Subject
Fw: Fw: 'throat pit' in The Gift and Nabokov's English word
choices
choices
From
Date
Body
EDNOTE. Jansy provides further examples of VN's lush and precise vocabulary
of anatomic description. It occurs to my idle mind that "the little middle
knob of rounded delight on the back of her neck" is the flip side of the
"throat pit." An index of VN's anatomical descriptive terms might be an
entertaining project.
------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
"\From: "Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello" <jansy@brturbo.com>
To: "don barton johnson" <chtodel@cox.net>
Sent: Friday, February 13, 2004 6:23 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: 'throat pit' in The Gift and Nabokov's English word choices
> Hello, Don
>
> After re-reading lovely lines about "daintily leavesdrdopping" thru
> "dappled trees" and " a tactile sensation is a blind spot; we touch in
> silhouette'... we find the scene of Ada´s and Van´s first fond fondlings
> when " the child seemed to mimic the mirror-of-Venus blossom" she had been
> drawing.
> These scenes bring Van approaching Ada from the back, "indecently
close
> behind her"...
> It is her spine that comes into focus. " He would have lingered
forvever
> on the little middle knob of rounded delight on the back of her neck, had
> she kept it inclined forever" ( Penguin ed., page 81) .
> Then: "Memory is a photostudio de luxe on an infinite Fifth Power
> Avenue. The fillet of black velvet binding her hair that day ( the day of
> the mental picture ) brought out its sheen at the silk of the temple and
> along the chalk of the parting. It hung dank and long over the neck, its
> flow disjoined by the shoulder; so that the mat white of her neck through
> the black bronze stream showed in triangular elegancy" ( page 84)
>
> Then a comment on greek or latinate anatomical terms:
> " He caressed and parted with his fleshy folds, parties très
charnues,
> in the case of our passionate siblings, her lank loose, nearly
lumbus-length
> ( when she threw back her head as now ) black silkes as he tried to get he
r
> bed-warm splenius ( It is not necessary, here or elsewhere, there was
> another similar passage, to blotch a reasonably pure style with vague
> anatomical terms that a psychiatrist remembers from his student days. In
> Ada´s later hand. )"
> Something on that line appears soon after, on page 114, while
describing
> the cleft of Ada´s black hair on her ivory white shoulder:
> "There was a well-known microlepidopterist who, having run out of
Latin
> and Greek names, created such nomenclatorial items as Marykisme, Adakisme,
> Ohkisme. She did. Whose brush was it now?"
>
> 'Jansy
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "George Shimanovich" <gshiman@optonline.net>
> >
> Isn't it true that Nabokov's works are so full of such words-phantoms,
> delicate markers of composition, perfectly fitting in the web of meaning
> and, by artistic magic, giving us, as bingo to scrabble player, extra 50
> points when the meaning 'grows'. Novel as gigantic scrabble board. Amusing
> ('zabavno').
>
> - George Shimanovich
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel@cox.net>
> > To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> > Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2004 4:56 PM
> > Subject: Fw: 'throat pit' in The Gift and Nabokov's English word choices
> >
> >
> > > EDNOTE: See bottom
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Brian Howell" <pakmshlter@yahoo.com>
>
> On a similar tack to the earlier posts regarding
> 'clathrate skirts' in Lolita, a little while back I
> was searching for a word for a story I was writing
> that meant the part in a woman's throat where a man's
> Adam's Apple is. I put out various queries for a word
> > > > I thought I had come across somewhere that wasn't too
> > > > technical. It was on the tip of my tongue though now I
> > > > wonder if it was a phantom. All of the responses were
> > > > very technical/medical (one I liked was delphian).
> > > > Nabokov might have used that but it was too technical
> > > > for the voice of my character (sorry for the pun).
> > > >
> > > > Then, by chance (I won't say pure chance because I
> > > > don't know if chance can be truly pure if you are
> > > > interested in words as a writer and you are reading
> > > > Nabokov, a bit like picking up a loaded gun and
> > > > thinking it can't go off), towards the end of _The
> > > > Gift_ I came across the disarmingly simple 'throat
> > > > pit', referring to Zina (p.329, Penguin 1981, trans.
> > > > Michael Scammell with DN), as in 'Zina - her cheeks,
> > > > her narrowed eyes, her throat pit, her fragile
> > > > clavicle'. At first I thought this was quite an ugly
> > > > way to describe that part of the throat but it has
> > > > grown on me. Any thoughts?
> > > >
> > > > Brian Howell
> > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Japan
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > =====
> > >
> > > --------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > EDNOTE. Brian's note prompted me to squander a pleasant hour looking
> into
> > > Zina's 'throat pit' and the issue of VN's comparatively
straightforward
> > > Russian lexicon vs his often arcane English vocabulary. For those who
> > don't
> > > know, English has a MUCH larger word stock than Russian. Below I give
> the
> > > parallel Russian (original) and the Scammel-Nabokov English phrases.
In
> > this
> > > case, it seems that VN uses a simple but rare (in the sense of "throat
> > pit")
> > > Russian word DUSHKA in the phrase "dushka na shee." DUSHKA, usually
> > meaning
> > > "a dear, nice person" is etymologically linked to DUSHA in the sense
of
> > > "soul," or a la Gogol "a serf," and, more remotely, to the roots for
> > > "breath" & "breathe." I do not find DUSHKA in the sense of "throat
pit"
> in
> > > any recent Russian dictionary at hand but only in VN's beloved Dal'--a
> > four
> > > volume dictionary from the late XIXth century where it is defined as
> "the
> > > little pit in the throat" (yamochka v gorle). So far as I know,
English
> > > doesn't have a non-technical anatomical term for this area--although
> > perhaps
> > > one of NABOKV-L's MDs or anatomists knows of one. (If so, please
> advise.)
> > In
> > > this case, VN seems, in the absence of an English equivalent, to have
> > > provided a literal translation of Dal's Russian definition rather than
> an
> > > English technical term as was his wont.
> > >
> > >
> > > 'Zina - her cheeks, her narrowed eyes, her throat pit, her fragile
> > > clavicle'
> > >
> > > Туман какой-то грусти обволок Зину - ее щеки, прищуренные глаза, душку
> на
> > > шее, косточку, - и этому как-то способствовал бледный дым ее папиросы.
> >
>
of anatomic description. It occurs to my idle mind that "the little middle
knob of rounded delight on the back of her neck" is the flip side of the
"throat pit." An index of VN's anatomical descriptive terms might be an
entertaining project.
------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
"\From: "Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello" <jansy@brturbo.com>
To: "don barton johnson" <chtodel@cox.net>
Sent: Friday, February 13, 2004 6:23 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: 'throat pit' in The Gift and Nabokov's English word choices
> Hello, Don
>
> After re-reading lovely lines about "daintily leavesdrdopping" thru
> "dappled trees" and " a tactile sensation is a blind spot; we touch in
> silhouette'... we find the scene of Ada´s and Van´s first fond fondlings
> when " the child seemed to mimic the mirror-of-Venus blossom" she had been
> drawing.
> These scenes bring Van approaching Ada from the back, "indecently
close
> behind her"...
> It is her spine that comes into focus. " He would have lingered
forvever
> on the little middle knob of rounded delight on the back of her neck, had
> she kept it inclined forever" ( Penguin ed., page 81) .
> Then: "Memory is a photostudio de luxe on an infinite Fifth Power
> Avenue. The fillet of black velvet binding her hair that day ( the day of
> the mental picture ) brought out its sheen at the silk of the temple and
> along the chalk of the parting. It hung dank and long over the neck, its
> flow disjoined by the shoulder; so that the mat white of her neck through
> the black bronze stream showed in triangular elegancy" ( page 84)
>
> Then a comment on greek or latinate anatomical terms:
> " He caressed and parted with his fleshy folds, parties très
charnues,
> in the case of our passionate siblings, her lank loose, nearly
lumbus-length
> ( when she threw back her head as now ) black silkes as he tried to get he
r
> bed-warm splenius ( It is not necessary, here or elsewhere, there was
> another similar passage, to blotch a reasonably pure style with vague
> anatomical terms that a psychiatrist remembers from his student days. In
> Ada´s later hand. )"
> Something on that line appears soon after, on page 114, while
describing
> the cleft of Ada´s black hair on her ivory white shoulder:
> "There was a well-known microlepidopterist who, having run out of
Latin
> and Greek names, created such nomenclatorial items as Marykisme, Adakisme,
> Ohkisme. She did. Whose brush was it now?"
>
> 'Jansy
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "George Shimanovich" <gshiman@optonline.net>
> >
> Isn't it true that Nabokov's works are so full of such words-phantoms,
> delicate markers of composition, perfectly fitting in the web of meaning
> and, by artistic magic, giving us, as bingo to scrabble player, extra 50
> points when the meaning 'grows'. Novel as gigantic scrabble board. Amusing
> ('zabavno').
>
> - George Shimanovich
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "D. Barton Johnson" <chtodel@cox.net>
> > To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> > Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2004 4:56 PM
> > Subject: Fw: 'throat pit' in The Gift and Nabokov's English word choices
> >
> >
> > > EDNOTE: See bottom
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Brian Howell" <pakmshlter@yahoo.com>
>
> On a similar tack to the earlier posts regarding
> 'clathrate skirts' in Lolita, a little while back I
> was searching for a word for a story I was writing
> that meant the part in a woman's throat where a man's
> Adam's Apple is. I put out various queries for a word
> > > > I thought I had come across somewhere that wasn't too
> > > > technical. It was on the tip of my tongue though now I
> > > > wonder if it was a phantom. All of the responses were
> > > > very technical/medical (one I liked was delphian).
> > > > Nabokov might have used that but it was too technical
> > > > for the voice of my character (sorry for the pun).
> > > >
> > > > Then, by chance (I won't say pure chance because I
> > > > don't know if chance can be truly pure if you are
> > > > interested in words as a writer and you are reading
> > > > Nabokov, a bit like picking up a loaded gun and
> > > > thinking it can't go off), towards the end of _The
> > > > Gift_ I came across the disarmingly simple 'throat
> > > > pit', referring to Zina (p.329, Penguin 1981, trans.
> > > > Michael Scammell with DN), as in 'Zina - her cheeks,
> > > > her narrowed eyes, her throat pit, her fragile
> > > > clavicle'. At first I thought this was quite an ugly
> > > > way to describe that part of the throat but it has
> > > > grown on me. Any thoughts?
> > > >
> > > > Brian Howell
> > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Japan
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > =====
> > >
> > > --------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > EDNOTE. Brian's note prompted me to squander a pleasant hour looking
> into
> > > Zina's 'throat pit' and the issue of VN's comparatively
straightforward
> > > Russian lexicon vs his often arcane English vocabulary. For those who
> > don't
> > > know, English has a MUCH larger word stock than Russian. Below I give
> the
> > > parallel Russian (original) and the Scammel-Nabokov English phrases.
In
> > this
> > > case, it seems that VN uses a simple but rare (in the sense of "throat
> > pit")
> > > Russian word DUSHKA in the phrase "dushka na shee." DUSHKA, usually
> > meaning
> > > "a dear, nice person" is etymologically linked to DUSHA in the sense
of
> > > "soul," or a la Gogol "a serf," and, more remotely, to the roots for
> > > "breath" & "breathe." I do not find DUSHKA in the sense of "throat
pit"
> in
> > > any recent Russian dictionary at hand but only in VN's beloved Dal'--a
> > four
> > > volume dictionary from the late XIXth century where it is defined as
> "the
> > > little pit in the throat" (yamochka v gorle). So far as I know,
English
> > > doesn't have a non-technical anatomical term for this area--although
> > perhaps
> > > one of NABOKV-L's MDs or anatomists knows of one. (If so, please
> advise.)
> > In
> > > this case, VN seems, in the absence of an English equivalent, to have
> > > provided a literal translation of Dal's Russian definition rather than
> an
> > > English technical term as was his wont.
> > >
> > >
> > > 'Zina - her cheeks, her narrowed eyes, her throat pit, her fragile
> > > clavicle'
> > >
> > > Туман какой-то грусти обволок Зину - ее щеки, прищуренные глаза, душку
> на
> > > шее, косточку, - и этому как-то способствовал бледный дым ее папиросы.
> >
>