Vladimir Nabokov, Invitation to a Beheading, trans. Dmitri Nabokov and Vladmir Nabokov (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1959).
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All OCA Nabokov and pencil posts (Pinboard)
Monday, September 30, 2019
"An enlightened descendant"
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comments: 2
"An enlightened descendent of the index finger" is an elegant turn of phrase. It's good to remember that the hammer, the computer/typewriter keyboard, the piano all evolved from the shape of the hand. The pencil is an example of "essence before existence" since before the development of the essential and versatile graphite pencil, artists used sharpened silver rods (silverpoint--I've drawn with silverpoint myself--one virtue is that it darkens with age), and presumably charred sticks. The word pencil harkens back to a very fine brush.
I like to imagine ancient poets using the index finger to map the elements of Homeric ring-composition on a dirt floor: “It goes like this.”
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