Trying to locate in "Lolita" the play with the
word "paranymph,"( I didn't), I found numerous and familiar variations for
"nymph":
nymphet, nymphic, nymphean, nymphage, nymphetry,
nympholept and nympholepsy. There was
one particular entry which caught my attention: "And I
thought to myself how those fast little articles forget everything, everything,
while we, old lovers, treasure every inch of their
nymphancy." ( Lolita, part Two, chapter 18, p.208,LoA).
I'd just read in James Joyce's "Anna
Lívia Pluribelle" (1928) the following sentence: "She thought she's sankh
neathe the ground with nymphant shame when he gave her
the tigris eye!, " in its context of infantile shame, rivers,
nymphs and "the tigris eye" (a semiprecious stone).
Wondering if Nabokov had made any reference to James Joyce, in
this context, I tried to locate words, such as "tigris," in Nabokov's novel.
I found one: "I remember
as a child in Europe gloating over a map of North America... to my
imagination as a gigantic Switzerland or even Tibet, all mountain, glorious
diamond peak upon peak, giant conifers, le montagnard émigré in his
bear skin glory, and Felix tigris goldsmithi and Red Indians under the
catalpas. That it all boiled down to a measly suburban lawn and a smoking
garbage incinerator, was appalling. (209-210). Not a river, but a
feline (Felix tigris) - but why the additional "goldsmithi"?
The internet led me to an article by M.Oencea (Inventing and
naming America: Place and Place Names in Vladimir Nabokov; ejas.revues.org/document7550), where the accreted
"goldsmithi" was interpreted in connection to Oliver Goldsmith’s “The
Deserted Village” (1770): “where crouching tigers wait their hapless
prey,” a perfectly satisfactory match that eliminates further
ponderings about gems and goldsmiths which could indicate
Joyce. And yet there is a curious item in
the structure of "Lolita". Although the word "nymphet" and its variations occur
all over the novel, the last time it appears is exactly when Nabokov
employs the expression "nymphant" (with its sound of "infant, infancy"). After
this there will be no other references to "nymph." Nabokov never
ceases to surprise me.