Stan K-B: Yes, "stiff vane" is
Archery-speak. Much scope there for ribald sniggery?[...] Associations, unlike
lunches, are free! Throw in veins, vanities, Ve-en, and my Welsh uncle Evan.
Unintended allusions are part of the Nabokovian illusion[...]when meeting an
unusual turn of phrase in VN's corpus delectable: these words have been chosen
with an almost inhuman devotion, precision and purpose. Even in the context of
weather vanes, the predication "stiff" is meaningful. Weather vanes indicate the
wind direction, but should not be over-sensitive to tiny transient gusts.
JM: "Unintended
allusions", plus "words have been chosen with an almost inhuman
devotion, precision and purpose" represent a fabulous chance to the
games of chance and further fabulations.
Take a recent example. James Veitch
asked: "Can anyone confirm that there was a printing of both volumes
together? " with an image of a "double monster" shaped as a
customer's binding of "Lolita". After A.S
wrote about Abraham Milton and Ibrahim, Matt was reminded of VN's
short-story about the Lloyd and Floyd double
monsters, frontally joined together by a "bridge of gold" Nabokov
designated scientifically as "omphalopagus
diaphragmo-xiphoidydimus"...
Googling the name only carried me onto
strictly Nabokovian references, but an isolated xiphoid led
me to the correct anatomical reference in relation to the externus bone
and abdominal diaphragm. I was familiar
with "Xiphopagus Conjoined Twins" (siamese twins) but I could not
fanthom the sequence of Greek accretions which certainly serve another
allusional purpose. The point of the story "alluded" me, though.
I loved isolated renderings such as "suddenly, the aitch would seen an eye, the Roman two a one, the
scissors a knife", mainly the image of
two-bladed scissors being separated and to becoming single
again, as in the knife.The lay-search for "xiphoid" revealed a
connection to "sword". Omphalus is, of course, navel and I don't think it
would include the Pythia and the oracle
at Delphus...