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

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words. He misapplies the words he has learnt with so
much devotion, thus creating some amazing mental pic-
tures ("I only am grazing" [40]). He also uses adven-
turous word formations all of his own which he uncon-
cernedly creates by analogy ("abstractical" [11]) or
by simply "Englishing" Russian words ("quittance"
[18]). He constantly moves on the wrong level of Eng-
lish, using formal words and phrases (not excluding
archaisms), no matter whether he is having a chat over
a meal or just asking someone to his house:
So I take the opportunity to extend a
cordial invitation to you to visit me
this evening. Half past eight, postmeridian.
A little house-heating soiree,
nothing more. Bring also your spouse -
or perhaps you are a Bachelor of Hearts?
(150-151)
Even when his English is not quite wrong, it is just
off the mark; most of the time it is formal and stilted;
so much so, in fact, that an occasional colloquialism
("O. K. " [104]) sounds rather out of place.
Something else must infallibly make him appear comic
to all those around him, and that is his, apparent in-
competence and helplessness in everyday situations and
with regard to commonplace little problems. He seems
to be quite unable to cope with life and its daily
little hazards in the same way as everybody else.
Pnin is on safe ground with literature. He loves it,
he understands it, he knows how to approach it, but
once he leaves his preoccupation with Russian litera-
ture and lore, he is on safe ground no longer. He then
seems to enter a completely new and dangerous world,
full of treacherous pitfalls, in which he gets caught