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

-
294 -
become no doubt a new bible and its author the founder
of a new creed" (84). But this book cannot be written,
"not merely because a dying man cannot write books but
because that particular one would never express in
one flash what can only be understood immediately" (84).
This "immediate" understanding can be taken to be of
the same kind as that which was discussed in connection
with The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. It is
not some understanding that stands at the end of a
long and deliberate effort of the intellect but comes
unsummoned, unexpectedly, and in a flash. It is comprehensive,
it unites disparate things, it discloses
their connection and the harmony they form; it has
all the qualities of a mystical insight, and that is
something which cannot be put in words. Words can
express and convey rational and intellectual ideas
or concepts, but they are insufficient for the expression
of the intuitive knowledge gained in a mystical
experience. R. dies taking his knowledge and
his wisdom along with him.
R. dies. And yet, if Nabokov's statements are to
be trusted (and various elements in the novel confirm
what he says) Transparent Things is one of R. 's novels.
We must, then, see in R. yet another artist (after
Shade) who goes through what Mr. Silbermann in The
Real Life of Sebastian Knight called a dress rehearsal
of death. But R. goes even a step farther than
Shade does. For once, and although he knows that the
future is chimeric and that death is the most chimeric
part of it, he looks forward instead of back.