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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