Laurence Hochard replies to JM's quotes related
to equivocal naked arms #: "Very interesting ...: it shows how a unique
matrix in VN's imagination could spawn a whole family of images!". His
observation about a "unique matrix" in VN's fecund imagination spurred me on
towards another set of arms and elbows, now turned into
wings by the act of clasping a necklace:"Martha threw off her orange peignoir, and as she drew back her
elbows to adjust a necklace her angelically lovely bare shoulder blades came
together like folding wings." (King Queen Knave; Collins
Collector's Choice, 767).
To my surprise, while searching for quotes, I discovered
that Quilty's ascent of a slope is
comically bow-legged:.
There was a momentary flurry — he saw me, and throwing
away his racket — mine — scuttled up the slope. He waved his wrists and elbows
in a would-be comical imitation of rudimentary wings, as he climbed, bow-legged,
to the street, where his gray car awaited him. Next moment he and the grayness
were gone.(Lolita, part II, ch.20)
Later on, a similar wing-related image, is used in a positive
metamorphosis - from clown to angel: Sebastian Knight's parodies
pass from the comic into “serious emotion…'a clown
developing wings, an angel mimicking a tumbler pigeon'
”(RLSK,91)
While I mused about Nabokov's employ of adjectives
(elegancy*, curtal, ivorine), I came across an interesting kind
of "sighting," obtained from the wiktionary, because the only
quotations that were added in two of them to illustrate to
their use, came from Vladimir Nabokov's ADA (the other mentions Robert
Southey.)
The original wiktionary terms:
elegancy (plural elegancies)
Noun: Alternative form of
elegance.
(humorous) A mock title."Your Elegancy ..." (Robert Southey).
curtal (plural curtals)
Noun:(historical) A variety of
short-barrelled cannon.
(obsolete) A horse or other animal having a docked
tail.
(music) An early type of bassoon.
Adjective: (comparative more
curtal, superlative most curtal)
(obsolete) Of horses, having a docked
tail.
(now rare) Physically shortened; short. [quotations ▼]
(obsolete)
Abridged, curtailed.
Ivorine: from Old French ivorin,
ivoirin, from ivoire (“ivory”); later also from ivory + -ine.
Adjective
ivorine (comparative more ivorine, superlative most ivorine)
(obsolete) Made
of ivory.
Resembling ivory; white, smooth. [quotations ▼]
Noun ivorine
(plural ivorines)
A type of man-made imitation ivory.
Here are the respective wiktionary quotations:
1969, Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor, Penguin 2011, p. 98:
she had loosened her hair and changed into the curtal frock of
sunbright cotton that he was so fond of and had so ardently yearned to soil in
the so recent past.
1969, Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor, Penguin
2011, p. 162:
All Van saw there of his new Ada were her
ivorine thighs and haunches, and the very first time he clasped them she bade
him, in the midst of his vigorous joy, to glance across her shoulder over the
window ledge
Jansy Mello
.................................................................................................................................................................
# - Across the narrow courtyard, where the rain tinkled
in the dark against some ash cans, windows were blandly alight, and in one of
them a black-trousered man, with his hands clasped under his head and his elbows
raised, could he seen lying supine on an untidy bed. (Symbols and Signs:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1948/05/15/1948_05_15_031_TNY_CARDS_000214135#ixzz2GFjoWgGA)
*She was more Ada than ever, but a dash of new elegancy
had been added to her shy, wild charm