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

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- 362 - The immortality bestowed upon him is only "a slippery sophism, a play upon words" (BS, 217).
- 363 - ADA Ada1 has more than any other Nabokov novel puzzled, perplexed, and, in a few cases, even annoyed critics, and it has caused one of them ... to part company with a writer whose work I have enjoyed so often and so much until now. But I fear that I shall not be among the Happy Few who will survive this latest and bizarre 2 excursion. This is what Philip Toynbee says at the end of a review in which he does admit that "Of course, of course, there are marvellous things in Ada, such as "a wealth of exquisitely fine writing", "a wide var- iety of different narrative devices", "a massive homogeneity of tone", but in which he deplores "all the knowing literary references; all the wise saws; the interminable instances; " and also "the perpetual demonstration of agility and skill -", and "the constant implication that we haven't understood the half of it. "3 A more recent critic, Douglas Fowler, adds a number of complaints to those of the early reader Toynbee. He describes Ada as "a... mannered, self-referential encyclopedia [which] frequently seems to represent an attempt on <strong>Nabokov's</strong> part to satisfy a series of private fantasies. "4 On Antiterra, he says, "all of <strong>Nabokov's</strong> private interests achieve public importance. " "Nabokov uses Antiterra to settle several old scores, largely cultural, bookish and idiosyncratic in nature"6, and sacrifices "all mimetic and dramatic interest" in Ada to a number of "semiprivate
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''Vladimir Nabokov's Comic Quest fo
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Abstract Nabokov once said that "re
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Introduction
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-2- granting that the Bolshevist an
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-4- consent, was motivated by the a
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-6- on the aspects of life that int
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-8- importance but its art, only it
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- 10 - of. the novels, consist in t
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- 12 - life with its hazards and in
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- 14 - lives of individual persons,
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- 16 - is convinced to really know
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- 18 - hopeless, but Nabokov does n
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- 20 - for the artist, is expressed
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- 22 - a new, wholly artistic reali
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- 24 - way, and this knowledge and
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- 26 - internal evidence of Invitat
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- 28 - Admittedly not all of Naboko
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- 30 - "tr. ue reality" in that it
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- 32 - the manner in which the subj
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- 34 - The case is quite similar in
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- 36 - lines of play 11120 will in
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- 38 - him knowledge surpassing tha
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- 40 - the present. This act of rec
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- 42 - design in the life of Martin
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- 44 - Martin's mother of her son's
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- 46 - is blind where his wife and
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- 48 - serious and profound experie
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I. The Eye Pnin Lolita; Laughter*in
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- 51 - novel. They illustrate how p
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- 53 - tearing the banknote into li
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- 55 - have before: after the suici
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- 57 - imagination of Gretchen best
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- 59 - deed been through an experie
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- 61 - there must be some "model" a
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- 63 - P NI N In their appreciation
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- 65 - For the sake of convenience
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- 67 - Pnin's appearance is comic,
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- 69 - all-the time. He suffers an
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- 71 - existence" (13). In his pres
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- 73 - is going to give, on his per
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- 75 - exist in such big sea" (60).
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- 77 - directly from Pnin's peculia
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- 79 - them at least 10ok like his
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- 81 - indeed only the very thinnes
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- 83 - but the group of academics w
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- 85 - "schools and trends", and is
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- 87 - which induces the reader to
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- 89 - and-smiles at, there emerges
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- 91 - More depth and reality are a
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- 93 - cp. 180). The narrator also
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95 - being accurate in every point,
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- 97 - standing of a "truly human b
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- 99 - eternal beauty, and his conv
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- 101 - One luckless early critic w
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- 103 - says "well-read" Humbert Hu
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- 105 - surface, into the initial m
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- 107 - age. She was the "initial g
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- 109 - and implies in the parody t
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- 111 - He is equally inaccurate in
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- 113 - with Quilty; and, of course
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- 115 - or to hold her on his knee
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- 117 - ations ) (98). And he descr
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- 119 - a strident, harsh high voic
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- 121 - When Humbert talks of his d
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- 123 -- could victimize her poor d
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- 125 - this twelve-year-old girl s
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- 127 - done her morning duty" (161
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- 129 - experience, up to a certain
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- 131 - her: "... -a life full of t
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- 133 - Looking at it for a moment
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- 135 - and Axel Rex delightful. Bu
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- 137 - critics have made her, and
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- 139 - not record images of the sy
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- 141 - ous hallucination" (287). 6
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- 143 - No hereafter is acceptable
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- 145 - be possible for him to be t
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- 147 - and it is also appropriate
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- 149 - But Humbert's view of Lolit
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- 151 - the truth of the theory dev
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- 153 - part of it. Even with the i
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- 155 - THE REAL LIFE OF SEBASTIAN
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- 157. - consistent set of characte
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- 159 - gathered from various sourc
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- 161 - a very close one, and it se
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- 163 - tiously follows all the mov
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- 165 - go about it), behaving as i
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- 167 - infinite trouble what he co
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- 169 - What were the things that r
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- 171 share", as a good biographer
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- 173 - seems to him too colourless
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175 - parody of what Stegner calls
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- 177 - that lead to it, he is sing
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- 179 - the time during which he li
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- 181 - France. He is tormented by
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- 183 - on the last page of the nov
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- 185 - what he wants to find, that
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- 187 - would not see him. Somewhat
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- 189 - he falls back on passages f
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- 191 - ticism as one possible way
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- 193 - The passages betray not onl
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- 195 - This "mental jerk" grants k
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- 197 - clear, and the harmony and
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- 199 - initiated the insight. In l
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- 201 - himself, and in it V appear
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- 203 - novels of Sebastian Knight,
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- 205 - All those that knew Sebasti
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- 207 - in his opinion not have for
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- 209 - others as his remoteness an
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- 210 - THEDEFENCE R. H. W. Dillard
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- 212 - his own future, and it beco
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- 214 - Unlike Shade, however, Luzh
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- 216 - has recognized as the basic
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- 218 - The sensitive reader dislik
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- 220 - The individual parts have p
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- 222 - for the overall comic effec
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- 224 - Americans of today. "24 He
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- 226 - learn anything, to wrap it
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- 228 - exhausted. Kinbote uses it
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- 230 - (24-25). He talks about how
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- 232 - "Parents" (1,71), "my bedro
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- 234 - commentary, and they also o
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- 236 - forbidden knowledge of whic
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- 238 - than he thought it was46: B
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- 240 - following the road of its r
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- 242 - actually sees Kinbote, lose
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- 244 - emerges that the man whom h
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- 246 - sions, shows that even the
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- 248 - superficially is about. He
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- 250 - "really" Kinbote who has wr
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- 252 - standing' of the poem do no
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- 254 - Shade mentions a famous fil
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- 256 - is left-handed (180) and he
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- 258 - The sea's a thief, whose li
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- 260 - much a person even on the l
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- 262 - In the relationship between
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- 264 - even for his own death. It
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- 266 - TRANSPARENT THINGS An old N
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- 268 - the name as if it were simp
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- 270- Armande that has brought him
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- 272 - a conscious effort. Things
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- 274 - intention either to convey
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- 276 - past with utmost precision
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- 278 - Hugh Person ignores a vague
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- 280 - the wall which in his wakin
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- 282 - thus opening the view into
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- 284 - tain moments he positively
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- 286 - We thought that he had in h
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- 288 - The thought throws more lig
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- 290 - That Nabokov does consider
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- 292 - which strangely prefigures
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- 294 - become no doubt a new bible
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- 296 - It probably is Mr. R. 's ph
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- 298 - DESPAIR Despair1, though wr
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- 300 - rendering a certain sound t
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- 302 - I have grown much too used
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- 304 - dimensions of artistic crea
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- 306 - when he starts writing his
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- 308 - in its capability of photog
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- 310- next morning, none would bel
Page 319 and 320: - 312 - To the end, then, he remain
Page 321 and 322: - 314 - tangible double of himself,
Page 323 and 324: - 316 - this attack of his second s
Page 325 and 326: - 318 - ... the ruddy horror of my
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Page 329 and 330: - 321 - BENDSINISTER INVITATIONTOAB
Page 331 and 332: - 323 - the Dark Comedies of the Tw
Page 333 and 334: - 325 - and that one has first to p
Page 335 and 336: - 327 - the absurd fate he himself
Page 337 and 338: - 329 - perhaps in some archaic let
Page 339 and 340: - 331 - this fantasy with bits of L
Page 341 and 342: - 333 - in the solution it offers.
Page 343 and 344: - 335 - no more than the strange an
Page 345 and 346: - 337 - clown (IB, 104-105). And th
Page 347 and 348: - 339 - of the original still shine
Page 349 and 350: - 341 - each of them. There is Mart
Page 351 and 352: - 343 - "cleared his throat and sof
Page 353 and 354: - 345 - and then perhaps we shall s
Page 355 and 356: - 347 - our own world , and with it
Page 357 and 358: - 349 - the river we see him fishin
Page 359 and 360: - 351 - inspired by a picture on wh
Page 361 and 362: - 353 - do not conceal them must di
Page 363 and 364: - 355 - also the only one who can i
Page 365 and 366: - 357 - (IB, 26) and only his doubl
Page 367 and 368: - 359 - Cincinnatus no longer what
Page 369: - 361 - He speculates about time in
Page 373 and 374: - 365 - combine to form the surface
Page 375 and 376: - 367 - ... a string of stock scene
Page 377 and 378: - 369 - more confusing by the great
Page 379 and 380: - 371 - of aspens; they embraced,..
Page 381 and 382: - 373 - aux caprices de son age. «
Page 383 and 384: - 375 - pipes into "borborygmic con
Page 385 and 386: - 377 - Swann et la Lesbie de Catul
Page 387 and 388: - 379 - in quite a new light and de
Page 389 and 390: - 381 - of a comic strip cartoon [1
Page 391 and 392: - 383 - and van's divans and cushio
Page 393 and 394: - 385 - ernized barracks for misfit
Page 395 and 396: - 387 - (385). Van himself is calle
Page 397 and 398: - 38-9 - "Don't forget normal adult
Page 399 and 400: - 391 - Ada have an equally profoun
Page 401 and 402: - 393 - her, and telling himself "t
Page 403 and 404: - 395 - agents from an alien countr
Page 405 and 406: - 397 -. - cribed by Aristophanes i
Page 407 and 408: - 399 - stored in their minds, of a
Page 409 and 410: - 401 - Since nature was traditiona
Page 411 and 412: - 403 and the Present. Like his cre
Page 413 and 414: - 405 - way one may wish and try to
Page 415 and 416: - 407 - liberated from "Numbers and
Page 417 and 418: - 409 - his own memory of the Past,
Page 419 and 420: - 411 - only meet again after twelv
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- 413 - and Present are blended by
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- 415 - of his publications as "buo
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- 417 - tion. Pain and physical dea
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- 418 - LOOKATTHEHARLEQUINS! "Look
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- 420 - minor minds, and such vital
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- 422 - Ada also appear in it: some
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- 424 - he himself seems puzzled. I
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- 426 - obvious anyway, is undersco
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- 428 - intimately interwoven with
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- 430 - ture of the author, one may
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- 432 - was) I have gained some exp
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Notes Bibliography
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- 435 - 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
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- 437 - 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76
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- 439 - 111 112 113 114 115 116 Nor
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- 441 - N0TES to THEEYE 1 Vladimir
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- 443 - 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
Page 455 and 456:
- 445 - N0TES to LOLITA and LAUGHTE
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- 447 - 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 Vladim
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- 449 - 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91
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- 451 - 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
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- 453 - 60 61 62 63 Vladimir Naboko
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-. 455 - N0TESt0PALEFIRE 1 2 3 4 5
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- 457 - 27 Andrew Field, Nabokov, H
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- 459 - 56 57 58 59 60 Ibid., p. 72
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- 461 - NOTESTOTRANSPARENTTHINGS 1
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- 463 - NOTES to DESPAIR 1 . Vladim
Page 475 and 476:
- 465 - N0TES to BEND SINISTER and
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- 467 - 38 G. M. Hyde, Vladimir Nab
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- 469 - 24 25 26 27 28 29 Vladimir
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- 471 - 71 Op. cit., pp. 147-148. 7
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BIBL10GRAPHY I. Primary Sources 1.
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- 474 - Nabokov, Vladimir, Pale Fir
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- 476 - "Vladimir Nabokov on His Li
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-- 478 - II. Reference Bryer, Jacks
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- 480 - Stuart, Dabney, Nabokov, Th
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- 482 - Dembo, L. S., "Vladimir Nab
Page 495 and 496:
- 484 - Hyman, Stanley Edgar, "The
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- 48ti-. - (Autumn, 1968), pp. 655-
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- 488 - Arbor, 1974), pp. 70-83. Sk
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- 490 - Heidsieck, Arnold, Das Grot
Page 503:
- 492 - Shelston, Alan, Biography,
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