Subject
VN as inventor of the typographic "smiley face" :)
Date
Body
EDITOR's Comment: See after message.
---------------------------------------
From: Andrew Robinson <arobinson@post1.com>
My Melvillian sails having been amply filled (thank
you very much for the responses) I brave the floating
forth of another query: Nabokov said he often thought
there should be a typographical symbol for the smiling
face, thereby inserting *his* face into the common
punctuation of today's electronic mail. But how could
this master of imagery not have noticed the bemused
typography that results from the coupling of colon and
closed parenthesis? Or did he?
--Andrew Robinson
New Delhi, India
arobinson@post1.co
----------------------------------------------------------- EDITOR's
COMMENT. While it may be overstating the case to claim VN as the inventor
of the typographic"smilely" :), VN was much interested in exploiting the
iconic shapes of letters and symbols. The first chapter of my 1985 book
deals with this device. Please bear in mind that the Russian letter C has
the sound value of the English S. --------------------------- "The 1925
story "Pismo v Rossi" ("A Letter that Never Reached Russia") represents
a striking example of the intricacy and subtlety of Nabokov's
manipulation of alphabetic icons. The story's Russian narrator is
standing beside a tall grave stone on which the interred's widow has
hanged herself during the night (47). In the soft dirt at the base of the
monument he notices the sickle-shaped traces (serpovidnye sledy) left by
the swinging heel of the hanging womans shoe. Gazing at the C-shaped
mark the narrator muses that even in death there is a child-like smile.
The iconic letter play (which only works in the Cyrillic alphabet) stes
form the fact that the sickle-shaped swinging heel print mimics the
Russian letter C which is the initial letter of the Russian word for
death (Smert) The iconic play goes still further, however, for the
heel-print letter C, when turned on its side, indeed resembles the
smiling mouthof a childs outline drawing of a moon face.
(Compare the English text in THE STORIES OF VN, p. 140, where the effect
is much obscured.)
_Worlds in Regression; Some Novels of VN_
D. Barton Johnson
p. 28
---------------------------------------
From: Andrew Robinson <arobinson@post1.com>
My Melvillian sails having been amply filled (thank
you very much for the responses) I brave the floating
forth of another query: Nabokov said he often thought
there should be a typographical symbol for the smiling
face, thereby inserting *his* face into the common
punctuation of today's electronic mail. But how could
this master of imagery not have noticed the bemused
typography that results from the coupling of colon and
closed parenthesis? Or did he?
--Andrew Robinson
New Delhi, India
arobinson@post1.co
----------------------------------------------------------- EDITOR's
COMMENT. While it may be overstating the case to claim VN as the inventor
of the typographic"smilely" :), VN was much interested in exploiting the
iconic shapes of letters and symbols. The first chapter of my 1985 book
deals with this device. Please bear in mind that the Russian letter C has
the sound value of the English S. --------------------------- "The 1925
story "Pismo v Rossi" ("A Letter that Never Reached Russia") represents
a striking example of the intricacy and subtlety of Nabokov's
manipulation of alphabetic icons. The story's Russian narrator is
standing beside a tall grave stone on which the interred's widow has
hanged herself during the night (47). In the soft dirt at the base of the
monument he notices the sickle-shaped traces (serpovidnye sledy) left by
the swinging heel of the hanging womans shoe. Gazing at the C-shaped
mark the narrator muses that even in death there is a child-like smile.
The iconic letter play (which only works in the Cyrillic alphabet) stes
form the fact that the sickle-shaped swinging heel print mimics the
Russian letter C which is the initial letter of the Russian word for
death (Smert) The iconic play goes still further, however, for the
heel-print letter C, when turned on its side, indeed resembles the
smiling mouthof a childs outline drawing of a moon face.
(Compare the English text in THE STORIES OF VN, p. 140, where the effect
is much obscured.)
_Worlds in Regression; Some Novels of VN_
D. Barton Johnson
p. 28