In a message dated 09/10/2006 00:06:54 GMT Standard Time,
NABOKV-L@HOLYCROSS.EDU writes:
I am not too familiar with the forum's
history, and no doubt someone has
noted that the number of lines - 999 -
inverts, as is appropriate for a
novel structured on mirroring, the
notorious number of Revelations 666,
denoting the beast, who, among
other things, has power over all tongues
(13:7). Many things can be deduced
from this, given Nabokov's elusive
metaphysics, if the two numbers are
related intentionally. 999 inverts
666, a number of apocalyptic closure as
opposed to 999 which begs for an
extra digit, denied it, to achieve
completion, and thus gestures towards
an open universe.etc
etc
I did write to this forum on 23 December 2004 (after a discussion of
Alexander Dolinin's essay on 'The Signs and Symbols in Nabokov’s
“Signs and Symbols”') as follows:
<< I should like to thank
Andrew Brown for his kind and considered response to what I wrote.
May I
add: Whoever makes the third telephone call, the mere fact that the mother has
pointed out the presumed error the girl is making focusses our attention (thanks
to Alexander Dolinin) on the 6 that is being dialled, whether by one or two
people, three times in succession. Three sixes could be understood either
"Christianly" as 666 (i.e. Death) or "Jewishly" (by Gematria) as 6+6+6 = 18 =
Chaim = Life (Hebrew). The sixes are thus completely ambiguous. One can deduce
precisely nothing from them.
Surely both these symbolisms are beside the
point, except the point that they and the other beside-the-point signs and
symbols are, ultimately at least, beside the point.
My own point was
simply that, while of course we don't know who was "really" making the third
call, there is, corresponding to the boy's presumed "referential mania" of
attributing human agency to non-human events and referring them to himself, a
kind of reciprocal "NON-referential mania" into which we readers can be seduced
by the story, whereby we overlook even the possibility that a post-midnight
telephone call to his parents might originate from the boy himself as human
agent. I wondered if this might have been one of VN's points, too.
>>
Anthony Stadlen