''Vladimir Nabokov's Comic Quest for Reality' - Nottingham eTheses

175
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parody of what Stegner calls the "detective story
formula. " 28
The main fascination of the detective story should
lie in the solution of a problem by processes of de-
duction.
29
The detective is set going and kept going
by clues. These should be, and in good detective
stories are, of the faintest, subtlest and most ingenious
kind. They give a mere shadow of a hint and
would go unnoticed by any ordinary mortal. But the
detective is no ordinary mortal. He is more perceptive
than others. Nothing is lost on him. He is a
"keen observer"30, he never misses a clue and he lets
his "brilliant intelligence"31 work and shine, drawing
from them the logical and, to him, perfectly obvious
conclusions. One thing is ruled out in detective
stories, namely "conclusions reached purely by in-
stinct, through accident or through coincidence,
[for
they show] a failure on the part of the author and
[are] unfair to the reader. "32
The episode with Mr Silbermann is indicative of
the quality of this part of V's quest and of his account.
On his way back from Blauberg V meets Mr Silbermann
on the train, a funny little man who has
mysteriously stepped into life (or: back into life? )
out of Sebastian's The Back of the Moon, complete
with "bushy eyebrows", "small moustache",. "big shiny
nose" and. all the other physical characteristics of
Mr Silier in Sebastian's story, and who even alludes
to his own literary background (123). Absurdly this
little man, who speaks queer English and whose