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

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quite firmly in his own death and pretends that it
is only his disembodied spirit that goes about the
ordinary affairs of life, that speaks to and talks
about people. Yet such is the underlying comic for-
mula of this "twinkling tale. "2
It is also the necessary precondition for the quest
the narrator sets out to undertake. From the moment
at which he moves into the house at 5 Peacock Street
and gets to know a group of emigre Russians, he does
not talk much about himself any more. At least, he
pretends that he is only present as the narrating "I"
that watches what is going on, that observes people
and comments on them. He does talk a lot about a cer-
tain Smurov, a young man who is a newcomer to the
group. He watches him closely and attentively; he
notes how other people react to him, and he sets him-
self the aim of "[digging] up the true Smurov" (59),
"the type, the model, the original" (58).
It does not'take one long to realize that he him-
self is Smurov. He has always watched himself; he
has never been able to stop doing so, even when he
desperately wanted to, and behind this obsession, it
seems, has been a constant preoccupation with the
riddle of his own personality and, in fact, his whole
existence:
...
I was always exposed, always wide-eyed;
even in sleep I did not cease to watch over
myself, understanding nothing of my existence,
growing crazy at the thought
being
of not
able to stop being aware of myself-... (16-17)
If his suicide has not freed him of his obsession,
it has yet given him a kind of freedom he did not