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

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that these two works constitute, the novel Pale Fire
can now be looked upon as an image of the relation
between the reality in which we live and art. These,
it has become sufficiently clear, must not be confused
one with the other. However, they cannot, and must
not, be completely separated either. Factual reality
is the source. of experiences and inspirations, which
the poet, storing, recombining, reshaping them, trans-
forms into art. This is precisely what Shade is seen
to be doing. Certain elements from his own life, ac-
tual experiences, spiritual experiences, thoughts
and convictions, can be recognized in the commentary,
all of them in new and surprising and striking sur-
roundings and combinations. Being able to trace them,
to compare their original, "real", and their new ar-
tistic shapes, to watch the poet selecting and trans-
forming them, one is given more than an insight into
the relation between reality and art: an insight is
granted into the actual process of literary creation.
Shade, within his fictional work, grants the same
insight when he shows Kinbote relying on and trans-
forming his (Kinbote's) "average reality" for his
creation; and outside and above the whole work is,
of course, Nabokov, who allows occasional glimpses
of his own reality as it reappears and looks in new
artistic shapes and surroundings. What one knows from
4.
Nabokov's theoretical remarks about literary creation
and about the relation between reality and art is
here shown in practice: