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

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that has as yet not formed any idea about them, that
is ready to marvel at them and is consequently
filled with admiration for what it sees. The less he
understands about things, the more wonderful they appear
to him. "On gadgets he doted with a kind of dazed,
superstitious delight. Electric devices enchanted him.
Plastics swept him off his feet. He had a deep admiration
for the zipper" (13-14). The very delight he
takes in these things makes him appear odd. The zipper,
plastics, electric devices and thousands of other
things have become very ordinary objects. Everybody
uses them, everybody takes them for granted. Nobody
thinks about them any more; much less does anybody
develop a "deep admiration" for them. It is with regard
to them clearly a wrong (and therefore comic) emotion.
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Furthermore Pnin is not content to simply admire
them and to use them as they ought to be used. They
seem to him to ask for close examination and investigation.
"Out of sheer scientific curiosity" (40) he
experiments, he tries to find out to what other uses
they can be put, and this is fatal. Somehow it looks
as if things had developed some kind of incomprehensible
intelligence and consciously defended themselves
against the unaccustomed treatment. Pnin's scientific
curiosity, his kindly, though unusual, approach provoke
the most vicious behaviour on their part`and are
answered by unpredictable attacks. Things become unmanageable
in his hands: They "fell apart, or attacked
him, or refused to function, or viciously got them-
selves lost as soon as they entered the sphere of his