[lit-ideas] Re: Serendipity - and other coincidence
- From: cblists@xxxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 17:25:55 +0100
On 5-Nov-13, at 8:14 AM, I wrote:
On 1-Nov-13, at 1:41 AM, David Ritchie wrote about:
burgundy socks ... from a shop that sold them from cardboard
boxes. The socks were individually sized. None of your "fits
sizes 6-16" rubbish. Quite charming.
Thanks to which, today I better understand the line just found in my
current novel-being-read:
"She promoted him, served him, and eased his way in every turn. From
boxed socks and ironed surplice hanging in the wardrobe, to his
dustless study ..." [Ian McEwan, SWEET TOOTH]
I now question that understanding. This scepticism is based on a
passage occuring several pages after the one quoted above, viz.:
"I would have served him as my mother did my father. Box his socks? I
would have knelt to wash his feet."
It seems clear to me that 'boxed socks' in this case does NOT mean
'socks in cardboard boxes' - as it does not make sense that the
protagonist's proffered service is to place his socks in cardboard
boxes. (That 'he/him/his' is Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, by the way).
Looking up 'boxed socks' and 'boxing socks' on the Internet does not
help. Neither does consulting my dictionary. I surmise 'folding
socks together in a particular ('interlocking'?) manner' - but what
exactly ARE those particulars? Anyone?
Chris Bruce,
still saving comments on the protagonist's
book consumption - as well as Walpole,
sagacity and Sri Lanka - for a later post, in
Kiel, Germany
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