Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0016309, Thu, 1 May 2008 12:43:44 -0400

Subject
Re: [NABOKOV - LIST] : signs and symbols, chapter three and four
Date
Body
Fran, thanks for your response. More on that later.

Another arresting image is "with his bare elbows raised" in:

"Across the narrow yard where the rain tinkled in the dark against some
battered ash cans, windows were blandly alight and in one of the a
black-trousered man with his bare elbows raised could be seen lying supine
on an untidy bed."

When I figured out what this image would look like I thought the elbows are
like wings of a supine man (both at rest and restless--or is he just knocked
out, like battered ash cans) who has been restless and distressed on his bed
("untidy bed") and cannot get up. Mother then pulls the blind (blindness)
down and turns to her photos and mementos to ruminate and wonder about her
son, and then about loss and pain and hope always on a precipice.

Barrie Karp

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