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SIGNS: Some concluding thoughts
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Jansy Mello writes:
Dear List,
I hope we'll soon hear from Anthony Stadlen to learn more about the important disclosures that took place last week-end in London in relation to Nabokov's "Signs and Symbols."
Recently we heard from Laurence Hocard: "I can't say I have the solution of the riddle of S&S but I think I can glimpse at the "real" story through the semi transparent one [...] Other people's -perfect strangers'- intimacy,however unattractive, invades the woman's privacy[...] these strangers are not aggressive, they don't mean to invade her privacy, they just do it "blandly"[...] Why is it so? It's not the woman's fault [...] but the consequence of her husband's involvment with "girls"[...] the husband's desertion of his family[...]when the husband at last realizes he is responsible for his son's fate, the woman is immediately ready to fetch her son[...] When the phone rings and the girl claims Charlie (Charlie = the husband), the wife is able to tell her that her husband is a "O", a letter, something very different from a "zero", a difference she can see but the girl can't[...]the woman's calm, unsurprised reaction leaves us wondering whether she hasn't already heard it all before[...] The combination of the 2 girls, Elsa and the girl on the phone, strongly reminds of Mariette in Bend Sinister: a maid, the little voice[...]
All those suggestions enrich our way of reading all other VN's stories, too - even when we do not agree with one theory or another.
I find it difficult to imagine the old husband, in S&S, as a kind of Don Juan with real conquests (unlike shy Erwin's "Nursery Tale") - but this arises from my own bias, since this interpretation seems to fit many details brought up in the story.
Another reader suggested to me a similarity in "mood" bt. "Signs and Symbols" and Salinger's "Nine Stories" ( with all the dialogues!), in particular the one with Ginnie Mannox and Selena Graff, plus its various perspectives about Seymour. For me such a comparison is totally impossible to fanthom, with the exception of the dialogues outlined during the three phone-calls, the ambience in the forties and their terse delivery.
Myself, I still believe that we are invited to consider simultaneously both levels (the manifest explicit one and a hidden theme), instead of considering only one of the levels as being the true one. Later Nabokov will offer us at least ten other "hidden" dimensions ( Pale Fire, ADA...) and those with a talent for abstraction and good memories might retain them like a musician does listen to a symphonies various instruments and themes...
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Dear List,
I hope we'll soon hear from Anthony Stadlen to learn more about the important disclosures that took place last week-end in London in relation to Nabokov's "Signs and Symbols."
Recently we heard from Laurence Hocard: "I can't say I have the solution of the riddle of S&S but I think I can glimpse at the "real" story through the semi transparent one [...] Other people's -perfect strangers'- intimacy,however unattractive, invades the woman's privacy[...] these strangers are not aggressive, they don't mean to invade her privacy, they just do it "blandly"[...] Why is it so? It's not the woman's fault [...] but the consequence of her husband's involvment with "girls"[...] the husband's desertion of his family[...]when the husband at last realizes he is responsible for his son's fate, the woman is immediately ready to fetch her son[...] When the phone rings and the girl claims Charlie (Charlie = the husband), the wife is able to tell her that her husband is a "O", a letter, something very different from a "zero", a difference she can see but the girl can't[...]the woman's calm, unsurprised reaction leaves us wondering whether she hasn't already heard it all before[...] The combination of the 2 girls, Elsa and the girl on the phone, strongly reminds of Mariette in Bend Sinister: a maid, the little voice[...]
All those suggestions enrich our way of reading all other VN's stories, too - even when we do not agree with one theory or another.
I find it difficult to imagine the old husband, in S&S, as a kind of Don Juan with real conquests (unlike shy Erwin's "Nursery Tale") - but this arises from my own bias, since this interpretation seems to fit many details brought up in the story.
Another reader suggested to me a similarity in "mood" bt. "Signs and Symbols" and Salinger's "Nine Stories" ( with all the dialogues!), in particular the one with Ginnie Mannox and Selena Graff, plus its various perspectives about Seymour. For me such a comparison is totally impossible to fanthom, with the exception of the dialogues outlined during the three phone-calls, the ambience in the forties and their terse delivery.
Myself, I still believe that we are invited to consider simultaneously both levels (the manifest explicit one and a hidden theme), instead of considering only one of the levels as being the true one. Later Nabokov will offer us at least ten other "hidden" dimensions ( Pale Fire, ADA...) and those with a talent for abstraction and good memories might retain them like a musician does listen to a symphonies various instruments and themes...
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
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/