[Nab-L, 04 de Mar de 2011]...a sentence from Nabokov's memoirs related to his brother Sergei:"That twisted quest for Sebastian Knight (1940), with its gloriettes and self-mate combinations, is really nothing in comparison to the task I balked in the first version of this memoir and am faced with now" (SM, 257).

 

JM: The word "gloriette" was explored by the Nab-L in relation to Nabokov's words about Sergei and RLSK. The other terms Nabokov brought up immediately afterwards, "self-mate combinations," were left aside for a time, until they were picked up again through VN's reference to a "suimate"  in "The Luzhin Defense" and in "A Christmas Story."  Now, gloriettes and self-mate combinations have gained, for me, a new edge (Sergei, Sebastian Knight, ressurection...?)

 

However, what made me bring the "gloriette"/"glory hole"* subject back this time was a short-story ("Cleopâtre  2000," in "Lanzarote et autres textes", Ed Librio, p.82) by Michel Houellebecq. Inspite of its gross affinities with Eric Veen's Villa Venus (cf. "Ada"), the definition of "glory hole" by the French writer strikes me as too modern to be connected to VN's putative associations to "gloriette" or to Eric's erotic fantasies: "Il y aura peut-être des glory holes, des chambres obscures ou les gens feront l'amour sans s'être choisis, abandonnés au flux de leurs perceptions tactiles"  (but it seems to be familiar enough in English to those who flock to "libertine stations" in the Mediterranean).

 

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* -Glory Hole.: The origin may well be in Scottish 'glaury', meaning 'muddy', 'miry'. However, by a curious but disconcerting coincidence, the French word for 'summer house', 'arbour', is "gloriette", and this does actually come from Latin "gloria"m "glory"...A dictionary of true etymologies - Adrian Room - 1986 - Language Arts & Disciplines books.google.com.br/books?isbn=0415030609...