Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0025358, Thu, 1 May 2014 18:44:31 -0300

Subject
... in Ada and Colette: patches
Date
Body

From an recent quote: "Upon being questioned in Demon's dungeon, Marina,
laughing trillingly, wove a picturesque tissue of lies"

JM: Marina's operatic laughing became adverbial ("trillingly") and, for my
ears, surprising. It would have passed unnoticed by me had it not been
isolated in one of AS's selections.
I skimmed through ADA, curious about its adjectives (iridal, for example, as
heavy as TOoL's "auroral" ) and adverbs, but I chose a short-story (First
Love) for an initial sampling.

How about "Westinghousian"? ("Presently, the train stopped with a long-drawn
Westinghousian sigh.") Are we thinking of steam engines only? Electric
appliances such as those ancient rumbling fridges*?
What is uncommon and exciting in "drably" and "waggly"?
"I knew that those people had come all the way from Paris in their
blue-and-yellow limousine (a fashionable adventure in those days) but had
drably sent Colette with her dog and governess by an ordinary coach train.
The dog was a female fox terrier with bells on her collar and a most waggly
behind."


.................................

* - " and he pants and he gasps and he rasps and he wheezes:
ice is the solid form when the water freezes;
[ ] and I wonder how long
it will rumble and shudder and crackle and pound."
(1942, "The Refrigerator Awakes")

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