Dear Jansy,

My epigraph for the following explicatory note is:

"I do not know who "Baron Corvo"and (Professor?) Firbank are..." Strong Opinions, p.213.

I must confess to a Rolfian penchant for borrowing Old Greek words, and although I would not go so far as to use, for instance, rhypokondylose, I have not been berated for another one which I sneaked into my posting of December 15th.

Sciothery is skiothereia meaning "shadow-hunting" and skiotheron, literally shadow-hunter or catcher, is a sundial, a gnomon.

Remember skiagraph in Pnin. By the way, both umbra and skiá have the meaning of "an uninvited guest."

The Latin sciolus is unrelated as it is derived from scire, to know.

I don't know the English, French, Dutch, Latin and Old Greek equivalents of the charming Portuguese siar, but Classical Arabic is rich in such animal as well as human motions, gestures, gaits, postures etc etc.; it even has a word for Gradus' "chaimpanzee slouch of his broad body and short hindlegs," Pale Fire, p. 277. However, I am reminded of an observation in The Gift that when a bird (a crow?) alights it adjusts one wing.

A. Bouazza.

-----Original Message-----
From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum [mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU]On Behalf Of jansymello
Sent: 05 January 2007 03:06
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] Shadow Hunters & Sundials

A. Bouazza wrote about "the recent sciothery or hunt for the waxwing's shadow or, more exactly...", before recreating the shades of Luzhin's nose creating a kind of sundial - as precise as if it'd been inspired by Aqua's moustachioed clock.

He also mentions Proffer's study that creates a "a sciotherical list of what he called "sun and shade images" as they occur in Lolita (and elsewhere), Keys to Lolita, pp. 105-107 (and 121-124)", and indicated pages 105-106 of this book, for the light they shed on [the] enumeration of VN's tessellate and reticular imagery. "

There is a wonderful verb in Portuguese for wings, more specifically, for a bird's movement when closing the wings before taking a plunge: "siar" and,at first, I entertained great hopes that, at last, I would find its translation in English. And yet, although I could not find "sciothery", I still got to "sciolist" ( a superficial pretender to knowledge, from "sciolous" as in Pope's "dangerous thing"). Ouch? But thanks for the indication of Proffer's book, for surface tactile effects in VN are always fascinating.

(Does anyone know if there is a verb in English for that motion of folding wings, like fluttering eyelids just closing to hide a shameful thought, as we have in "siar"?)

I enjoyed Andrew Brown's message about "Lolita" ( he wrote: "I think it was Beckett who said something to the effect that nothing is funnier than pain...The kids are okay. Only the technology and the clothes change; most of us become human beings eventually. All that’s needed are a fair share of the undeserved beatings that life is so eager to mete out to everyone, good, bad, or indifferent."), but I wish I could entertain similar hopes that "the kids are okay". Fortunately some of them might be caught by Lolita's tesselated words and images and return to the book when they grow wiser.

Jansy

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