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

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are brother and sister is seen as one of the elements
that form the highly stylized surface pattern of the
novel, and if one sees them not so much as an
incestuous. couple but as the ideal lovers that they
in fact are.
Strange as it may seem to speak of their love in
philosophical terms, there is an element in it which
gives it a metaphysical dimension and relates it
directly with Van's (Nabokov's) quest for reality
which is in this novel tied up with his preoccupation
with time. Mason accuses Van repeatedly of being un-
able to face reality, of attempting to opt out of life,
of creating other worlds (Antiterra and his version
of Ardis) "in order to find protection and privacy,
in order to avoid facing reality. " 70 She also accuses
him of not having understood and of abusing Marvell's
Garden
Van uses Marvell's poem to augment the
effect of his botanical images. By describing
the children's copulation in
terms of the visible flora, Van attempts
to portray the naturalness of the scene -
but it is a quite debased version of
Marvell's innocent garden! By evoking
Marvell lIs poem, Van wants to establish
Ardis as Eden, like the garden in the
poem, and to establish his own work as
literature. In using Marvell's poem to
justify his own concern with gardens,
he is attempting falsely to justify
himself by saying that a great poet did
the same sort of thing. 7l
Marvell's speaker, she argues, delights in the sensu-
ous pleasures of the garden, but he transcends them.
Nature, in his garden, is a setting that induces a
meditative state of mind, and