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

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the highest degree of lucidity and wisdom. It was said
above that a man's life becomes transparent at the
moment of death; its incidents and events assume their
correct proportions and can be evaluated. At the moment
of R. 's death infinitely more than his own life lies
open to his mind. His own past and past sentiments are
present to him, but also the sentiments of all men,
their philosophies and religions, "the entire solar
system" (84), and they all fall into place and he
knows more about them than he ever has. All of a sudden
he sees their proportions change. What has seemed
humble and negligible all along assumes "gigantic
proportions" (84), and other things dwindle, and their
"gigantic proportions" diminish until "the entire
solar system is but a reflection in the crystal of my
(or your) wrist watch" (84). As he sees the propor-
tions of things change, and as humble and trivial
things assume the same significance as "the shining
giants of our brain"27, his experience more and more
resembles that of the dying man in Sebastian Knight's
The Doubtful Asphodel:
And as the meaning of all things shone
through their shapes, many ideas and
events which had seemed of the utmost
importance dwindled not to insignificance,
for nothing could be insignificant
now, but to the same size which
other ideas and events, once denied any
importance, now attained Z8
R. 's knowledge far surpasses what he can convey
in words. He knows that if he could put it all down
in a book and explain his "total rejection of all re-
ligions ever dreamt up by man and [his] total compo-
sure in the face of total death... that book would