Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0010836, Sat, 18 Dec 2004 18:01:26 -0800

Subject
Fwd: RE: supine vs. prostrate
Date
Body
Nonsense. As if someone who a) had an English vocabulary wider than any
other novelist but Joyce's b) had a particular fascination for the accurate
rendition of gesture and posture, and their local cultural and individual
variants, and c) had a lifelong concern for the precise description of
physiological particularities, arising from, among other things, his passion
for Lepidoptera, would make this mistake.

From the LOLITA SCREENPLAY, p. 41:

HUMBERT So you are Lolita.
LOLITA Yes, that's me.
Turns from sea-star supine to seal prone.

Two magnificent metaphors and a fine defamiliarizing description of a
commonplace action in nine syllables. Tom Stoppard called "(picnic,
lightning)" the greatest parenthesis in literature. This must rank as one of
the greatest stage directions in drama.

Brian Boyd

-----Original Message-----
From: Donald B. Johnson [mailto:chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu]
Sent: Sunday, December 19, 2004 7:56 AM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Fwd: supine vs. prostrate

Dear List,

A friend recently made the offhand comment that Vladimir Nabokov, though a
master of the English language, never observed the difference between
"supine" and "prostrate". He didn't have any examples to cite.
Any responses from the list to this charge?

yours,
Mike Stauss <jameselcoco@hotmail.com>



----- End forwarded message -----

----- End forwarded message -----