Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov tells the story of professor Timofey Pnin who teaches Russian at a small New England college in the early 1950's. It is the story also of the immigrant experience at that time.

It is Nabokov's intense development of this one character that takes up the entire book. Other characters are present but they really don't matter. It's Pnin that this book is about. You get to know him intimately, but find that you really don't know him at all. There is no shortage of characters that take advantage of him and his many shortcomings help to spell out his predicament.

As the story begins, he is on his way to give a speech to a ladies' group in a nearby town. So like the character we come to know, he gets on the wrong train and needs to constantly assure himself that he has his speech in his pocket, and his awkwardness among others becomes apparent.

The love of his life has dumped him for another, more suitable husband, a "genius" but Pnin will take her back, no questions asked and under any circumstances. He is preparing to leave France and emigrate to the United States when Liza shows up again. "He was halfway through the dreary hell that had been devised by European bureaucrats for holders of that miserable thing, the Nansen passport, when one damp April day in 1940 there was a vigorous ring at his door and Liza tramped in, puffing and carrying before her like a chest of drawers a seven month pregnancy."

He is totally oblivious of his strange characteristics and has no idea that his colleagues at the college ridicule him but all of this make him that much more sympathetic and you can't help but like him. Highly recommended. ( )

Quirky Nabokovian fun. ( )

My teacher John O"Conner once described his response to Nabokov as "I just want to read a novel, I don't want to be tricked." Pnin retains much of the trickster's apparatus, but its significance is suppressed, and one can enjoy it more or less straight as story perfectly balanced between pathos and bathos. ( )

I would recommend this book to anyone who wanted to work their way slowly into Russian Literature. It is a light-hearted story about a school teacher who meets with some difficulties. It is humorous and a relatively easy read. I thoroughly enjoyed Pnin. ( )

Jan. 2009