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

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consciousness returns to him. The idea he tries all
along to impress on the reader is that he is not a
live person any more: it is only his "thought", as he
puts it, that "lives on by momentum" (29), and all he.
experiences is no more than a "postexistent chimera" (31).
If this is so, human thought must indeed be "a mighty
thing" (29), for even after his supposed death it
recreates to perfection all the things he knew in life,
including a hollow tooth.
It also furnishes his memory with the exact details
of his (attempted) suicide. Looking back on it, he
even seems to be aware of a streak of irony and absurd-
ity in a situation that, after all, marked a serious
crisis in his life: He has had specific and yet rather
vague ideas of "how people went about shooting them-
selves" (26). In his imagination this is a ceremony
that should follow a certain established pattern.
There are the "traditional letters" (26) to those whom
one knows and loves, the tidying up of things, the
clean linen one is supposed to put on, one's money
to dispose of... But "I knew few people and loved
no one" (26); so what is the use of writing letters?
All he possesses in the way of money are twenty marks.
Is this worth the trouble of putting it in an envelope
and leaving it to someone? The tradition of suicide
is rather too solemn and pompous for the "wretched,
4.
shivering, vulgar little man" (26) he sees in the
mirror. When his time has come, he is not up to executing
all the moves that tradition requires. Instead, he makes
a very unconventional and unceremonious exit (after