Once By Nabokov

That in Aleppo Once is a short story written by Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov. Set in the 1940s, the story is written in the form of a single letter. The receiver of the letter, V., is the narrator’s friend who he used to write poems with, and is now living in the United States. The narrator proceeds to tell V. about his wife, and his suspicions that she doesn’t actually exist. He explains their journey to relocate to the United States, when in the middle of their voyage he becomes suspicious. He asks V. to write a story based off his marriage, and create a solution for him as he is still confused on what to do next, but he wishes for V. to not title his work with Aleppo as that would imply an unhappy ending for him. The narrator’s worthy poetry skills is used as a veil to distract the reader from the fact that the marriage between him and his wife never contained mutual love, and while also having low self-esteem, the forcing of a relationship results

Pathos is braided into the narrator’s poetry. When it becomes more recognizable his wife is unfaithful and does not love him, he writes, “and I crushing and crushing the mad molar till my jaw almost burst with pain, a flaming pain which seemed somehow preferable to the dull, humming ache of humble endurance” (Nabokov 246). His poetry releases his emotions – in this particular quote, his pain and frustration – over his wife’s actions, and that his marriage is going to last shorter than he expects. He’s beginning to decide on whether or not to protect his already doomed marriage, the experience affecting him more negatively than his wife. Although his marriage is failing, he continues to write poetry and literary references, despite already confessing that his wife loved him for his