In chapter two, I argued for the presence of a Formalist, more specifically a Shklovskyite, influence within Nabokov's work. In the course of my discussion I suggested that Nabokov engaged with what I have characterized as Shklovsky's implicit preoccupation with perception and misperception, with the latter's contention that the mind does not apprehend the world as it really is. Equally resonant for Nabokov was the idea that art may strip away the film that obscures reality. We shall see that Nabokov's deluded artist figures often provide us with an ironic inversion of this model.