Q- Did you
invent the word “nymphet”?
V. Nabokov: Yes, I did. There was
already the word “nymph”. And Ronsard, who likes Latin diminutives, used the
word “nymphette” in a sonnet. But not in the sense I used it. For him it was a
nymph who was gentle....
Stan
Kelly-Bootle: "I think the verb ‘invent’ needs clarification in the
context of forming words as opposed to building material gadgets or devising
production processes...Claimed ‘neologisms,’ such as VN’s ‘nymphet,’ lack a
comparable verification trail... what VN ‘invented’ was not ‘nymphet,’ the
diminutive of ‘nympth,’ but, as he clearly acknowledges in the cited interview,
the first user of the ‘pre-existing’ noun ‘nymphet’ with an original,
‘refined/specific’ definition... Nabokov was justified in claiming to be
the first to use ‘nymphet’ as defined in his novel Lolita. But, as
Maurice Couturier notes, this confers no ‘monopoly’ on the word itself, and can
never preclude other valid usages of ‘nymphet’ and ‘nymphette’ based on the
diminutive suffixes.
JM: I tormented myself after having
chosen to render Couturier's "Nabokov prétend avoir inventé le
mot" as "Nabokov
pretends to have invented the word," because, although the
English "pretend" is ample enough to
accommodate Couturier's meaning, certainly the more common "feigns,"
instead of "claims," will be the first (never the "nympth")
interpretation to hit the reader.
It seems clear to me
that Nabokov's "invention," implies, as you demonstrate*, in his
recognition that he'd been "the first user of the pre-existing noun...with
an original...definition" and that a movie, with the title
"Les Nymphettes," to be released almost at the same time as
Nabokov/Kubrick's "Lolita," smacks of opportunism. Nevertheless VN
would have the same difficulty to win a suit against the French
producers as he'd have now, concerning all the non-nymphic
Lolitas (even an innocent bed) we now find haunting the media.
Unless he could prove that the French "Les Nymphettes" arose
from the translation of (his) "Nymphet," not from Ronsard's original
term of endearment or any present-day fresh or accidental
coinage*.
.......................
** -Similar quandaries would never take place in
Popper-Borges's Orbis Tertius . Besides, no one can complain
about W.G.Sebald's re-appropriation of Borges's words in the crystals of
his saturnine novel.