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

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would be "wicked" (47), but he corrects them, offers
explanations, and sometimes even an apology.
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His
very addresses to the reader, artificial in themselves,
become the objects of his comments, so that their ar-
tificiality is heightened.
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This list could be continued, but the examples may
suffice to illustrate that Hermann's devices all work
together to produce something very much like the effect
produced by a Shandian commentary. One wonders at the
extraordinary kind of novel one is reading. One wonders
why an action that is to all appearances so simple
and the chronology of which is so straightforward and
logical, should in its telling become such a perfect
jumble of incoherent odds and bits. It is through the
incongruity between the apparent simplicity of what
is told and the complex and almost chaotic way in
which it is told, as much as through the parodies
of literary conventions, that a comic effect is
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achieved.
The comedy is effective only so long as the surface
pattern is seen separately from the contents of the
story. When seen in connection with it, the analysis
tells quite a different tale, and what seems at first
serenely comic, then turns out to have a grim import
at its heels.
Hermann makes a remark that gives a clue to the
mystery of his muddled style and at the same time
throws some light on the story under the confusing sur-
face: