Coffee Break
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- Joined
- Feb 13, 2022
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- Student or Learner
- Native Language
- Korean
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- South Korea
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- South Korea
I encountered the expression "my contribution, my signature to the evening", but am struggling to understand it. Could you please let me know what it means? Here is the excerpt:
I held her hand a touch longer than is usual, to say I had gotten the message, but let it go sooner than warranted, fearing I’d invented the message.
That was my contribution, my signature to the evening, my twisted reading of a plain handshake. If she knew how to read me, she’d see through this affectation of nonchalance and catch the other, deeper nonchalance, which I am reluctant to dispel especially in the presence of someone who, with three words and barely a glance, could easily hold the key to all my hideaways.
- André Aciman, Eight White Nights, First Night
This is a novel published in the United States of America in 2010. It is narrated by a nameless male protagonist. He meets Clara at a Christmas party in Manhattan. Now the protagonist is reading into his handshake with Clara.
I wonder what the underlined expression means.
I vaguely understand that, by "my contribution", he contributed something to the evening (in that he provided something to the evening), but I just cannot understand what his "signature to the evening" might mean.
I held her hand a touch longer than is usual, to say I had gotten the message, but let it go sooner than warranted, fearing I’d invented the message.
That was my contribution, my signature to the evening, my twisted reading of a plain handshake. If she knew how to read me, she’d see through this affectation of nonchalance and catch the other, deeper nonchalance, which I am reluctant to dispel especially in the presence of someone who, with three words and barely a glance, could easily hold the key to all my hideaways.
- André Aciman, Eight White Nights, First Night
This is a novel published in the United States of America in 2010. It is narrated by a nameless male protagonist. He meets Clara at a Christmas party in Manhattan. Now the protagonist is reading into his handshake with Clara.
I wonder what the underlined expression means.
I vaguely understand that, by "my contribution", he contributed something to the evening (in that he provided something to the evening), but I just cannot understand what his "signature to the evening" might mean.