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SIGNS: Freud and Religion; PLEASE READ RE: NABOKOV-L EDITORIAL
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I think it is a mistake to dismiss symbolic references to Freud's
thought in this story. VN of course was dismissive of Freud, but he
mentioned him all the time! He obviously was not so ignorant as to
dismiss something he had not read. The Anna O story was famous. It is
not even far fetched to imagine that even the wife might have heard
about it back in Minsk, if that was where she was from. Moreover, as I
interpret it the discussion on the telephone is a snipe by VN against
Freudonomics and it repeats the pattern of mistrust of Dr. Brink and his
cheery nurse.
Additionally, I have a question about what is cut out of the messages
we sent to the listserve. In one of my admittedly overly long messages,
references to the stations of the cross was edited out. While I have no
problem in general with editing of these messages, I wonder if this was
taken out because it is a Christian reference? If so that is a mistake,
if a PC one. I am neither a Freudian nor a Christian, but these
elements are part of our Western culture, and thus part of VN's
vocabulary.
Let us not be so PC that we put blinders on when examining the story.
That is not the VN way!
Fran Assa
[EDNOTE. Fran Assa's note was not edited at all, but was forwarded
exactly as submitted to the List. If you are concerned that one of your
messages has not been forwarded, please check the archives.
If Stephen Blackwell and I approve a message for forwarding to the List,
we always post it as submitted to us, unless it is necessary to minimize
attached photos, condense the number of previous messages included in
that one, or resend it because the lines did not break properly.
On rare occasions, Stephen or I might ask a contributor to withold or
revise a post, usually in cases where the message could be construed as
an ad hominem attack, is merely a rhetorical flourish, or doesn't relate
to VN. (Please click on the link to NABOKV-L policies for more
information.) In that case, we always write directly to the contributor
and try to work out a good solution.
For the record, Fran's earlier message is reprinted below. Thanks, SES]
***
They have failed to protect the son: left him in a hospital which is
“so miserable and understaffed” that they are afraid to leave some
jars of jelly lest they get lost. Protective of the pots of jelly, but
what about their son! It is only through chance that he is still alive:
saved by another patient and not the staff who should have been
observing him, protecting him. The whole world is watching him, except
for those people whose duty it is to do so.
The murderous war of Europe is over, and they have survived to enjoy a
rebirth, a new spring in America. Yet the wife presents “a naked white
countenance to the fault finding light of spring days.” Even in this
new spring, her faults are exposed. She does not have the will nor the
dishonesty to disguise them , as does the artificially clad Mrs. Sol,
“whose face was all pink and mauve with paint and whose hat was a
cluster of [artificial] brookside flowers”. (Why brookside flowers? A
reference to Ophelia?)
It is a rainy spring day, a Friday. The day could very well be in
April, possibly Passover and possibly Good Friday. “That Friday
everything went wrong” --as it certainly did for Jesus on the Friday
before Easter. The next sentence is “The underground train lost its
life current between two stations…” The word “stations” brings to mind
the twelve stations of the cross in Jerusalem on Easter Friday, each
bringing new suffering to Jesus. Like the story of Jesus, this couple
finds their own trials that day. The underground train recalls Europe,
and their Aunt Rosa, an “old lady, who had lived in a tremulous world
of bad news, bankruptcies, train accidents, cancerous growths—until the
Germans put her to death together with all the people she had worried
about.” Aunt Rosa undoubtedly arrived at her place of death by
underground train: underground be“Train accidents” are gently inserted in the list of Aunt Rosa's minor
worries to point the reader to her manner of death.
Directly after Aunt Rosa, without a pause, we learn that “Age six—that
was when he drew wonderful birds with human hands and feet”. God like,
and Sirin like creatures, which might save him from his Aunt Rosa’s
fate, since he accurately sees that his parents cannot protect him .
They could not save him from “the ugly vicious backwards children.” Nor
did they save him from the pneumonia, which precipitated his collapse.
After four years, on this Friday, or by now Saturday, it occurs to his
father to show some resolve: “To the devil with the doctors! We must
get him out of there quick!” But it can wait until morning. His wife
returns to her cards, which are like Tarot cards. Some cards and photos
drop to the floor and she retrieves a hand of five: knave of hearts,
nine of spades, ace of spades, the German maid, and her “bestial beau.”
The last card is “the beast.”
The couple lives in their own closed circuit of rain and false suns and
faded memories. (Mrs. Sol the artificial neighbor, Dr. Solov, thrown to
the devil, the weeping woman on the bus who resembles “Rebecca
Borisovna whose daughter married one of the Soloveichiks—in Minsk, years
ago.” ) They are broken people. They have left their only son (their
real sun) in the care of a nurse “they knew” (they cannot plead
ignorance) “and didn’t like.” Now they can only reap the consequences
as the telephone rings.
“This, and much more she accepted—for after all living did mean
accepting the loss of one joy after another, not even joys in her
case—mere possibilities of improvement. She thought of the endless
waves of pain she and her husband had to endure; of the invisible giants
hurting her boy in some unimaginable fashion; of the incalculable amount
of tenderness contained in the world; of the fate of this tenderness
which is either crushed, or wasted, or transformed into madness; of
neglected children humming to themselves in unswept corners…” The
monster reappears as the “simian” shadow of a farmer who is reaping the
field, but also mangling flowers “as the monstrous darkness approaches.”
Monsters and beasts. How does an old broken couple, like the broken
flowers, stand a chance?
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
thought in this story. VN of course was dismissive of Freud, but he
mentioned him all the time! He obviously was not so ignorant as to
dismiss something he had not read. The Anna O story was famous. It is
not even far fetched to imagine that even the wife might have heard
about it back in Minsk, if that was where she was from. Moreover, as I
interpret it the discussion on the telephone is a snipe by VN against
Freudonomics and it repeats the pattern of mistrust of Dr. Brink and his
cheery nurse.
Additionally, I have a question about what is cut out of the messages
we sent to the listserve. In one of my admittedly overly long messages,
references to the stations of the cross was edited out. While I have no
problem in general with editing of these messages, I wonder if this was
taken out because it is a Christian reference? If so that is a mistake,
if a PC one. I am neither a Freudian nor a Christian, but these
elements are part of our Western culture, and thus part of VN's
vocabulary.
Let us not be so PC that we put blinders on when examining the story.
That is not the VN way!
Fran Assa
[EDNOTE. Fran Assa's note was not edited at all, but was forwarded
exactly as submitted to the List. If you are concerned that one of your
messages has not been forwarded, please check the archives.
If Stephen Blackwell and I approve a message for forwarding to the List,
we always post it as submitted to us, unless it is necessary to minimize
attached photos, condense the number of previous messages included in
that one, or resend it because the lines did not break properly.
On rare occasions, Stephen or I might ask a contributor to withold or
revise a post, usually in cases where the message could be construed as
an ad hominem attack, is merely a rhetorical flourish, or doesn't relate
to VN. (Please click on the link to NABOKV-L policies for more
information.) In that case, we always write directly to the contributor
and try to work out a good solution.
For the record, Fran's earlier message is reprinted below. Thanks, SES]
***
They have failed to protect the son: left him in a hospital which is
“so miserable and understaffed” that they are afraid to leave some
jars of jelly lest they get lost. Protective of the pots of jelly, but
what about their son! It is only through chance that he is still alive:
saved by another patient and not the staff who should have been
observing him, protecting him. The whole world is watching him, except
for those people whose duty it is to do so.
The murderous war of Europe is over, and they have survived to enjoy a
rebirth, a new spring in America. Yet the wife presents “a naked white
countenance to the fault finding light of spring days.” Even in this
new spring, her faults are exposed. She does not have the will nor the
dishonesty to disguise them , as does the artificially clad Mrs. Sol,
“whose face was all pink and mauve with paint and whose hat was a
cluster of [artificial] brookside flowers”. (Why brookside flowers? A
reference to Ophelia?)
It is a rainy spring day, a Friday. The day could very well be in
April, possibly Passover and possibly Good Friday. “That Friday
everything went wrong” --as it certainly did for Jesus on the Friday
before Easter. The next sentence is “The underground train lost its
life current between two stations…” The word “stations” brings to mind
the twelve stations of the cross in Jerusalem on Easter Friday, each
bringing new suffering to Jesus. Like the story of Jesus, this couple
finds their own trials that day. The underground train recalls Europe,
and their Aunt Rosa, an “old lady, who had lived in a tremulous world
of bad news, bankruptcies, train accidents, cancerous growths—until the
Germans put her to death together with all the people she had worried
about.” Aunt Rosa undoubtedly arrived at her place of death by
underground train: underground be“Train accidents” are gently inserted in the list of Aunt Rosa's minor
worries to point the reader to her manner of death.
Directly after Aunt Rosa, without a pause, we learn that “Age six—that
was when he drew wonderful birds with human hands and feet”. God like,
and Sirin like creatures, which might save him from his Aunt Rosa’s
fate, since he accurately sees that his parents cannot protect him .
They could not save him from “the ugly vicious backwards children.” Nor
did they save him from the pneumonia, which precipitated his collapse.
After four years, on this Friday, or by now Saturday, it occurs to his
father to show some resolve: “To the devil with the doctors! We must
get him out of there quick!” But it can wait until morning. His wife
returns to her cards, which are like Tarot cards. Some cards and photos
drop to the floor and she retrieves a hand of five: knave of hearts,
nine of spades, ace of spades, the German maid, and her “bestial beau.”
The last card is “the beast.”
The couple lives in their own closed circuit of rain and false suns and
faded memories. (Mrs. Sol the artificial neighbor, Dr. Solov, thrown to
the devil, the weeping woman on the bus who resembles “Rebecca
Borisovna whose daughter married one of the Soloveichiks—in Minsk, years
ago.” ) They are broken people. They have left their only son (their
real sun) in the care of a nurse “they knew” (they cannot plead
ignorance) “and didn’t like.” Now they can only reap the consequences
as the telephone rings.
“This, and much more she accepted—for after all living did mean
accepting the loss of one joy after another, not even joys in her
case—mere possibilities of improvement. She thought of the endless
waves of pain she and her husband had to endure; of the invisible giants
hurting her boy in some unimaginable fashion; of the incalculable amount
of tenderness contained in the world; of the fate of this tenderness
which is either crushed, or wasted, or transformed into madness; of
neglected children humming to themselves in unswept corners…” The
monster reappears as the “simian” shadow of a farmer who is reaping the
field, but also mangling flowers “as the monstrous darkness approaches.”
Monsters and beasts. How does an old broken couple, like the broken
flowers, stand a chance?
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm