Don,
This VN name-check might be of passing interest to Nabokovians…
Did
you know?
Describing a painting of John Howard visiting a prison
in 1787, writer Robert Hughes reminds us that Howard was "the pioneer of
English carceral reform" (Time Magazine,
November 11, 1985). Huges might have said "prison reform," but what
about Vladimir Nabokov, when, in his inimitable prose, he describes a prison
scene in Invitation to a Beheading:
"The door opened, whining, rattling and groaning in keeping with all the
rules of carceral counterpoint." Here we find "carceral" not
only practical but practically poetical. An adjective borrowed directly from
Late Latin, "carceral" appeared shortly after "incarcerate"
("to imprison"), which first showed up in English around the
mid-1500s; they're both ultimately from "carcer," Latin for
"prison."
*Indicates
the sense illustrated in the example sentence