Subject
Fw: Fwd: 'spatule', Ada, Chap 9
From
Date
Body
----- Forwarded message from jansy@aetern.us -----
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 15:37:17 -0300
From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello <jansy@aetern.us>
Dear Don,
Please, add to my former posting that the sentences I refer to concerning the
mosquito bites and "simple exercises for one hand" are:
1. On her twelfth birthday, July 21, 1884, the child had stopped biting her
fingernails (but not her toenails) in a grand act of will (as her quitting
cigarettes was to be, twenty years later). True, one could list some
compensations - such as a blessed lapse into delicious sin at Christmas, when
Culex chateaubriandi Brown does not fly.
2. '- I got stuck with six Buchstaben in the last round of a Flavita game. Mind
you, I was eight and had not studied anatomy, but was doing my poor little best
to keep up with two Wunderkinder. You examined and fingered my groove and
quickly redistributed the haphazard sequence which made, say, LIKROT or ROTIKL
and Ada flooded us both with her raven silks as she looked over our heads, and
when you had completed the rearrangement, you and she came simultaneously, si
je puis le mettre comme ça (Canady French) ... 'Well, after teaching me simple
exercises for one hand that I could practice alone, cruel Ada abandoned me...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello" <jansy@aetern.us>
To: "Vladimir Nabokov Forum" <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 3:28 PM
Subject: Re: Fwd: 'spatule', Ada, Chap 9
> Dear Don and List,
>
> As a doting grandmother I´m quite familiar with our modern kid´s games and I
> simply love their play-station competitions featuring "Sponge Bob Square
> Pants", and I particularly enjoy it when we voyage from one dimension to
> another or find a helping hand to keep us from drowning. One of the special
> prizes we gain is a gold spatula.
>
> Once I was told that girls should keep their nails longuish because when
> they are nibbled or cut too short this could favor masturbation. This issue
> is quite frequently brought up concerning Ada´s added pleasure when there
> are no Chateaubriand-Brown mosquitoes to sting her. Nabokov could be aware
> of this association bt. short-nails and a young girl´s solitary pleasures.
> Jansy
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
> To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 3:07 PM
> Subject: Fwd: 'spatule', Ada, Chap 9
>
>
> I've never come across this spelling and use of 'spatule'. Does it have
> an ornithological meaning?
>
> >From Ada, (58.4)
>
> 'Her teeth were fairly white, but not very even.
> Her poor pretty hands-one could not help cooing with pity
> over them-rosy in comparison to the translucent skin of the
> arm, rosier even than the elbow that seemed to be blushing for
> the state of her nails: she bit them so thoroughly that all vestige
> of free margin was replaced by a groove cutting into the flesh
> with the tightness of wire and lending an additional spatule of
> length to her naked fingertips.'
>
> Brian Howell
> http://www.windriverpress.com/titles/studyofsleep.html
> http://www.tobypress.com/books/dance_geometry.htm
> http://www.elasticpress.com/sound_of_white_ants.htm
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
> EDNOTE. SPATULE is a technical term meaning "spoon-shaped" and is widely
> applies
> to such structures in insects, birds (spoonbills) and botany. In VN's usage
> above, I suppose the "free margins" refer to the nail tips that usually
> conceal the back tips of fingers. In Ada's bitten nails the backs of the
> finger
> tips are exposed, leaving the grooved area exposed with that additional
> spatule.
>
>
>
----- End forwarded message -----