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

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dimensions of artistic creation, of fiction. Even his
childish lies he glorifies when looking back on his
childhood: He did not just tell lies as a child, he
composed "elaborate stories" which even then gave him
-a mere boy - the illusion that he was creating a
"new life-harmony" (55).
All this gives one quite sufficient reason to doubt
him on many occasions, and by and by it becomes dif-
ficult to ever accept what he says as plain fact. It
seems indeed to be very likely that the story one is
concerned with is one of his inspired lies. It seems
all the more likely because a full-length example that
Hermann gives of his literary exercises and which he
describes as "a sort of subconscious training... in
view of my present tussle with this harrassing tale"
(116) is significantly a story about doubles (117-118).
His very first paragraph seems to indicate no less
than that his story is an invented one. He quotes
fragments of an introduction to his tale, which he has
discarded, but which, in this rather roundabout fashion,
he smuggles in after all:
If I were not perfectly sure of my power
to write and of my marvelous ability to
express ideas with the utmost grace and
vividness... So, more or less, I had
thought of beginning my tale. Further,
I should have drawn the reader's attention
to the fact that had I lacked that
power, that ability, et cetera, not
only should I have refrained from describing
certain recent events, but there
would have been nothing to describe, for,
gentle reader, nothing at all would have
happened..
. The gift of penetrating life's
devices, an innate disposition toward the
constant exercise of the creative faculty
could alone have enabled me... (13).