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

All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.

Visit Zembla

View Nabokv-L Policies