Dear Eric,

The collection cited by Stephen Blackwell (Anatomy of a Short Story: Nabokov's Puzzles, Codes, "Signs and Symbols". Continuum, 2012) contains dozens of articles on Nabokov's short story, as well as my own essay on a chess scheme in "S & S" titled "The Castling Problem in 'Signs and Symbols'." I hope this is helpful!

The ToC can be found here: http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/anatomy-of-a-short-story-9781441142634/
A short description here: http://bloomsburyliterarystudies.typepad.com/continuum-literary-studie/2012/05/anatomy-of-a-short-story-nabokovs-puzzles-codes-signs-and-symbols.html

Since we are on the hereafter topic, it is with sadness that I should let the fellow Nabokovians know about the death of Prof. Vadim Stark, on 6 March. Many of us knew Stark as the founder of the Vladimir Nabokov Museum in St. Petersburg and a capable editor of its "Nabokovskii Vestnik" throughout the late 1990s. He was 69.

The obit in Russian: http://www.colta.ru/news/2364

Best wishes,

Yuri Leving

On Friday, March 7, 2014 8:16 PM, Nabokv-L <nabokv-l@UTK.EDU> wrote:

EDNote: My first reaction to the query below is to draw attention to Alexander Dolinin's article "The Signs and Symbols in Nabokov's Signs and Symbols" , which certainly makes related proposals. My second suggestion is to find Yuri Leving's edited volume, Anatomy of a Short Story: Nabokov's Puzzles, Codes, "Signs and Symbols" (Continuum, 2012), which includes a very large selection of criticism on the story. It's also worth noting that March 28 will be the 92nd anniversary of Nabokov's Father's death. ~SB

QUERY--Signs and Symbols

Subject:

QUERY--"Signs and Symbols"

From:

"Hyman, Eric" <ehyman@uncfsu.edu>

Date:

3/7/2014 9:16 AM

To:

Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>

COLLEAGUES:

On March 28 at the College English Association I will deliver a paper linking Nabokov’s hereafter and what he calls key moves in both chess problems and short stories. It occurred to me that in "Signs and Symbols" the mysterious phone calls that baffle the old couple and many readers might be some kind of communication, especially the last four words in the story, from their newly dead son, sort of like the last paragraph of “The Vane Sisters.” Has this occurred to anyone else? If so, could you provide the reference (including this NABOKV-L)? Is it a plausible surmise? What might be some of the other solutions/key moves to those phone calls?

Eric Hyman

Professor of English

Department of English

Butler 133

Fayetteville State University

1200 Murchison Road

Fayetteville, NC 28301-4252

(910) 672-1901

ehyman@uncfsu.edu

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