Shameless Nabokov plug

As a far more innocuous version of literary spam (Proust-in-the-inbox), I thought I'd share, just because it tickled me so much as I read in it the car on the way to the market (wet), a passage from Ada, or Ardor. A highly-charged goat of an old man is mentally flipping through his love's diary (circa her 12-year old elf-self) and he extracts this note on a certain caterpillar (she is an entomologist of sorts):

'The retractile head and diabolical anal appendages of the garish monster that produces the modest Puss Moth belongs to a most un-caterpillarish caterpillar, with front segments shaped like bellows and a face resembling the lens of a folding camera. If you gently stroke its bloated smooth body, the sensation is quite silky and pleasant - until the irritated creature ungratefully squirts at you an acrid fluid from a slit in its throat.' (Penguin edition, p49)

Having had quite a few run-ins of our own with garish monsters, with or without retractile heads, I thought you'd enjoy this morsel. It continues in this magical naughtiness for 400 pages more: highly recommended, or perhaps Pnin if something more comic is desirable.


P.S. I particularly like the choice of 'acrid'--some of you will recognise why. ^_^