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Title: Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov ISBN: 0-679-72341-2 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 18 June, 1989 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (36 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: one of nabokov's best
Comment: PNIN is Vladimir Nabokov's fourth English language novel, or, perhaps more noteably, the novel that followed his only famous work, LOLITA. PNIN in every way stands up to LOLITA and his two subsequent and greatest novels, PALE FIRE and ADA. These four novels represent Nabokov at his artistic peak (include also his incomparable translation of Pushkin's EUGENE ONEGIN).
PNIN equals LOLITA in every imaginaive and enchanting category applied to prose, but it does not feature those same sexually explicit themes that made LOLITA so popular. So much the better: Nabokov's writing is not intended for the groin. PNIN is an asexual creation that attracts as naturally and as brilliantly as lolly-pop LOLITA.
PNIN is the creation of a moralist, not a writer of smut. As Nabokov compels readers to like and to sympathize with the monstorously cruel and selfish Humbert Humbert, he compels his readers to look down our unenlightened noses at moral, selfless and kind Pnin. Nabokov, of course, wants us to laugh at his Pnin throughout the entire novel, but he also wants us to respect his charater's superior intelligence, to admire Pnin's devotion for his ex-wife and Her son, and to laugh at, not identify with, those inferior characters that think Pnin is merely a bumbling dolt.
PNIN reacts to the classic novel, DON QUIXOTE, wherein the reader is invited to mercilessly and continuously laugh at that famous protagonist with out a shimmer of judgmental guilt--a result that Nabokov raged against in his lectures concerning QUIXOTE. Nabokov disarms readers who believe Pnin is merely a clown.
PNIN does not merely depict one particular point in Timofey Pnin's life--as has been suggested by certain reviewers from this website--but depicts the greater portion of Pnin's life, with an emphasis on the nine or ten semesters he taught at a good-sized college. This scope provides readers with a whole heck-of-a lot more personal information about Pnin than clowns are allowed, or necessarily disallowed. Pnin is as much of a clown as Joyce's Leopold Bloom (the two actually share many qualities).
In short, one should read PNIN because it is very, very funny and is Nabokov's most charming novel. Ignore the strange comments that accuse PNIN of not having a plot.
Rating: 5
Summary: Needles and Pnin
Comment: With this book, Timofei Pnin takes his place along side Leopold Bloom, Rabbit Angstrom, Holden Caufield, and Col. Aureliano Buendía among the great protagonists of 20th century literature.
A linguistics professor, the often hapless and despairing and always comical Mr. Pnin has an unexplainable pride and an obsessive-compulsive personality. Like the book's author Vladimir Nabokov, Mr. Pnin is a quirky Russian expatriate in middle class America: he would be hard pressed to be more foreign. And yet he is a wonderful illustration of everyone's fruitless attempts to control what cannot be controlled in their lives. He is a stinging parady of himself, of Mr. Nabokov, of us.
In my mind, Pnin surpasses even Mr. Nabakov's masterpiece Lolita, simply because so much of the story of unforgettable Lo-li-ta has become so cliché that much of the author's artistry is obscured from modern readers' eyes. But with Pnin, Mr. Nabokov's deft and subtle hand is plain to see.
Rating: 4
Summary: You can hear a "Pnin" drop...
Comment: One of Vladimir Nabokov's lesser-known works is "Pnin," a gently comic story about a perpetually lost Russian expatriate and the chaos that is his life. Nabokov slyly lampoons America, expatriates, psychiatry and fussiness through Pnin, but he managed never to be mean-spirited about it.
Timofey Pnin is a timid professor of the Russian language at an American college, who moves every semester. Originally from Russia himself, he struggles with English, trains, appliances, dental work, and his relationship with his manipulative ex-wife, who insists that he give financial aid to her young son. The offbeat Russian expatriate drifts through his life, trying to arrange things the way they should be.
At first glance, Pnin looks like a clueless, absentminded loser. However, after Nabokov shows us his lost loves, his absurd little life, his reminiscences, we see him differently. Okay, he's still a clueless, absentminded loser. But he's a loser with depth! "Pnin" has pessimism, but there's a certain sense of comic optimism as well (despite Nabokov's explanation that he dislikes happy endings). Pnin's theme song should be "I Will Survive."
Nabokov's writing is less rich here than in many of his other novels, in keeping with the humorous plot. Perhaps the funniest chapter is when he describes Victor's lack of psychiatric complexity, making fun of shrinks everywhere. But there's plenty of subtlety with the satire, such as the tragic story of Mira, a woman Pnin loved who was killed by Nazis. Or how Pnin washes the dishes after a disastrous party.
Pnin is ethical, generous and forgiving as well as fussy, picky and more than a little strange; he's perhaps the most sympathetic character Nabokov ever made. Nabokov pokes fun at Pnin while making us like him for his essential kindness. He's no buffoon, but a person who could really exist. The other characters aren't quite as vivid, although Victor (Pnin's ex-wife's son) is very good: the hapless artist son of two shrinks, who disappoints them by not having any weird complexes.
In the end, Nabokov's "Pnin" is a sort of personal Don Quixote who is dealing with the strangeness of his own life. Comical and a bit saddening, this is an undeservedly little-known book.
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Title: Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov ISBN: 0679723420 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 23 April, 1989 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov by VLADIMIR NABOKOV ISBN: 0679729976 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 09 December, 1996 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov ISBN: 0679725318 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 19 September, 1989 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Speak, Memory : An Autobiography Revisited by Vladimir Nabokov ISBN: 0679723390 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 28 August, 1989 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Bend Sinister by Vladimir Nabokov ISBN: 0679727272 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 14 April, 1990 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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