Short & Sweet Treats discussion

Let's discuss Pnin here!

Since the book was only seven chapters, we will discuss it here in one thread. Please use spoiler tags when possible.

Share your thoughts! Share your favorite characters, moments or quotes.

does anyone know how this title is pronounced? I think I remember seeing that it's pronounced like pah-nēēn?

Pnin*pronounced "P'neen" from NY Times, so there is no real vowel between the "p" and "n".

http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/02...

This is also a good article about the book.

thanks Julie! looks good!

Thank YOU for introducing this book to me--looking forward to it :-)

so am I Julia. the description looks good. I got it from the library and im ready to go!

Nine times out of ten, Julia, if you see a link like that it's a pirated copy.

Unless you can see that it's being distributed by a reputable source like a publisher, author, library, project gutenberg, etc you can pretty much assume any book you find online is illegal. And that goes doubly for any book published after the 1930 or so.

(Just had a look at the rest of this guy's blog, and he mentions he was sent a cease and desist letter for violating French Copyright laws.)

OH NO, thanks so much for letting me know, Melanti! I never broke copyright as a teacher, so I'll delete the post immediately.

wow! well thank you Julia for trying to let us know about it. and thank you Melanti for making us aware as well!

so far i like learning about the quirky Pnin. "On gadgets he doted with a kind of dazed, superstitious delight. Electric devices enchanted him. Plastics swept him off his feet. He had a deep admiration for the zipper."

LaLaLa Laura wrote: "does anyone know how this title is pronounced? I think I remember seeing that it's pronounced like pah-nēēn?"

Nabokov is originally from Russia and under the pseudonym Vladimir Sirin his writings were in Russian. I´m from Slovakia. We have lot of similarities in language with Russians :)So I think is pronounced like is written :) And with that I mean, you need to read "i" like "e". :)

oh I didn't know that! thank you , Luciska!

I was able to place a library hold on The Secret History of Vladimir Nabokov by Andrea Pitzer, which just came out in March of this year. Booklist offered this commentary:

"In a personal note Nabokov sent to Solzhenitsyn in 1974, on the day the dissident writer was expelled from the Soviet Union, Pitzer recognizes a telling connection between two writers who shared more than most critics have realized. For beneath the consummate artifice of Nabokov’s tales, Pitzer discerns a hidden historical vision aligned to a surprising degree with Solzhenitsyn’s. Largely undetected, the same nightmarish world of Communist brutality that Solzhenitsyn exposed in his Gulag Archipelago lies embedded in the recesses of Nabokov’s major works, including Bend Sinister, Pnin, and Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle The ugly historical effects of the Soviet Union’s open-air nuclear testing lie behind otherwise puzzling features of Pale Fire. Perhaps most surprising is the presence in the depths of Nabokov’s (in)famous Lolita of the horrific history of the Nazi death camps. Through her historically grounded readings of his fiction, Pitzer discredits the widespread but misleading perception of Nabokov as an art-for-art’s-sake writer indifferent to the moral and political exigencies of his day. But as readers explore his devious strategies for veiling sobering historical realities in aesthetic illusions, they slowly become aware of the interpretive responsibilities that Nabokov places on the reader. A penetrating analysis certain to compel a major reassessment of the Nabokov canon."

This is all brand new to me, since I've never read nor taught Nabokov in my 31 year teaching career. Always good to explore new territory :-)

wow that is pretty deep, Julia. I had no idea there was so much meaning behind Nabakov's work.

I finally got my copy from the library today, and I was chuckling to myself at our coffee shop as I began; some of the "one-liners" are so clever! I liked the "gadget" one you quoted, Laura--and here's one with which I can totally sympathize:

"His life was a constant war with insensate objects that fell apart, or attacked him, or refused to function, or viciously got themselves lost as soon as they entered the sphere of his existence."

Checking on some vocabulary, SURD:

"There are human solids and there are human surds, and Clements and Pnin belonged to the latter variety." (Vintage edition, p. 41)

"Surds are irrational numbers such as the square root of 2; they include transcendental numbers such as pi.... So the opposition VN is evoking, based on the wordplay of s...ds, is surely beween prosaic solidity, squareness, bourgeois philistinism, on the one hand and some kind of individuality, transcendence, otherness on the other."

Anthony Stadlen, from the Nabokov archives
https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin...

This may be one of the most poignant books I've ever read--Pnin is breaking my heart even as he makes me smile. I've always loved Russian literature, and I'm so grateful to this group for choosing this book. More specifics later--this is just a thank you :-)

Julia wrote: "This may be one of the most poignant books I've ever read--Pnin is breaking my heart even as he makes me smile. I've always loved Russian literature, and I'm so grateful to this group for choosing ..."

Oh, how sweet of you to say, Julia! Although we are still new, our members have made some pretty nice selections so far. Thank you for saying that.

I look forward to reading Pnin and getting to know him. I don't have it on my e-reader so I am going to binge read it this weekend!

Can't wait to share our favorite lines; Nabokov is reminding me of the power of description! Here's just one small gem he does with, of all things, a pencil sharpener :-)

"With the help of the janitor he screwed onto the side of the desk a pencil sharpener--that highly satisfying, highly philosophical implement that goes ticonderoga-ticonderoga, feeding on the yellow finish and sweet wood, and ends up in a kind of soundlessly spinning ethereal void as we all must."

Dust to dust, indeed--

I just finished and need to mull this one over for a bit; found these comments, which stress the "unreliable narrator" as an aspect of the book:

"One of the best-loved of Nabokov's novels, Pnin features his funniest and most heart-rending character. Professor Timofey Pnin is a haplessly disoriented Russian emigre precariously employed on an American college campus in the 1950s. Pnin struggles to maintain his dignity through a series of comic and sad misunderstandings, all the while falling victim both to subtle academic conspiracies and to the manipulations of a deliberately unreliable narrator. (bold mine)

Initially an almost grotesquely comic figure, Pnin gradually grows in stature by contrast with those who laugh at him. Whether taking the wrong train to deliver a lecture in a language he has not mastered or throwing a faculty party during which he learns he is losing his job, the gently preposterous hero of this enchanting novel evokes the reader's deepest protective instinct.

Serialized in "The New Yorker" and published in book form in 1957, Pnin brought Nabokov both his first National Book Award nomination and hitherto unprecedented popularity."

http://books.google.com/books/about/P...

Poor Pnin! I do feel protective over him!

I agree, Laura--"the gently preposterous hero of this enchanting novel evokes the reader's deepest protective instinct." (from my last post).

One issue is this unreliable narrator; "The book's seemingly unreliable narrator identifies himself as one 'Vladimir Vladimirovich N---' and bears similarities to Nabokov himself, such as his interest in lepidoptery and his landed-gentry Russian émigré past." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pnin

So we only see Prin through the eyes of someone who doesn't like him! Not sure why Nabokov chose to use this POV, but I still liked the Pnin who could be glimpsed behind the buffoon.

I just bought this yesterday! I kept seeing comments pop up on this thread, so the lively discussion, as well as my love for other Nabokov works, has convinced me to join the bandwagon! ;-) I have about 150 pages in another book that I'm going to finish up tomorrow, then try and jump in the conversation...I'm looking forward to it!

woo hoo! Teresa!

I had given the book 4 stars, and made this comment in my review:

"The only reason the book is not a 5 star for me is Chapter 4, which brings in Victor as the son of Pnin's divorced wife. The whole intrusion of this boy into Pnin's life seems artificial compared to the rest of the novella."

Just wondered how others felt; certainly all the details about Victor's painting were very interesting, but this character just didn't seem to "fit", other than to show Pnin's compassion for a boy that wasn't his own child.

This is so different from Lolita. I'm constantly amazed by Nabokov's command of English. It's certainly better than mine and I'm a native speaker!

He just mentioned seeing students napping amid "ruins of knowledge" and I can picture the whole library with just those three words.

Daniel wrote: "I think it would make it pretty exhausting interacting with him on a regular basis...."

I definitely agree!

Julia wrote: "The only reason the book is not a 5 star for me is Chapter 4, which brings in Victor as the son of Pnin's divorced wife. The whole intrusion of this boy into Pnin's life seems artificial compared to the rest of the novella."

It seems a bit out of place to me as well.

Now that I'm done with the book, I'm going back and reading the introduction. It says that the various chapters of the book were actually published individually as stand-alone short stories in the New Yorker, then compiled, edited and republished as a novel. And it speculates that Nabokov did it this way because he was writing Lolita at the time and knew it would be very difficult to find a willing publisher so he wrote the Pnin stories concurrently to give him some money to live on.

So, if it was originally a short story, there'd be nothing for it to be out of place from. I've read quite a few fix-up novels where one or two chapters are oddballs.

It's a bit strange though... the separate chapters don't really seem satisfying on their own. Well, chapter 6 could. But for instance, the punchline for chapter 1 is tucked all the way into the very end of chapter 7.

who is the narrator?

I haven't made it very far (2 chapters), but WOW! I'm LOVING Pnin!!! I am thoroughly enjoying all the descriptions, and its perfect for me, with its easily digestible bits. However, while short, its incredibly dense. So, what could be a one or two hour read quickly turns into a few days of pondering and re-reading of certain passages. More thoughts to follow as I delve deeper into Pnin's life. I DO think the 'unreliable narrator' aspect is of vital importance here...something I'm trying to take into consideration with each sentence I read.
Happy reading, all!!!
~Teresa~

LaLaLa Laura wrote: "who is the narrator?"

"The book's seemingly unreliable narrator identifies himself as one 'Vladimir Vladimirovich N---' and bears similarities to Nabokov himself, such as his interest in lepidoptery and his landed-gentry Russian émigré past." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pnin

In the story, he's the one who takes over Pnin's job at the end, so is a fellow teacher at the university.

Julia wrote: "LaLaLa Laura wrote: "who is the narrator?"

"The book's seemingly unreliable narrator identifies himself as one 'Vladimir Vladimirovich N---' and bears similarities to Nabokov himself, such as his..."

Which is odd since Pnin is modeled partly on Nabokov as well. My book's introduction talked a bit about Nabokov's exploits as an absentminded professor. He recounted one day where Nabokov actually went into the wrong room without realizing it and started lecturing to the wrong class! He only realized his mistake when a student from his real class who'd seen him go into the wrong room came to see what was going on.

Nabokov passed it off as a "sneak preview" of his class and encouraged them to sign up the next semester!

When editing the stories to create the book, Nabokov apparently made some changes to Pnin to make him more closely resemble another Russian professor at Cornell and less resemble himself.

So if Nabokov is the narrator and is also, in part, Pnin, it's an interesting tangle.


I just thought it was interesting that our narrator, whomever he was, wasn't present for much of the novel. He learns most of the events second hand through sources who might be exaggerating to get a better story out of it.

makes sense! thank you all!

I'm still in the middle! But I love it so far...there is a certain weirdness, a peculiarity that radiates from Russian lit. I am mesmerized at the moment by his infatuation with hand motions, gesticulations, etc. I can't wait for Dostoevsky next month! ;-)

I'm looking forward to it too Teresa! :)

I just happened on this commentary from the NY Times back in 1957, and this paragraph really hit home in terms of satirizing "academia". My father was a college professor, and he really DID talk about some of these outlandish grants! I'm reminded again of Nabokov's amazing level of detail, especially in terms of "zingers".

"Granted that there are projects endowed by great, vicariously generous foundations that sometimes seem surrealistic, even more interesting windfalls reach Waindellians. An anthropologist is glad to receive $10,000 "for a study of the eating habits of Cuban fishermen and palm climbers." And a gifted psychiatrist gets a generous grant to give children "the so-called Fingerbowl Test, in which the child is asked to dip his index in cups of colored fluids, whereupon the proportion between length of digit and wetted part is measured and charted in all kinds of fascinating graphs."
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/02...

nice article Julia. and i agree that prospered anyway despite his obstacles!

Pnin prospered *

I just finished Pnin and while I enjoyed the humor, overall, I struggled with this book. After I read your comments that it was originally published as a series, I tried reading the chapters one at a time and that helped move things along for me. There were some great lines but I read a printed library version so I didn't mark them. Here is one from the second to last page that I love and can relate to well after certain awkward social interactions:

"...and after an evening that somehow left me with the mental counterpart of a bad taste in my mouth, we all went to bed."

There were a lot of these short descriptive passages that I liked a lot but as a whole, Pnin just isn't one of my favorites.

Does Nabokov count as Russian Literature?

I've never read anything by a Russian that wasn't originally written in English, so I'm not sure how much Nabokov's works have in common with the other big name Russian authors.

Shameful, I know! I'm looking forward to reading Notes from Underground next month, so I can start to correct my lack of knowledge...

LaLaLa Laura wrote: "nice article Julia. and i agree that prospered anyway despite his obstacles!"

Did he really prosper?

I finished up another book earlier this week and the main character was dismissed from his position at a boarding school. Many of the reasons given could have equally applied to Pnin. Among them - not knowing the local language enough to be able to communicate with his peers, not joining in with the school social life and isolating himself, and sub-standard academic work.

That last especially - Pnin didn't seem to be able to TEACH Russian very well. Beginning students of any language probably aren't going to appreciate obscure literary references.

Though, apparently Pnin has a cameo in another Nabokov novel where he does prosper and is doing very well at another university.

The book I'm referring to is (view spoiler)[The Magus by John Fowles (hide spoiler)]

Ugh...I'm still stuck on the beginning due to a previously scheduled buddy read in another group. This book pleased me so much (the 2 chapters I read, at least!), that I think I'm going to re-start. I can't wait to discuss! My goal is to be done by Friday :-)

Melanti wrote: "LaLaLa Laura wrote: "nice article Julia. and i agree that prospered anyway despite his obstacles!"

Did he really prosper?

I finished up another book earlier this week and the main character wa..."

I felt that Pnin was the sympathetic "hero" of the story because of and despite his obstacles.

Teresa wrote: "Ugh...I'm still stuck on the beginning due to a previously scheduled buddy read in another group. This book pleased me so much (the 2 chapters I read, at least!), that I think I'm going to re-start..."

understood Teresa. I read in another group that the average GR user belongs to ten groups! I wonder how accurate that is...

I belong to 6 (I just left a few). I love this one because they are, well, 'short & sweet.' Another one has AWESOME challenges, and that's mostly what I use it for (they read books that are very long, typically, and around 3-5 a month! Too much for me!). Another is strictly for anthologies, which I love. Then there are 2 that are VERY inactive, but I stay in because when they DO read a book, they are usually my favorites! The last one is the one that utterly zaps me. I've devoted literally what amounts to days (!!!) posting, answering questions, discussing, e-mailing, etc. I am doing the afore-mentioned 'buddy read' with that one, then I plan on leaving. Its mentally draining, and I cannot remain being stressed out about reading like that. Its ridiculous and not why I read AT ALL! I will say, however, I LOVE that groups structure when it comes to the monthly reads. There are always schedules posted, which keeps me on track. Otherwise, I find it's the 20th or so (no pun intended), and I haven't even started. Participating more in the groups I actually enjoy, and reading books I want to read for the challenges group, as well as writing more comprehensive reviews are my new year's resolutions! ;-)
~Teresa~

One of my favorite quotations from Pnin shows just how much depth lies in this character, and how haunting Mira is to the whole story. On the surface, people go about their lives caring about trivial things--but Pnin knows what the depths really hold:

"In order to exist rationally, Pnin had taught himself...never to remember Mira Belochkin - not because...the evocation of a youthful love affair, banal and brief, threatened his peace of mind...but because, if one were quite sincere with oneself, no conscience, and hence no consciousness, could be expected to subsist in a world where such things as Mira's death were possible. One had to forget - because one could not live with the thought that this graceful, fragile, tender young woman with those eyes, that smile, those gardens and snows in the background, had been brought in a cattle car and killed by an injection of phenol into the heart, into the gentle heart one had heard beating under one's lips in the dusk of the past.”

Teresa wrote: "I belong to 6 (I just left a few). I love this one because they are, well, 'short & sweet.' Another one has AWESOME challenges, and that's mostly what I use it for (they read books that are very lo..."

definitely, sometimes it gets to be tooooo much to belong to a lot of groups! hopefully we make it to be one of your faves in terms of groups!

Julia wrote: "One of my favorite quotations from Pnin shows just how much depth lies in this character, and how haunting Mira is to the whole story. On the surface, people go about their lives carin..."

I remember that quote was heartbreaking to read...

Yes, and here's another one that touched my heart:

“Pnin slowly walked under solemn pines. The sky was dying. He did not believe in an autocratic God. He did believe, dimly, in a democracy of ghosts. The souls of the dead, perhaps, formed committees, and these, in continuous session, attended the destinies of the quick.”

without researching it, i just assumed that the book was writen originally in russian, so i got a russian version of the book. Perhaps the translator messed up somewhere along the way, but so far i am really not enjoying the book. It is actually the first book in a long time that puts me to sleep after 5 pages. I am currently reading chapter 4, and i am still hopeful that things will turn around.

LaLaLa Laura wrote: "... I felt that Pnin was the sympathetic "hero" of the story because of and despite his obstacles. "

Sympathetic hero, yes. I definitely agree with that! But that doesn't necessarily mean he prospered (or at least, that he prospered in the eyes of our unreliable narrator). Heroes don't always have to "win". Consider the quote that Daniel posted -- "Some People - and I am one of them - hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm. Doom should not jam. The avalanche stopping in its tracks a few feet above the cowering village behaves not only unnaturally but unethically."

LaLaLa Laura wrote: "understood Teresa. I read in another group that the average GR user belongs to ten groups! I wonder how accurate that is..."

I can believe it. I belong to twelve groups and that's after dropping three earlier this month. Not all groups have group reads and just because there is a group read, that doesn't mean you're going to read everything selected.

Seven of my groups either don't have group reads or I don't regularly participate in them. I'm in those mostly for the discussions and/or challenges. Which leave five groups with group reads and buddy reads that I try to participate in - several of which read multiple books at a time.

I do have too many group/buddy reads at the moment - sometimes it feels like I don't have enough time to read "my" books. I know which group I want to drop (not this one!) but a friend is a mod, so I feel like I ought to give it more of a chance even though half of the "discussions" seem to be people copy/pasting selections from Sparknotes or professional reviews.