omphalus is, of course, navel and I don't think it would include the Pythia and the oracle at Delphus...
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JM: "Unintended allusions", plus "words have been chosen with an almost inhuman devotion, precision and purpose" represent a fabulous chance to the games of chance and further fabulations.
Take a recent example. James Veitch asked: "Can anyone confirm that there was a printing of both volumes together? " with an image of a "double monster" shaped as a customer's binding of "Lolita". After A.S wrote about Abraham Milton and Ibrahim, Matt was reminded of VN's short-story about the Lloyd and Floyd double monsters, frontally joined together by a "bridge of gold" Nabokov designated scientifically as "omphalopagus diaphragmo-xiphoidydimus"...
Googling the name only carried me onto strictly Nabokovian references, but an isolated xiphoid led me to the correct anatomical reference in relation to the externus bone and abdominal diaphragm. I was familiar with "Xiphopagus Conjoined Twins" (siamese twins) but I could not fanthom the sequence of Greek accretions which certainly serve another allusional purpose. The point of the story "alluded" me, though.
I loved isolated renderings such as "suddenly, the aitch would seen an eye, the Roman two a one, the scissors a knife", mainly the image of two-bladed scissors being separated and to becoming single again, as in the knife.The lay-search for "xiphoid" revealed a connection to "sword". Omphalus is, of course, navel and I don't think it would include the Pythia and the oracle at Delphus...
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/