Signs and Symbols: page 597 "Age six - that was when he drew
wonderful birds with human hands and feet, and suffered from
insomnia like a grown-up man"
A tease? Winged humans
are ...angels, seraphs!
( I must confess that, in the spirit of
Isaac's delusional nephew, I first thought of "sirin"
himself , then the oedipal sphynx or the gryphons!)
What does the association bt. Isaac and angel have to
offer? The Biblical sacrifice when an angelic intervention saved Isaac from
his father Abraham's knife in the nick of time. Murderous parents? A
timely interruption... a phone-call?
In VN's own case,
the call that interrupted him while reading Blok 's poetry
to his mother was not auspicious.
In "Signs
and Symbols" the insistent ring inquiring after Charlie, the incorrect
dialing ( not O but 0) surprises either father or son in the
grips of death.