Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0018870, Fri, 27 Nov 2009 21:03:25 -0200

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Re: TOoL: Note on iambic rhythm and correction
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J. Connolly: One place where a trace of an erased word is still visible (but [not] noted in the transcript below) is on page 199. It appears that VN had originally put down the word "lyric" as a modifier for "body," but then erased it...One wonders what adjective VN might eventually have come up with to replace "lyric."
H.Bouazza: My guess is that Nabokov on that page wanted a word like 'lyrate' which he uses in Ada. 'Lyrate hips' - shaped like a lyre.
Tom Rymour: Could the word have been "lyre", as in the 'a posteriori' reunion of Van and Ada shortly after the landing of the aircraft with libellula wings?

JM: Afer perusing for TOoL for the first time, I discovered I wanted to take up ADA once more. So I returned to it, too. I missed the younger Vladimir/Van.
TOoL: Her...docile frame when turned over by hand revealed new marvels - the mobile omoplates of a child being tubbed, the incurvation of a ballerina's spine, narrow nates of an ambiguous irresistible charm...Mr.Hubert sat on Flora's bed and nodded his bald head acknowledging all the offences of life, and wiped his eyes with a violet handkerchief which turned organge - a little parlor trick - when he stuffed it back into his heart pocked...
ADA: ...she turned over, naïvely ready to embrace him...When he grew too loud, she shushed, shushingly breathing into his mouth, and now her four limbs were frankly around him as if she had been love-making for years in all our dreams - but impatient young passion (brimming like Van's overflowing bath ...a crotchety gray old wordman on the edge of a hotel bed) did not survive the first few blind thrusts; it burst at the lip of the orchid, and a bluebird uttered a warning warble...
TOoL: She observed with quiet interest the difficulty Jules had of drawing a junior- size sheath over an organ that looked abormally stout and...etc
ADA: the most extraordinary word in the English language was 'husked,' becaused it stood for opposite things, covered and uncovered, tightly husked but easily husked, meaning they peel off quite easily, you don't have to tear the waistband, you brute. 'Carefully husked brute,' said Van tenderly. The passage of time could only enhance his tenderness for the creature...whose haunches had grown more lyrate, whose hair-ribbon he had undone.
TOoL: He saw her [lyric] back her hips between his hands.
ADA: ...while he steadied her lovely lyre and next moment was at the suede-soft root, was gripped, was deep between the familiar, incomparable, crimson-lined lips...and Van emitted a long groan of deliverance, and now their four eyes were looking again into the azure brook of Pinedale...


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