Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0016316, Fri, 2 May 2008 08:55:57 -0300

Subject
[NABOKOV-L] SIGNS AND SYMBOLS
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Date
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Dear List,
I'm not sure this resumé will be useful to anyone who wants to follow certain shifts in narration, the sequence of "she,he,they,etc".
Nor do I know if my impressions of when they took place are correct.


Part One:
Friday morning, or early afternoon:
(a) they were confronted...He had no desires...his parents...
(b) they had been married...Her drab gray her..She wore...Her husband..They seldom saw him...
(c) That Friday... one could hear nothing...the bus they had to take, a nurse they knew...
(d) She waited for her husband...He kept...They reached...
(e) She and her husband did not exchange a word...she felt...As she looked around...a girl, old woman, she resembled...
(f) The last time he ( the sick boy) had tried to do it...What he really wanted...
(g) The system of his delusions...long before that she and her husband had puzzled it out...Herman Brink...In these very rara cases the patient imagines...he excludes...he considers...His inmost thoughts are discussed...Everything is a cipher and of everything he is the theme. Some of the spies...( now we, as readers, are no longer learning about those patients who suffer from 'referential mania' but begin to invade the young man's thoughts to spy and register things about him)grotesquely misinterpret his actions. He must always be on his guard...The very air he exhales in indexed and filed away...If only the interest he provokes were limited to his immediate surroundings...

Part 2
Friday afternoon, early night
(a) When they emerged...She wanted... He walked...
(b) In silence he sat down...she came... They entered their two-room flat and he at once... She knew his moods...
(c) When he had gone to bed, she remained in the living room ( living room?). She pulled the blind down and examined the photographs. [ Ms. X muses and peruses?] As a baby he... From a fold in the album, a German maid...fell out(?). Four years old, in a park...Aunt Rosa...Age six - when he drew...His cousin...He again...Aged ten: the year they left Europe. [ Shift away from her musings] The shame, the pity...then came a time in his life ...which his parents stubbornly...
(d) She accepted...She thought...she and her husband..hurting her boy [ another shift towards an impending unknown]... of the incalculable amount of tenderness...neglected children in unswept corners; of the beautiful weeds that cannot hide from...as the monstrous darkness approaches.

part 3
Saturday, past midnight, early morning
(a) she heard her husband moan...he staggered in...
(b) "I can't sleep," he cried.
(c)"Why," she asked...
(d) "I can't sleep because..."
(e) "Is it your stomach?..."
(f) "No doctors..." "To the devil with doctors! We must get him out of there quick...
(g)"All right," she said quietly, "we shall bring him home tomorrow morning."
(h)" I would like some tea," said her husband ( bathroom)
(i) Bending with difficulty she... a photograph OR two ( who doesn't know how many if there were at most two cards?)
(j) He returned..."I have it all figured out"...It doesn't matter what the Prince says...
(k) The telephone rang. His left slipper...Having more English than he did, it was she who...
(l) said a girl's dull...
(m) "What number do you want? No. That is not the right number."
(n) The receiver was...her hand went to her old and tired heart...
(o) "It frightened me," she said.
(p) He smiled (?)... resumed his excited monologue... Even at his ( the son's) worst...
(q) The telephone rang..the same toneless... voice
(r) "You have the incorrect number. I will tell you what you are doing..."
(s) They sat down..festive (?) midnight tea...He sipped noisily...the vein on the side of his...While she poured him...he put on his spectacles... He had got to crab apple, when the telepone rang again...

........................................................
I checked the name "Charlie":Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Charlie, a name in English-speaking countries, is usually a nickname for Charles or Charlotte; Germanic in origin, they mean 'free man'.[1]

Charlie may also refer to:
The letter C in the NATO phonetic alphabet and FAA aviation phonetic letters
Charlie, short for "Victor Charlie" (VC), military slang for the Viet Cong
Charlie class submarines of the Soviet Navy
Charlie (parrot), the name of a pet possibly owned by Winston Churchill
Charlie (band), a British rock band in the 1980s
"Charlie" (song), a song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers
Charlie the Tuna, the cartoon mascot for StarKist Tuna
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a series of novels and films, and their main character, Charlie Bucket
Charlie's Angels and the unseen boss, Charles "Charlie" Townsend
Charlie Dog, Chuck Jones' late 1940s cartoon character
CharlieCard, a smart card used for electronic ticketing by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
Charlie, a fragrance sold by Revlon, a cosmetics company
"Charlie X", an episode of the original Star Trek series
Charlie, an album by the band Melt-Banana
Charlie may also be used for:
"Charlie on the MTA", alternate name for "M.T.A.", a song recorded in 1959 by The Kingston Trio
Slang for cocaine
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