On Reading Pnin

I almost didn’t finish this book. My other books in progress were all more interesting than this one. But as I mentioned before, based on the raves Nabokov receives, I committed to read another novel of his besides Lolita. And I’m glad I persisted despite the lonely ending.


Timofey Pnin is a Russian émigré teaching at a small university in America. The book begins with descriptions of his inept preparations to give a lecture to a ladies club, a scene which is followed by one wherein he rents a room from a colleague, and an image of Pnin as a fumbling, eccentric, slightly pathetic professor emerges. We learn that because of his peculiarities he moves about every six months. As the story goes on, we see Pnin in action, get to peek at his memories, and overhear what others are saying about him, so that our image of the man becomes more complete: ridiculed and misunderstood by many, at ease nowhere, loved by no one, but brilliant and resistant. The peek at college life is darkly humorous. Pnin’s love affair with Liza is pathetically one sided. But Pnin comes into his own during my favorite episode, when he goes for his summer vacation to the home of another displaced Russian who has married and made money and invites his fellow émigrés to his home every other year. There we see Pnin with people who understand him and enjoy his company, despite his eccentricities.



Near the end, Pnin finally finds a home he likes and hosts a successful party which Nabokov masterfully describes. At the end of the evening, at the height of his glory and happiness since coming to this college, he learns his position is about to be dissolved. His department head, Hagen, is leaving for another school, and his replacement, Pnin’s office mate, dislikes him. For a moment Hagen holds out a bit of hope: a newly arriving star for the English department is also a Russian exile and wants Pnin to teach with him. This professor is revealed as our narrator: a Russian contemporary of Pnin’s, and a poet. In their Russian lives, they had met briefly a couple times, but after escaping, they both come to Paris, where Pnin fell in love with Liza, also a poet, who is infatuated with the narrator. When Pnin learns this man is whom he would work for, he refuses, and in the last scene flees in his little car from a meeting with him: “Then the little sedan boldly swung past the front truck and, free at last, spurted up the shining road, which one could make out narrowing to a thread of gold in the soft mist where hill after hill made beauty of distance, and where there was simply no saying what miracle might happen.” So though Pnin is “shot,” the narrator seems to suggest his future is golden. Nabokov has led us to love this ridiculed little man who acts so impetuously, but so sincerely.


Next in the collection is Pale Fire, which I started, but I’m afraid it will take me even longer than Pnin, and I don’t think I can continue to renew this library book. But I do love these Library of America collections, complete, sturdily bound, with thin but strong paper. A pleasure to read.