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

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superficially is about. He twists and falsifies facts
until they fit into his story. But this very story is
the proof that he has seen through the surface and
has penetrated to the "underside of the weave" (17)
and the central concern of Shade's work. "It is the
underside of the weave that entrances the beholder",
and with this part of the poem, which is the more
difficult one to grasp, his commentary has a subtle
and intimate connection.
It is Kinbote's tragedy that in his mind (as in
Luzhin's) art encroaches on life until he is incapable
of distinguishing between them and takes the one for
the
other.
However, art can be no mare than a means of transcending
"average reality" and understanding "true reality",
and uncovering it by shaping an artistic image of it.
An artist cannot, and must not try to, make his creation.
part of his actual world and life, nor must he identify
himself with it until he sees himself as part of it.
Madness would be the consequence of such a confusion,
and it is in fact the consequence in Kinbote's case.
He completely identifies himself and those around him
with the illusory beings of his own story, i. e. his
artistic rendering of what he has perceived. His tragedy
is rendered more poignant by the fact that, although
he has proved to be so perceptive and has penetrated to
a superior form of reality, he should be caught in a
purely illusory world which exists only in his own mind.
His tragedy, in its turn, becomes the source of comedy
in that it has its expression in the ludicrous