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

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348 -
not his only one.
The characters in this production cannot conceal
that they are, after all, only playing parts, playing
them badly at that. Even their make-up is bad:
behind the masks of the prison director and Rodion
their own unattractive faces shine through. Rodion
behaves as unaccountably as people in operas often do.
Without any apparent reason, but energetically, he
breaks into song on quite extraordinary occasions;
he assumes on the edge of the table the stock pose
of a stock character: the "imitation jaunty pose of
operatic rakes in the tavern scene", and... rolling
his eyes, brandishing the empty mug",... " [sending]
the empty mug crushing against the
suddenly raising both arms and goii
he does all the things an operatic
to do but which, when exaggerated,
floor... ", and
zg out (IB, 26),
rake is expected
can become unbear-
ably ridiculous and absurd.
The few examples must stand for
many. From them
the technique employed by the author becomes clear.
He looks at a theatrical production - and makes us
look at it along with him
- as one does not normally
look at a play. He exposes what is normally carefully
hidden. He makes all the tricks transparent. He insists
on our seeing the rather repulsive ordinary men be-
hind the actors in their fantastic make-up; he in,
A.
sists on our seeing everything that goes wrong. He
looks at things soberly and calls them by their names.
The man who looks like one insane, he tells us, is
not really insane: he feigns insanity (IB, 200), and