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[NABOKOV - LIST] : signs and symbols, chapter three and four
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Dear List,
I wonder if anyone has a shareable copy on-line of William Carroll's "Nabokov's Signs and Symbols." It was published in A Book of Things about Vladimir Nabokov, edited by Carl Proffer, 203-17. Ann Arbor:Ardis, 1974.
Part One: Paragraph Three:
We have reason to surmise that the story takes place during a rainy Friday in spring.
I'm not as certain that the old couple's mentally deranged son is sixteen-years old (four times x 4?) and had been committed to an understaffed sanatorium from age 12.
When the young man's parents set out for their birthday visit they had trouble with the "underground train" (on paragraph four it gets designated as the "subway") that "lost his life current between two stations" for fifteen minutes. Their bus was late to arrive and noisy (garrulous high-school adolescents in a red bus were also elements of disturbance in "The Visit to the Museum").
After another long wait the parents were informed that their boy had once again attempted on his life (on paragraph six, we learn that the boy might have, by great "inventiveness", envisioned himself as, perhaps, endowed with wings like an angel, and he wanted "to tear a hole in his world and escape").
The couple leaves the clinic with their present, fearing it might get mislaid.
The father's heart ailments (intimated as the "dutiful beating of one's heart" after the interval in which the train "lost its life current" and the menace of a stroke we shall read about later on, may be linked to his son's mental "fits" (these may be compared to Shade's in Pale Fire, Pnin's and even to Kinbote's nebular anguish.)
The word "station" might be suggestive of some kind of stage in a mental transformation that gives rise to a "syncope" (like a loss of life current in the interval bt.two stations)
Paragraph Four:
Wife and husband share an umbrella and she takes his arm before they cross the street to take the returning bus to the subway. The old man was upset and resonantly cleared his throat at regular intervals. A half-dead bird that had fallen from his nest was "helplessly twitching in a puddle."
I'm doubtful about relating the unfledged bird to the sick boy. The first is surely beyond help, either from its parents or from any kind of external "beneficent" intervention.
The old man's hands are visible and similarly "twitching upon the handle of his umbrella" (paragraph five). This comparison enhances the idea of helplessness of the very young and the very old.
Jansy Mello
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I wonder if anyone has a shareable copy on-line of William Carroll's "Nabokov's Signs and Symbols." It was published in A Book of Things about Vladimir Nabokov, edited by Carl Proffer, 203-17. Ann Arbor:Ardis, 1974.
Part One: Paragraph Three:
We have reason to surmise that the story takes place during a rainy Friday in spring.
I'm not as certain that the old couple's mentally deranged son is sixteen-years old (four times x 4?) and had been committed to an understaffed sanatorium from age 12.
When the young man's parents set out for their birthday visit they had trouble with the "underground train" (on paragraph four it gets designated as the "subway") that "lost his life current between two stations" for fifteen minutes. Their bus was late to arrive and noisy (garrulous high-school adolescents in a red bus were also elements of disturbance in "The Visit to the Museum").
After another long wait the parents were informed that their boy had once again attempted on his life (on paragraph six, we learn that the boy might have, by great "inventiveness", envisioned himself as, perhaps, endowed with wings like an angel, and he wanted "to tear a hole in his world and escape").
The couple leaves the clinic with their present, fearing it might get mislaid.
The father's heart ailments (intimated as the "dutiful beating of one's heart" after the interval in which the train "lost its life current" and the menace of a stroke we shall read about later on, may be linked to his son's mental "fits" (these may be compared to Shade's in Pale Fire, Pnin's and even to Kinbote's nebular anguish.)
The word "station" might be suggestive of some kind of stage in a mental transformation that gives rise to a "syncope" (like a loss of life current in the interval bt.two stations)
Paragraph Four:
Wife and husband share an umbrella and she takes his arm before they cross the street to take the returning bus to the subway. The old man was upset and resonantly cleared his throat at regular intervals. A half-dead bird that had fallen from his nest was "helplessly twitching in a puddle."
I'm doubtful about relating the unfledged bird to the sick boy. The first is surely beyond help, either from its parents or from any kind of external "beneficent" intervention.
The old man's hands are visible and similarly "twitching upon the handle of his umbrella" (paragraph five). This comparison enhances the idea of helplessness of the very young and the very old.
Jansy Mello
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