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3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
A challenging read but a fruitful one. A frantic story wrapped in a complex narrative style that will leave you saying “…what was that?”.
Rereading this for the third time. I thought that at my age (32) I would finally understand more of the literary references, but I still don't. I first read this as a teenager -- the story of a 50+ Russian academic in an American university doesn't sound like it would have a lot of appeal, but I was charmed and delighted by Pnin - Nabokov's prose is very funny and his descriptions of hapless Pnin are appealing and charming. Rereading this, while I appreciated the humour and the way Nabokov plays with language, I was more aware of the sadness of this history, and the sense of dislocation and loneliness experienced by Pnin, and other émigrés and exiles. Pnin is kind, charming and permanently confused, and I feel he is forced into loneliness not just by his eccentric character, but because of his state of permanent exile.
I noticed that a number of this chapters were originally published separately in the New Yorker -- each chapter does function separately, and could be a short story, but they overlap and fit together as a whole, creating not a narrative, but deepening our understanding of Pnin. Nabokov's writing is very charming, and I think on every rereading I find more depth. Maybe I'll get more of the references when I'm 42!
I noticed that a number of this chapters were originally published separately in the New Yorker -- each chapter does function separately, and could be a short story, but they overlap and fit together as a whole, creating not a narrative, but deepening our understanding of Pnin. Nabokov's writing is very charming, and I think on every rereading I find more depth. Maybe I'll get more of the references when I'm 42!
oh Pnin, you lovable oaf! a book with heaps of charm, very clever word play, and dry humor that quickly caught my interest the beginning. often had me reflecting on intricacies of joy and kindness and what they meant to me and the surrounding world. i felt that the book quickly stagnated towards the middle though, and didn’t have me as eager to read it. a fun and surprisingly poignant read, that lost its momentum for me.
Livro calmo sem grande enredo em movimento. O humor de Nabokov é claro na sua escrita.
Reading Nabokov gives me a feeling of elation--the same sensation I got from reading books when I was a kid, a feeling I've always craved and which is harder and harder to come by. The depth, the velocity, the lightness and wit of his writing actually imparts to me a kind of mental freedom, a different kind of escapism from what I used to enjoy. I feel unburdened. There are some great books and writers who add to your load; Nabokov, to me, levitates.
Pnin doesn't quite stand alongside Lolita in terms of achievement, but sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, it is utterly pleasurable to read. And there is something underneath the eloquence and clever wordplay--a few moments where the darkness of Timofey Pnin's world stabs through (particularly in a heartbreaking passage having to do with Mira--if you've read it you know the one I mean).
Of course, the book has something to say about narration, too. Its fallibility, the fallibility of any telling of any story. Just as Pnin puzzles out the seemingly irreconcilable time discrepancies in Anna Karenina, we're left to puzzle over discrepancies in our narrator's telling of this story--the only telling we have to go by. I might have to read the book a few more times in order to decide what to make of this device, but coming at the end of the novel it certainly casts a shadow behind it.
The best thing about Nabokov is his capacity to surprise, as when Pnin is inexplicably brilliant at croquet. I'm sure I could read this book many more times, and it could go on surprising me. That knowledge makes me happy; pleasant surprises have always been the greatest escape.
Pnin doesn't quite stand alongside Lolita in terms of achievement, but sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, it is utterly pleasurable to read. And there is something underneath the eloquence and clever wordplay--a few moments where the darkness of Timofey Pnin's world stabs through (particularly in a heartbreaking passage having to do with Mira--if you've read it you know the one I mean).
Of course, the book has something to say about narration, too. Its fallibility, the fallibility of any telling of any story. Just as Pnin puzzles out the seemingly irreconcilable time discrepancies in Anna Karenina, we're left to puzzle over discrepancies in our narrator's telling of this story--the only telling we have to go by. I might have to read the book a few more times in order to decide what to make of this device, but coming at the end of the novel it certainly casts a shadow behind it.
The best thing about Nabokov is his capacity to surprise, as when Pnin is inexplicably brilliant at croquet. I'm sure I could read this book many more times, and it could go on surprising me. That knowledge makes me happy; pleasant surprises have always been the greatest escape.
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I was really surprised at how I did not get on with this book, after loving Pale Fire so much (admittedly 10 years ago). Pale Fire in many ways has similar themes of small college life and an oblivious, naive Russian academic dreaming of his homeland, so it's hard for me to pin down exactly why I didn't get on with this. I think I'd sum it up as
1) Nabokov comes across as absolutely bitter about everyone and everything - academia in general, the Russian émigré community, women, people like Pnin, American life, every character in the book - the only thing that's spared is the occasional hazy nostalgia for old Russia
2) A lot of the book describes tedious things - many characters, due to 1), can't do anything interesting and end up just being obnoxious. Tedious dinner parties, the most minor academic scuffles, lectures on deliberately tedious subjects (see 1) that also cut off before they can be interesting. The Russian emigres are all wealthy enough that they have no issue, Pnin himself has had an 8 year lectureship despite teaching nobody and academically creating nothing, the academics are all awful teachers and awful scholars (see 1) and there's no sign of the world underpinning it at all. Nobody actually poor enters the scene. Everyone is connected.
3) 1 and 2 combine to create a depiction that can't be sympathetic, can't feel vaguely realistic, and rarely attempts humour. Pnin feels like someone you should sympathise with - and positive reviews insist you should - but he feels constantly undermined by the writing. And ok, maybe I just feel very weird reading this kind of academic novel where someone can draw a reasonable salary for teaching one class to 3 people very very badly for 9 years - from the perspective of today's hypercompetitive academic world it feels like a pisstake to act like he's particularly hard done by.
Only after reading and looking at the blurb did I even consider the issue of the narrator being a liar or making things seem worse about Pnin. He only really takes centre stage in the last chapter and there's a few little bits about bad blood between them. It makes sense... but then it's still an unpleasant and unfunny book to read, it just has the excuse that that's the intended role of the narrator. I don't think it improves my opinion of the book overall.
1) Nabokov comes across as absolutely bitter about everyone and everything - academia in general, the Russian émigré community, women, people like Pnin, American life, every character in the book - the only thing that's spared is the occasional hazy nostalgia for old Russia
2) A lot of the book describes tedious things - many characters, due to 1), can't do anything interesting and end up just being obnoxious. Tedious dinner parties, the most minor academic scuffles, lectures on deliberately tedious subjects (see 1) that also cut off before they can be interesting. The Russian emigres are all wealthy enough that they have no issue, Pnin himself has had an 8 year lectureship despite teaching nobody and academically creating nothing, the academics are all awful teachers and awful scholars (see 1) and there's no sign of the world underpinning it at all. Nobody actually poor enters the scene. Everyone is connected.
3) 1 and 2 combine to create a depiction that can't be sympathetic, can't feel vaguely realistic, and rarely attempts humour. Pnin feels like someone you should sympathise with - and positive reviews insist you should - but he feels constantly undermined by the writing. And ok, maybe I just feel very weird reading this kind of academic novel where someone can draw a reasonable salary for teaching one class to 3 people very very badly for 9 years - from the perspective of today's hypercompetitive academic world it feels like a pisstake to act like he's particularly hard done by.
Only after reading and looking at the blurb did I even consider the issue of the narrator being a liar or making things seem worse about Pnin. He only really takes centre stage in the last chapter and there's a few little bits about bad blood between them. It makes sense... but then it's still an unpleasant and unfunny book to read, it just has the excuse that that's the intended role of the narrator. I don't think it improves my opinion of the book overall.
Le prof de litte qui nous oblige à le lire je la retiens j'ai même pas pu essayer de l'apprécier
I read Pnin at the same time as I read Lolita, as a kind of palliative. Apparently Nabokov wrote these two at the same time so it makes sense to read these two at the same time.
Pnin isn't a novel so much as a series of vignettes. I'll have to look it up to see if they were all published individually sometime. It gives us an absurd caricature of a being: a little nut brown professor, a man trapped linguistically and psychologically in his mother Russia, a real schlimazel, the Jerry Gergich of New England's Russian exiles. The narrator (perhaps Nabokov himself?) using his omniscient-author abilities and his much better grasp of both Russian and English mocks poor Pnin as viciously as any of the other characters in the book, and in fact encodes mockery into the very language of the text. But Pnin is a kind soul, a profound romantic, a man who has lived through innumerable tragedies. The glimpses into his thoughts are like punches in the gut. Characters make fun of this funny little foreigner unsubtly ogling co-eds while the poor man is only gaping because of his flashbacks to when his true love got killed in Buchenwald.
So Professor Pnin is the opposite of Lolita's Humbert Humbert: one is an awkward and ugly saint and the other is a beautiful and articulate psychopath. An angel in disguise as a monster and the other way around.
Pnin alternates between funny and sad effortlessly and will bring you to the edge of your seat with a dropped nutcracker. You know the scene I'm talking about.
Pnin isn't a novel so much as a series of vignettes. I'll have to look it up to see if they were all published individually sometime. It gives us an absurd caricature of a being: a little nut brown professor, a man trapped linguistically and psychologically in his mother Russia, a real schlimazel, the Jerry Gergich of New England's Russian exiles. The narrator (perhaps Nabokov himself?) using his omniscient-author abilities and his much better grasp of both Russian and English mocks poor Pnin as viciously as any of the other characters in the book, and in fact encodes mockery into the very language of the text. But Pnin is a kind soul, a profound romantic, a man who has lived through innumerable tragedies. The glimpses into his thoughts are like punches in the gut. Characters make fun of this funny little foreigner unsubtly ogling co-eds while the poor man is only gaping because of his flashbacks to when his true love got killed in Buchenwald.
So Professor Pnin is the opposite of Lolita's Humbert Humbert: one is an awkward and ugly saint and the other is a beautiful and articulate psychopath. An angel in disguise as a monster and the other way around.
Pnin alternates between funny and sad effortlessly and will bring you to the edge of your seat with a dropped nutcracker. You know the scene I'm talking about.
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
lighthearted
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
as always, nabokov’s work is a wonderful read full with well crafted prose spanning from cover to cover. the book discusses the life of the loveable and dorky professed pnin, a russian emigre, as he navigates life in america. the novel is very slow paced and lacks a really interesting plot line, but in the end your love for pnin makes the slow journey worth it.