Showing posts with label Nabokov. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nabokov. Show all posts

Monday, April 23, 2012

Knock it off, Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov was born on this day in 1899. He died in 1977.

Nabokov's stories were rife with wordplay -- anagrams, puns, allusions, portmanteau words (see Lewis Carroll), coined words, etc.

In Lolita, Nabokov coins the word nymphet to describe the object of Humbert Humbert's lustful love. A character in that novel is named Vivian Darkbloom, an anagram of Vladimir Nabokov. And Humbert recounts a youthful fling of his on the seashore, with a girl named Annabelle Leigh. (See Poe's Annabel Lee.)