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

-
194 -.
Sebastian
writes:
All things belong to the same order of
things, for such is the oneness of human
perception, the oneness of individuality,
the oneness of matter, ...
The only real
number is one, the rest are mere repetition
(99),
and seems to echo with this what has been said about
mystical experiences. One of their common charac-
teristic
is
the presence of a consciousness of the
Oneness of everything. All creaturely
existence is experienced as a unity, as
All in One and One in All. 57
Things are not inherently good or bad, gentle or
cruel. The contradiction arises only when moral
terms are applied that classify them as either one
or the other:
When God created the world and all was
done, He said, It is good. " This "good",
to be sure, has no moral meaning.
V's experience in the hospital can be seen in
the context of all this. What he says in his commen-
tary on The Doubtful Asphodel (a commentary which
reads rather like a good summary) offers a valuable
help towards placing his experience. In our search
for the answer to all questions concerning the meaning
of things, and to our questions concerning life and
death, he says, paraphrasing Sebastian's words,
...
the greatest surprise [is] perhaps
that in the course of one's earthly
existence, with one's brain encompassed
by an iron ring, by the close-fitting
dream of one's own personality - one
had not made by chance that simple mental
jerk, which would have set free imprisoned
thought and granted it the
great understanding (167-168).