Pnin: "It warmed my heart, the Russian-intelligentski way he had of getting into his overcoat: his inclined head would demonstrate its ideal baldness, and his large, Duchess of Wonderland chin would firmly press against the crossed ends of his green muffler to hold it in place on his chest while, with a jerk of his broad shoulders, he contrived to get into both armholes at once; another heave and the coat was on,"
JM: There are several articles about Nabokov and gesture, or Nabokov and cinesthesia ( S.E.S's upsidedown article is the latest, I think).
I wish this subject were brought up more often in the VN-List for feminine shoulders, particularly the escapulate bones, play an important role in VN's erotic fantasies. I remember Stan-Kelly's indignation with Nabokov's use of "omoplates",in "The Original of Laura," as if the medical-anatomical emphasis spoiled its flight.*
A copy of "King,Queen,Knave" is
unavailable to me right now but I remember well a description of Martha's
shoulders moving like wings when she clasped a necklace behind her neck. This
movement reappers in "Ada." It is
Lucette's "
John Shade, though, was not equally lyrical when he wrote: "...Have let uncouth, hysterical John Shade/ Blubber your face, and ear, and shoulder blade?"
A manly motion with the standard strong broad shoulders was a prerequisite for Van's mascodagama inversion and fundamental for his graceful maniambulations.
Her frail feminine concavities
delight Lucette