I don't think there is much of a comparison between Clare and Sebastian of TRLSK, or Zina and Fyodor in The Gift, except that its interesting to see how N. grew, how his approach to such dreamy characters in the later works became much tougher minded and mature. Wolfe, I think might be more closely related to Smurov of The Eye, who also tells pathetic lies, about his exciting experiences in the White army. As I said before, I understand N. was trying to suggest that the use of imagination is a poetic enhancement to reality that makes life more than bland "philistine materialism", I just don't believe that this story is a very convincing dramatization of the idea, which is thin anyway (later uses of it in works like Ada, and Pale Fire are complex and sophisticated, and allow a much more interesting truth than all this "imagination magic" stuff, but I'll skip it here). The thing especially where Wolfe brings up how he feels his imaginative trip to Bombay is more real than his friend's actual trip strikes me as the most fatuous idea of all: just because the friend doesn't cater to his cheesy romantic "far east" exotica cliches, he thinks the man is dull and spiritually lacking somehow. Maybe if Wolfe were a little more interested in what the man had experienced, he might have made discoveries about the place that far outstripped the canned glamor of his fantasies. Least that's how it strikes me.

 

 

"RESEMBLANCE to one's own. [...] She had imagination [...] She possessed,
without knocking as one might step into the wrong room BECAUSE OF ITS
VAGUE
too,THAT REAL SENSE OF BEAUTY which has far less to do with artthan with



the CONSTANT READINESS to discern the HALO AROUND THE FRYING PAN or the
likeness between a weeping-willow and a Skie terrier."

Natasha's and Wolfe's fantasies / visions are different, it is very
true,but there IS a "vague resemblance" : both revel in imagination and
use
it NOT as a PATHETIC way of escaping reality, but as the only valid way
to
cope with it.

The friend in Bombay can see only the frying pan ("work-related
squabbles... etc..." in other words what most people take for "real
experience" or "reality")and NOT the HALO around it, while Wolfe can see

this halo and communicate it to  Natasha, even if he never went to
Bombay.

It is not "poetry VERSUS "the things...."" but poetry AS the MEANS to
cope
with this reality, a means which enables Wolfe and Natasha to outlive
their
condition of poor penniless emigrés and NOT to be engulfed by it.

Laurence Hochard"