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

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disconnected with the story of Pnin's life, but soon
reveals how intimately its implications are related
with those which emerge from behind the mere surface
events in that story. For the absurd Winds, perseveringly
and gloomily subjecting their son to one test
after another, stand as examples of how the narrowmindedness
and inflexibility to be observed in all
fields of life have been sanctified, and have become
the underlying principles of a science that pretends
to knowledge about what is potentially the most alive
thing imaginable, namely the human mind. Absurdly,
and in the name of science, and in order to prove the
results of its researches, the living mind is expected
to react according to dead and established patterns.
Only if it does, can a person be counted as "normal".
If if does not, as Victor's mind, that person becomes
a "problem", no matter what the reason for the nonconformity.
The rigid system allows of no place for
what is the greatest proof of the possibilities and
of the life of the human mind: for originality and
genius.
In a world Which is dominated by the views which
have just been described, not only Pnin, but everybody
who is either original or different from his
surroundings, arouses, if not amusement, either dislike
or suspicion. Laurence G. Clements, jor example,
is "the most original and least liked scholar on the
Waindell campus" (156). Victor's teacher, Lake, who,
although he himself lacks originality, can detect
and appreciate it in others, who is indifferent to