Friday, January 23, 2015

Vladimir Nabokov


Pnin is one of those books that'd been on my list for a while. Though I must admit, it wasn't that high. Pale Fire sort of scared me off. 

That said, Pnin's a funny book, an engaging one, and it immediately pulls at you. Pnin, of course, is a sorrowful man, almost pathetic, but he's endearing, too. Oddly likable, I guess (for a faded academic). 

For me, it's Nabokov who's the hero of the story. His prose cannot be beat: I mean, talk about a writer in command of his medium. Line by line, page by page, Pnin is the work of a master. As a stylist, Nabokov must be toward the top of the list; that much, I concede. 

Pnin doesn't move much as a book - or at least its plot is less ambitious than I'd imagined. But the novel does come full circle in a sort of magical way, where the end meets the beginning, and Pnin's stories become the stuff of comedy and lore. Along the way, Nabokov subjects his characters (not just Pnin) to travails almost for the sake of extending himself as a writer, of trying his best - and succeeding - to describe their condition (part pathos, but idyllic). 

As a treatment of academia, I prefer Lucky Jim; but as a treatment of character, it's Pnin

Line of the book: "The evolution of sense is, in a sense, the evolution of nonsense." Which must be true. 

4 comments:

  1. Well, I'm hooked. Now I have to read Pnin. And here is an idea: you or I or someone ought to come up with a list of "great" books in which academia (the petri dish for fascinating characters and plots) is featured. Hey, it's just an idea of the top of my head.

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  2. For humor alone, the first 50 pages of Brideshead deserve a place on the list!

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    1. Jesse, I confess that you've come up with another title that everyone should read but I have neglected. Oh, the shame of it all. So many damned good books, and so little time for reading.

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  3. Brideshead is a must! That book is tremendous.

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