Subject
SIGNS: Paragraphs 1-3
From
Date
Body
Jerry Friedman writes:
--- On Sun, 4/27/08, piers smith <piersmsmith@YAHOO.CO.UK> wrote:
> Those ten different fruit jellies don't seem trifling or
> innocent, not even--on reflection--to outsiders. To take
> such a gift to one who reacts so strongly to man-made gifts
> or gross comforts strikes me as malicious or unthinking.
> Sober Freudians look out.
As I read it, he doesn't react strongly to those man-made
gifts that are gross comforts. He just has no use for them.
I wonder, though, how he reacts to non-man-made things, and why
they didn't choose such a gift, maybe a basket of fruit.
If Anatoly Dolinin is right and the jellies will be used by
the son after his death to send his parents a message,
maybe they're not responsible for the gift--maybe a Higher
Power caused them to pick something suitable for ciphers.
Two things I should have mentioned on paragraph 1.
Maybe "deranged in his mind" suggests the etymological meaning of
"derange" as "disarrange" to emphasize the contrast with the
"patterns" the young man sees.
Why the informal, perhaps jocular "in the gadget line"?
Paragraph 2: Why "already"?
Why "a score of years" instead of the normal "twenty years"?
To around interest in the first of the stories many numbers?
A long childless marriage may be a sign of various things, in
fiction--little sex, contraception (unlikely), low fertility.
Are we supposed to imagine any of those here?
"Done anyhow" strikes me as unidiomatic, though I did find
a parallel in /The House of Baltazar/, by William John Locke
(1920).
There's a lot of detail about the old woman's lack of concern
for her appearance, but we don't find out why she feels that
way or for how long.
Are "brookside flowers" as lush as those beside a brook, or
are they literally from a brookside--maybe something symbolic,
such as flags or (my first thought) forget-me-nots?
"Spring days"--is it spring? I don't know why any season's
light should be any more "fault-finding" than any others,
unless the seasons are more or less sunny where the story
is set.
We see no explanation for why the old man has gone from
"fairly successful" to unsuccessful.
"His brother Isaac"--the first of many signs that the couple
is Jewish. The name comes from the Hebrew Yitzchaq, meaning
"laughter". There is perhaps an association with Russian
Orthodoxy because of St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg.
"A real American"--irony and a sign that the couple are fairly
recent immigrants.
Paragraph 3.
"Friday"--the clearest sign that the couple are not observant
Jews, as there will be no mention of Sabbath rituals.
I like "life current" (but then we're supposed to).
I suspect a lot of readers would stop at this paragraph, or
accuse Nabokov of Schadenfreude. It's not enough that the
couple's trip is for nothing and they learn their son attempted
suicide. They are subjected to many unpleasantnesses on the trip
first. The purpose is probably to engage the reader's sympathy
("pity" or "tenderness").
"Brown path"--dirt (which would be mud in the rain)? Brick?
"There they waited again; and instead of their boy shuffling
into the room as he usually did (his poor face blotched with acne,
ill-shaven, sullen, and confused)..." More piling on, not only of
waiting, but of the son's painful state. And then they don't
care for the nurse, and she explains inappropriately "brightly".
Why "a nurse they knew, and did not care for" instead of just
"a nurse they did not care for"?
"Things got mislaid or mixed up so easily"--an echo of "deranged"?
Why "miserably"--just to make sure the readers gets the tone
of this section? "Understaffed" seems like an intrusion of
business vocabulary, but of course it's the exact word.
"Leave their present in the office" begs to be read with a pun
on the temporal "present", but I will pass. (Anyhow, this is
too long.)
Jerry Friedman
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
--- On Sun, 4/27/08, piers smith <piersmsmith@YAHOO.CO.UK> wrote:
> Those ten different fruit jellies don't seem trifling or
> innocent, not even--on reflection--to outsiders. To take
> such a gift to one who reacts so strongly to man-made gifts
> or gross comforts strikes me as malicious or unthinking.
> Sober Freudians look out.
As I read it, he doesn't react strongly to those man-made
gifts that are gross comforts. He just has no use for them.
I wonder, though, how he reacts to non-man-made things, and why
they didn't choose such a gift, maybe a basket of fruit.
If Anatoly Dolinin is right and the jellies will be used by
the son after his death to send his parents a message,
maybe they're not responsible for the gift--maybe a Higher
Power caused them to pick something suitable for ciphers.
Two things I should have mentioned on paragraph 1.
Maybe "deranged in his mind" suggests the etymological meaning of
"derange" as "disarrange" to emphasize the contrast with the
"patterns" the young man sees.
Why the informal, perhaps jocular "in the gadget line"?
Paragraph 2: Why "already"?
Why "a score of years" instead of the normal "twenty years"?
To around interest in the first of the stories many numbers?
A long childless marriage may be a sign of various things, in
fiction--little sex, contraception (unlikely), low fertility.
Are we supposed to imagine any of those here?
"Done anyhow" strikes me as unidiomatic, though I did find
a parallel in /The House of Baltazar/, by William John Locke
(1920).
There's a lot of detail about the old woman's lack of concern
for her appearance, but we don't find out why she feels that
way or for how long.
Are "brookside flowers" as lush as those beside a brook, or
are they literally from a brookside--maybe something symbolic,
such as flags or (my first thought) forget-me-nots?
"Spring days"--is it spring? I don't know why any season's
light should be any more "fault-finding" than any others,
unless the seasons are more or less sunny where the story
is set.
We see no explanation for why the old man has gone from
"fairly successful" to unsuccessful.
"His brother Isaac"--the first of many signs that the couple
is Jewish. The name comes from the Hebrew Yitzchaq, meaning
"laughter". There is perhaps an association with Russian
Orthodoxy because of St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg.
"A real American"--irony and a sign that the couple are fairly
recent immigrants.
Paragraph 3.
"Friday"--the clearest sign that the couple are not observant
Jews, as there will be no mention of Sabbath rituals.
I like "life current" (but then we're supposed to).
I suspect a lot of readers would stop at this paragraph, or
accuse Nabokov of Schadenfreude. It's not enough that the
couple's trip is for nothing and they learn their son attempted
suicide. They are subjected to many unpleasantnesses on the trip
first. The purpose is probably to engage the reader's sympathy
("pity" or "tenderness").
"Brown path"--dirt (which would be mud in the rain)? Brick?
"There they waited again; and instead of their boy shuffling
into the room as he usually did (his poor face blotched with acne,
ill-shaven, sullen, and confused)..." More piling on, not only of
waiting, but of the son's painful state. And then they don't
care for the nurse, and she explains inappropriately "brightly".
Why "a nurse they knew, and did not care for" instead of just
"a nurse they did not care for"?
"Things got mislaid or mixed up so easily"--an echo of "deranged"?
Why "miserably"--just to make sure the readers gets the tone
of this section? "Understaffed" seems like an intrusion of
business vocabulary, but of course it's the exact word.
"Leave their present in the office" begs to be read with a pun
on the temporal "present", but I will pass. (Anyhow, this is
too long.)
Jerry Friedman
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm