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

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but could be repeated as often as he
and she were physically able to make love.
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Both Mr. R. and Van speak in terms that are reminiscent
of descriptions of mystical experiences. These lay
stress on the fact that such experiences free the
mind from all the limitations set to it by the
intellect; that they grant knowledge which is quite
different from, and goes far beyond, that obtained
through intellectual processes. It is an intuitive
and immediate knowledge:
There come to many the sudden moments
of intuitive perception, elusive,
fading quickly, but of deep significance,
illuminations which they feel reveal to
them new facets
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of reality.
Such experiences and the knowledge they convey do not
lend themselves to expression in words, as these are
made to express and convey rational and intellectual
ideas and concepts, and prove insufficient with regard
to something in which the intellect has no part,
those insights that appear like "something given,
a sort of revelation coming from a something out-
side oneself. " 101
To all appearances both Mr. R. and Van and Ada go
through experiences that have these characteristics.
They experience something to which the term "noumenal"102
had better be applied to make its metaphysical dimen-
sion quite clear, and although it does at least with
Van and Ada probably not have the religious associations
Huxley attaches to it, the same is no doubt true of
their absolute (or "true") reality that is true of his:
"... we can never hope to describe it even though it
is possible for us directly to apprehend it. "103