Emily Brown: “...every time I see something that has a hidden meaning or a puzzle within a puzzle, I use that phrase! It is so apt, in that it rolls off the tongue and provides a way to succinctly say how many things are connected and have many layers of meaning./Being the tattoo lover that I am, I was considering that phrase as my next one./ Literary tattoos are pretty interesting! Anybody else have one?”
EDNote: “A student of mine has a long passage from Dostoevsky tattooed on a shoulder. VN's drawings of microscopic things might make an unusual tattoo...”. –SB
Jansy Mello: That’s just my point when inquiring about the possibility that “bobolink” is an “associative slide” since it establishes a memorable verse “that rolls off the tongue” to indicate “how many things are connected and have many layers of meaning” as Emily has so aptly expressed it. If it has no other hidden meaning ( something that’s always to be expected when the author is Nabokov) it gains a special value by being simply a sonorous indicator of many mysteries to investigate further. There’s the 1982 Japanese movie called “Irezumi, the Spirit of Tattoo” in which the heroine’s entire back resembles a written scroll (I cannot remember the plot, though).
Lana del Rey has V.N’s name tattooed over one of her arms (it is spelled incorrectly – cf. https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1312&L=nabokv-l&D=0&P=59987 andhttps://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=nabokv-l;886b887a.1401 ) and in a TV series, which was mentioned in the VN-L last year, there’s an English teacher who carries one, citing Nabokov and who shows it to his students during class. There’s also Juan’s Fulmerford 2010 sighting: “Stieg Larsson and the Mystery of His Fourth Novel: If you can't wait for more books from the dark Swedish novelist, visit the Stieg Larsson Classics thread on Twitter where writers come up with imaginary titles of classic lit like this tweet: "Nabokov's THE GIRL WHO WASN'T OLD ENOUGH FOR A DRAGON TATTOO."* In the proffered examples, though, the tattoo isn’t exactly a “literary tattoo” (a quote in writing) but a name, an image, an icon…
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*- -for more examples, the best is to consult the archives directly! As in “From an essay about Tanisaki and his 1924 novel "Naomi" (extracts from Tanizaki - Speaking-Japanese.com - Exploring Japanese Literature ) "Entering Tokyo Imperial University as a Japanese literature student at the age of twenty-two, Tanizaki was instrumental in establishing the literary journal Shinshichô, the third issue of which featured his short story "The Tattooer." The tale of a tattoo artist who decorates the back of a young girl with a spider that enables her to dominate the opposite sex, it featured the luxuriant prose, rich descriptive detail, and risqué subject matter that were to characterize the writer throughout his career. Tanizaki was taking a deliberate stand against the literalness of the Naturalists and, according to Gessel, his influences at this time were Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde, Baudelaire…”//listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A3=ind1010&L=NABOKV-L&E=quoted-printable&P=273337&B=------%3D_NextPart_000_0048_01CB63BB.F544C4B0&T=text%2Fhtml;%20charset=iso-8859-1