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3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book made me laugh out loud at a cafe, at city hall, and in my living room. I certainly did not understand all of the Russian and French, but I did look up a few English words that were familiar but not entirely known to me. What a pleasure to read Nabokov and enjoy his playing with language in a book that does not feature sexual deviation as a major theme. (I am not taking a swipe at Lolita, or Ada, or Ardor: I have not read the latter and do not reject the value of the former, although I did not enjoy reading it 35 years ago.) Who cannot love Pnin?
A story that can be so funny and so tragic at the same time. Pnin's happiest times are followed by heartbreak over and over again. You can't help but feel sorry for him.
I laughed out loud at times. I especially loved the first chapter "and he still did not know that he was on the wrong train". It reads like a song or a poem. The parts in Waindell are most alive for me, the Russia or Paris parts feel less engaging, more fuzzy - maybe rightly so as they are further away in time and location.
There are small references to McCarthy'ism and the anti-Communist frenzy of the times, I suppose we can read the whole book as an absurd but real story set at an absurd but real time.
I laughed out loud at times. I especially loved the first chapter "and he still did not know that he was on the wrong train". It reads like a song or a poem. The parts in Waindell are most alive for me, the Russia or Paris parts feel less engaging, more fuzzy - maybe rightly so as they are further away in time and location.
There are small references to McCarthy'ism and the anti-Communist frenzy of the times, I suppose we can read the whole book as an absurd but real story set at an absurd but real time.
One of those occasional novels I desperately wish was longer. An often humours but occasionally tragic look at emigration, 1950s American academia, and the struggle to be understood among language and cultural barriers.
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I've always meant to read some Nabokov, but I'm not at all sure that I am constitutionally equipped to handle Lolita. Pnin turns out to have been a great choice: it shows off Nabokov's style, while not requiring even the hint of a trigger warning. (Indeed, Nabokov reportedly wrote chapters of Pnin as a sort of palate cleanser to shake off the heaviness of channeling Humbert Humbert.) Instead of using eloquent self-justification to depict a monster, in Her uses a constant stream of third-party ridicule and comic anecdotes to poke fun at a lovable, charmingly misunderstood main character with a heart of gold.
The writing is enjoyable, if slightly stuffy. The wry little anecdotes seem constantly to be veering off onto absent-minded tangents, but usually turn out to be well constructed enough to wrap up with a neat, understated bow. Once I got used to the fact that there is no actual plot, but just a series of short-story character sketches, I got into the groove and really enjoyed it.
The writing is enjoyable, if slightly stuffy. The wry little anecdotes seem constantly to be veering off onto absent-minded tangents, but usually turn out to be well constructed enough to wrap up with a neat, understated bow. Once I got used to the fact that there is no actual plot, but just a series of short-story character sketches, I got into the groove and really enjoyed it.
What a drastic contrast between this novel and Lolita! Reading the two books close together gives some good insight to Nabokov's prowess as a writer and character builder. Where Humbert is vile, conniving, and arrogant, Timofey Pnin is sweet, endearing, quixotic. I was utterly charmed by Pnin and really cared about him! Like when Pnin is washing the dishes and drops the nutcracker into the sink and you think it is the punch bowl-- I gasped outloud and almost cried. And then felt such relief when it was just the goblet. There are few characters I've ever been this emotionally invested in. Here are some of my favorite snapshots that illustrate who he is:
-when as a child he has a "tussle with the wallpaper" during a fever and cannot fall asleep because he is so plagued by the incomprehensibility of the patterned design
-when he stops pondering the mechanisms of the universe to help a haughty and unappreciative squirrel-- who is eerily similar to his ex-wife-- drink from a water fountain
-when his landlady tries to help him understand a magazine comic to cheer him up and he assumes the speech bubbles are depictions of atomic bomb explosions
-when he delightfully plods away in the library on his research, wearing rubber gloves to avoid the static of metal files and nearly crumbled in despair when he realizes he left an index card of notes in a 2500 page volume-- thinking he must meticulously comb the book page by page-- until a kind soul comes by, up-ends the book, and shakes the index card out.
Pnin is heroically selfless, oblivious and optimistic. I think he is so refreshing as a character because he doesn't think the world owes him anything and he is purely kind. He says at one point "Is sorrow not, one asks, the only thing in the world people really possess?" I felt protective of this sweet soul and disdainful of the many characters that misuse him, snicker at him, and walk all over him. It is obvious that Nabokov wrote him lovingly and with serious fondness.
The writing is just so impressive and effortlessly gorgeous. This guy was a genius. I can't think of anyone else that writes so beautifully in their mother tongue as well as in another language. And who else can describe a mechanical pencil sharpener with such dazzling poetry?! And I quote:
"That highly satisfying, highly philosophical implement that goes ticonderoga-ticonderoga, feeding on the yellow finish and sweet wood, and ends up in a kind of soundlessly spinning ethereal void as we all must."
This book is a masterpiece.
-when as a child he has a "tussle with the wallpaper" during a fever and cannot fall asleep because he is so plagued by the incomprehensibility of the patterned design
-when he stops pondering the mechanisms of the universe to help a haughty and unappreciative squirrel-- who is eerily similar to his ex-wife-- drink from a water fountain
-when his landlady tries to help him understand a magazine comic to cheer him up and he assumes the speech bubbles are depictions of atomic bomb explosions
-when he delightfully plods away in the library on his research, wearing rubber gloves to avoid the static of metal files and nearly crumbled in despair when he realizes he left an index card of notes in a 2500 page volume-- thinking he must meticulously comb the book page by page-- until a kind soul comes by, up-ends the book, and shakes the index card out.
Pnin is heroically selfless, oblivious and optimistic. I think he is so refreshing as a character because he doesn't think the world owes him anything and he is purely kind. He says at one point "Is sorrow not, one asks, the only thing in the world people really possess?" I felt protective of this sweet soul and disdainful of the many characters that misuse him, snicker at him, and walk all over him. It is obvious that Nabokov wrote him lovingly and with serious fondness.
The writing is just so impressive and effortlessly gorgeous. This guy was a genius. I can't think of anyone else that writes so beautifully in their mother tongue as well as in another language. And who else can describe a mechanical pencil sharpener with such dazzling poetry?! And I quote:
"That highly satisfying, highly philosophical implement that goes ticonderoga-ticonderoga, feeding on the yellow finish and sweet wood, and ends up in a kind of soundlessly spinning ethereal void as we all must."
This book is a masterpiece.
funny
lighthearted
funny
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes