pg. 9
a loupe is a magnifying glass for jewelers and watchmakers
veiller is a french verb meaning to watch over, to take care. veillant is the present participle, watching over, or taking care.
best guess for omniveillant: watching over everything
one of the main characters, Sam, after having exaggerated his roles at his job, is wondering whether his mother knew all about his exaggeration, played along and told his cousin Josef about his job as an "artist"; so that Sam would be embarrassed in explaining his actual position. or whether his mother didn't see through the exaggeration, and really expected that Sam could get Josef a job. whether the omniveillant maternal loupe wasn't really so omniveillant.
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6 comments:
Thanks for that explanation. I just read the page and had no idea what this meant. I consider myself a man of letters, but I needed a dictionary just to get through the first chapter. Love Chabon.
I also had to look up 'omniveillant', without success. I came to the same conclusion as you: the ever-present, All-Seeing Mother, perhaps not so omniveillant, after all.
glad to see I'm not the only one scratching their head.
I was very excited when my eye fell on omniveillant. I thought that's a new word LOL! And so it is, I see per above. Definitely wordgasmic *grin
Thx for the excellent clarification! If this was 20 years ago I’d still be clearing up veillant
The same passage and motive led me here!
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