Vladimir Nabokov indicated to a friend that Signs and Symbols contains a story within the story, with a second (main) story hidden behind various textual clues. The frame story, which involves an elderly couple’s dilemma as to how to deal with their institutionalized mentally-ill son, is a moving piece of dramatic prose in its own right. The inner story has been the subject of so much speculation that dissertations have been devoted to it. Some argue that encouraging such over-analysis was intentional on Nabokov’s part, and that in reality there is no hidden story. What do you think?
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Did anyone break the code?
I don’t think so. A quick Google search doesn’t say anything, and if nobody in the “Googlesphere” has been able to break it, I don’t think there’s much point in us trying.