My reply is to Hen Hanna, so I don't know if this is helpful to you, Tori, but maybe it is:

Nabokov was quite taken with the hawk moth "the jets of my boyhood".  They are of the family "sphyngidae", or "sphinx moths". I believe the sphinx moth is important in Pale Fire for its transcendental significance.  I don't know about Beheading or Christmas.

On Tue, Oct 31, 2017 at 8:23 AM, Hen Hanna <henhanna@gmail.com> wrote:
  Lolita [1997]  was a great movie.
     Around 49 min into the film, when H.H. meets CQ (Frank Langella),
                 moths are flying into a bug-zapper (?).

  I just checked and it's not in Lolita -- apprently copied from
another VN book.

                     (It seems a bit odd that there's no separate word
                          for a moth entomologist. )


  My copy of [Annotated Lolita] is the 1970 edition.
            Is the new version greately expanded (other than the Index) ?
                      If so,  I'll have to get it.

Thank you.   HH


>>>   His favourite was the Red Admiral but it is his literary treatment of moths that is worthy of closer attention. In both Invitation to a Beheading and his short story Christmas, moths appear in the final scenes of the works, signifying a character's bodily death and spiritual rebirth. In both instances, the moths boast beautiful eyespots on their wings, symbolising windows into a transcendental realm.


On 10/29/17, VN Alexander <alexander@dactyl.org> wrote:
> Dear Nabokovians,
>
> Please help me remember in which novel the narrator mentions having a
> chat with an entomologist interested in moths. I believe they met at
> night, outside a motel where there was a porch light on attracting
> moths. I may be misremembering these details.
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> Yours lazily,
>
> Tori Alexander
>
>
> --
> ______________________________
> VN Alexander, PhD
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> Public Scholar, NY Council for the Humanities
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