Nabokovilia: Zadie Smith's On Beauty
From page 315 of Zadie Smith's immensely pleasurable, terribly funny, aptly titled On Beauty:
She did it. She jumped off the bed and into his lap. His erection was blatant, but first she coolly drank the rest of his wine, pressing down on him as Lolita did on Humbert, as if he were just a chair she happened to sit on. No doubt she had read Lolita. And then her arm went round the back of his neck and Lolita turned into a temptress (maybe she had learned from Mrs Robinson too), lasciviously sucking his ear, and then from temptress she moved to affectionate high-school girlfriend, sweetly kissing the corner of his mouth. But what kind of sweetheart was this? He had barely started to return her kiss when she commenced groaning in a disconcertingly enthusiastic manner, and this was followed by a strange fluting business with her tongue, catching Howard off guard.Smith, incidentally, is 3 for 3: her two previous novels also include a Nabokov reference. (Also check out her essay on Barthes and Nabokov in Changing My Mind.)