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BIRTHDAY: Gloating uncle in Speak, Memory
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Hi Carolyn,
No, it's innocent in that sense, I think . . . VN is remembering with
nostalgia his uncle's nostalgia over a children's book that *he* read as a
child, which brought back *his* own childhood to *him*.
But there is a snake, in another sense, because that doubled memory
suggests a series of reflections of loss -- which includes now, for me,
remembering the first time that I read this very passage in 1976, after my
parents (now dead) gave *Speak, Memory* to me for Christmas when I was
seventeen.
:) SES
Dear SES,
>
> But that gloating uncle - what kind of a book would he be gloating over?
> it does seem as if a snake is lurking already in the garden.
>
> Carolyn
>
--
Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
Co-Editor, NABOKV-L
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No, it's innocent in that sense, I think . . . VN is remembering with
nostalgia his uncle's nostalgia over a children's book that *he* read as a
child, which brought back *his* own childhood to *him*.
But there is a snake, in another sense, because that doubled memory
suggests a series of reflections of loss -- which includes now, for me,
remembering the first time that I read this very passage in 1976, after my
parents (now dead) gave *Speak, Memory* to me for Christmas when I was
seventeen.
:) SES
Dear SES,
>
> But that gloating uncle - what kind of a book would he be gloating over?
> it does seem as if a snake is lurking already in the garden.
>
> Carolyn
>
--
Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
Co-Editor, NABOKV-L
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/