There they waited again, and instead of their boy, shuffling into the room, as he usually did (his poor face sullen, confused, ill-shaven, and blotched with acne), a nurse they knew and did not care for appeared at last and brightly explained that he had again attempted to take his life. The story is narrated almost entirely from the perspective of the elderly parents as they make their way by train and bus through stormy weather to the facility where their son is kept only to be told that he is not well enough to visit. The story opens with the elderly couple taking a long, painful journey to visit their son in the sanitarium he lives in. It was originally published in the New Yorker in 1948.

If you would like to listen to this podcast before I reveal the specific details of the plot, you can download it on iTunes (it is too old to be linked to on the website) or you can read the story in text in the New Yorker archive. As the story unfolds, you learn more about this couple, the son, their past struggles as immigrants, and their present struggles as they attempt to make sense of their son’s steady decline. The story opens on an elderly couple attempting to visit their son in the sanitarium where, due to a severe derangement, he resides. Nabokov presents the existential crisis that is humanity through parallel views. I think my desire to blog about this particular story stems from the awe-inspiring way in which Mr. This podcast is one of the older ones, originally released June 2, 2008. I have listened to a number of these podcasts over the last couple of weeks, and though I have found the stories interesting, I have not been inspired to blog about another until now. On the way back from a very late dinner at Cracker Barrel (no judgment!), my partner and I listened to the New Yorker Fiction Podcast of Mary Gaitskill reading Vladimir Nabokov’s “ Symbols and Signs” (or “ Signs and Symbols” if you call it by the name Nabokov intended). Well, it was another exhausting work week for me, and unfortunately, I have more to do this weekend as well. If you like what you’re reading here, please consider supporting my writing for as little as $1/month!

Signs and Symbols by Vladimir Nabokov