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

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That Nabokov does consider R. as one of his more
responsible, even though "rather grotesque"22 characters
can be deduced from the fact that possibly the
whole novel is to be considered as R. 's work. Martha
Duffy comes to this conclusion: "... it is broadly
hinted that Hugh may exist only as a creature of R's
pen"23
,
and Nabokov's own somewhat enigmatic state-
ments about Transparent Things seem to imply as much.
Asked about the identity of the "I" and the "we" on
the first page, he replies that "The solution... is so
simple that one is almost embarrassed to furnish it",
and he then gives a number of comments all of which
point to Mr. R. 24 The deepest thoughts of the book
certainly are expressed through the medium of R.
Both R. and Hugh Person are dead at the end of the
novel (according to Nabokov R. is already dead when
it begins). Death is that part of the future which is
the most unpredictable and the most chimeric. It is
one of those "eternities of darkness" on both sides
of our lives which are "caused... by the walls of time
separating me and my bruised fists from the free world
of
timelessness.,
?5
While the artist can see through
the present and gain a clear view of the past, and
while he can even "steal into realms that existed
before I was conceived"26, he cannot penetrate the
wall that conceals the darkness ahead ofhim. That
wall is equally opaque for Hugh and for R.; the artist
knows no more than the ordinary man, but both have
visions of death and for once their visions seem to
coincide. Hugh, in his dreams, tries in vain "to stop