I couldn't agree with you more - although I had not realized that the ' "Oh sure," with which Shade accompanies his remark about having words perform like trained fleas was meant to be deflating' .

Indeed, no writer has "ability to rule absolutely over language" , inspite of all his training with rethorical devices and rhyme. Perhaps I was only voicing the feeling that Nabokov has the ability to turn ME into a circus flea when I consider his stelar words.

Take "Parthenocissus", for example, the name of the Main Hall at Wordsmith, later named after Shade ( or so Kinbote tells us). A first reading sugested something related to virgin birth and Narcissus. Then I decided to check if "cissus" had any relation to what in Latin is "cindere" ( or something similiar to this), that means " to split", "bissect". It would be just wonderful if right at the begining of Kinbote's comments he were to mention two or even a tripartite character. Then I found out that "cissus" comes from the Greek "kissos" and means... ivy!

Now I can imagine that Shade Hall has ivy-covered walls surrounding "virginal scholars". But the ivy is also used to represent a reference to a kind of "spiral" ( like the helicoid steps we find leading to the library turret ) and gets novel exciting meanings in maths that I'm unable to follow.

All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.