This is Jaume’s tattoo.
“Look at this tangle of thorns” is the last sentence in the first chapter of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita.
Pau tattooed it to me at Global Tattoo (Palma, Majorca). The font is Lucida Blackletter.
rust and stardust
This is Jessie’s Lolita tattoo.
Although the book was extremely creepy and uncomfortable to read in parts, the language was beautiful.
My car is limping, Dolores Haze,
And the last long lap is the hardest,
And I shall be dumped where the weed decays,
And the rest is rust and stardust.
- Excerpt from “Wanted” by Humbert in Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. Read the whole poem here.
The 1196 Word Tattoo
This is Tasia. She explains her tattoo:
My name is Tasia Celeste, and my tattoo is a study of the unreliability of language in love relationships in literature. The tattoo is 1196 words so far, beginning at my index finger, wrapping around my arm, my entire body, and down my leg to my foot. The heart of it is a quote from Faulkner’s novel, As I Lay Dying, about the uselessness of the word love. Other passages include the entire first chapter of Lolita, Billy Collins’s great poem “Aristotle,” a quote from Antonya Nelson‘s story “Telluride,” part of James Salter’s novel Light Years, a full Sharon Olds poem “I Go Back to May 1937” and an excerpt from another… some of “The Merchant of Venice,” part of Charles Baxter’s story, “Saul and Patsy Are Getting Comfortable in Michigan,” part of Amy Bloom’s “Love Is Not a Pie,” and some Rilke.
Sean Pipkin @ Captain Jack’s Tattoo in Portland did the work, and the photos are by Laura Domela.
I talk in a daze
This tattoo was submitted by Blackmagickbarbie, who says that her tattoo is “copied as verbatim, from the font to the punctuation.”
(I talk in a daze, I walk in a maze, I cannot get out, said the starling).
- Excerpt from Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov