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

-" 237 -
be found by the newlydead (III, 523-536). However,
when one night he dies, when he crosses the border,
he finds that
Everything I loved was lost
But no aorta could report regret (III, 700-701).
He finds something else, though, that is like a first
answer to his questions. The vision of
and
A system of cells interlinked within
Cells interlinked within cells interlinked
Within one stem
Against the dark, a tall white fountain (III,
704-707)
is for him sufficient indication that all is not chaos
in that other strange world. Although he is unable
to grasp the sense of it, he is yet convinced that it
is meaningful and that it suggests , an imaginative
consciousness on the other side of death. "45 There is
a disappointment for him when he finds that the re-
port about someone who is said also to have seen the
fountain, contains a misprint:
There's one misprint - not that it matters much:
Mountain, not fountain, the majestic touch
III, 801-802).
Life Everlasting - based on a misprint! (111,803).
Does this mean that his vision was meaningless after
all? And does it mean that the secret is impenetrable?
Then he feels all of a sudden that here a clue is
given to him and that what seemed to complicate the
search even more, indicates in fact a way towards a
solution: The misprint not only confirms the existence
of an intelligence at work on the other side but im-
plies that the pattern devised by it is more complex