Signs and Symbols
"Signs and Symbols" is a
In The New Yorker, the story was published under the title "Symbols and Signs", a decision by the editor Katharine White. Nabokov returned the title to his original "Signs and Symbols" when republishing the story.[1]
Plot summary
An elderly couple tries to visit their mentally ill son in a sanatorium on his birthday. They are informed that he attempted to take his life and they cannot see him now. After their return home, the husband announces his decision to take him out of the sanatorium. The story concludes with mysterious telephone calls. The first two apparently misdialed calls are from a girl asking for "Charlie"; the story ends when the phone rings for the third time.
In the course of the story the reader learns many details of the unnamed couple's life: they are
The son suffers from "referential mania", where "the patient imagines that everything happening around him is a veiled reference to his personality and existence". "Everything is a cipher and of everything he is the theme". Real people are excluded from this
Textual changes
The New Yorker wanted to make many changes. Nabokov objected strongly, supported by his friend Edmund Wilson, and the story was printed mostly as he wrote it.[2]
However, the New Yorker version still contained four editorial changes that Nabokov eliminated in later publications. One was that the title was reversed as mentioned above. The second was that instead of numbers for the three sections, the sections were separated by ellipses. The third was that two paragraphs were joined into one. The fourth was that "beech plum" for a kind of jelly was changed to the correct "
Interpretations
In a letter to Katharine White, Nabokov said that "Signs and Symbols", like "The Vane Sisters", was a story "wherein a second (main) story is woven into, or placed behind, the superficial semitransparent one." He did not say what the main story was.[4]
Some critics have argued that the story's many details can be deciphered into a message—for instance that the son has committed suicide, or that he is in an afterlife and free from his torments,[5] or that the third phone call is from him, saying that he has escaped from the asylum.[3] However, the predominant interpretation[5] is that the story inveigles the reader into an attempt at deciphering the details and thus "over-reading", which is "another, milder form of referential mania".[6]
See also
Further reading
- Vernon, David (2022). Ada to Zembla: The Novels of Vladimir Nabokov. Edinburgh: Endellion Press. ISBN 978-1739136109.
References
- ^ "Audio: Sign Language". The New Yorker (Embedded audio). 2008-06-09. Archived from the original on 2014-03-27. Retrieved 2017-10-19.
- ISBN 0-691-02471-5, retrieved 2010-03-13
- ^ a b Drescher, Alexander N. (2003-10-16), Arbitrary Signs and Symbols, Zembla, retrieved 2010-03-13
- ISBN 0-15-164190-0
- ^ a b Dolinin, Alexander, The Signs and Symbols in Nabokov's 'Signs and Symbols', Zembla, retrieved 2012-02-12
- ^ Carroll, William (1974), "Nabokov's 'Signs and Symbols'", in Carl R. Proffer (ed.), A Book of Things About Vladimir Nabokov, Ann Arbor: Ardis, pp. 203–217
External links
- Full text as originally published in The New Yorker
- Leving, Yuri (24 May 2012). Anatomy of a Short Story: Nabokov's Puzzles, Codes, "Signs and Symbols". A&C Black. ISBN 9781441142634.
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