false 30593 33 (Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)<br><br>One of the best-loved of Nabokov&#8217;s novels, <i>Pnin</i> features his funniest and most heart-rending character. Professor Timofey Pnin is a haplessly disoriented Russian émigré precariously employed on an American college campus in the 1950s. Pnin struggles to maintain his dignity through a series of comic and sad misunder-standings, all the while falling victim both to subtle academic conspiracies and to the manipulations of a deliberately unreliable narrator. <br><br>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&#8217;s deepest protective instinct. <br><br>Serialized in <i>The New Yorker</i> and published in book form in 1957, <i>Pnin</i> brought Nabokov both his first National Book Award nomination and hitherto unprecedented popularity. 1153252 book 1957 Pnin (Everyman's Library) total:2301|5:704|4:940|3:526|2:113|1:18| 2301 9102 3357 214 4 5 false false Sun Jan 25 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 26 18:55:27 -0800 2008 Sun Jan 25 12:04:33 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 2 false false Sat Oct 18 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 15 05:05:06 -0700 2008 Sat Oct 18 11:59:58 -0700 2008 ...more...]]> 5 2 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Thu Feb 28 01:18:35 -0800 2008 Thu Feb 28 01:44:11 -0800 2008 Pnin yet. In fact, I've yet to read a great deal of his work (Ada just kicks me in the face whenever I try her), but Lolita and Pale Fire are two of the most amazing things ever created, and I loved both Strong Opinions and Speak, Memory so much that my Crazy went ...more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 1995 Thu Mar 15 08:26:02 -0700 2007 Thu Mar 15 08:31:32 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Wed Sep 12 10:54:41 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 12 19:11:26 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Nov 23 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 23 11:54:47 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 23 12:12:07 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Aug 31 19:43:41 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 31 19:44:09 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed Jul 08 12:36:01 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 10 12:16:09 -0700 2009 The unpronounceable Pnin is a professor originally from Russia who has emigrated to the U.S. after years spent in France. Pnin...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jun 21 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 19 04:27:12 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 21 01:56:28 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Sep 25 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 02 16:23:10 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 04 20:27:46 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Wed Oct 07 08:43:24 -0700 2009 Thu May 28 08:13:50 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 07 08:43:24 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 3 false false Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue May 05 14:57:35 -0700 2009 Mon May 11 10:06:57 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Oct 19 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 13 18:56:54 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 19 21:31:19 -0700 2009 Pnin was recommended to me by a young Iranian friend on a train ride back to the City from a day at the Long Island beaches a summer ago; throughout the year he would ask, "Have you searched out and read Pnin yet?" to which I would always shake my head. When finally I found a nice copy and...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 27 14:28:45 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 27 14:29:05 -0700 2009
Wow I enjoyed this. Reading Nabokov's prose is like being gently tickled. And afterwards, reading anyone else, you miss the artistry.

It seemed to me a fairl...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Jan 24 07:41:08 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 04 18:55:09 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Dec 24 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Dec 11 06:04:01 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 28 07:39:32 -0800 2008 Invitation to a Beheading. In that regards, this book does not disapoint. The language is beautiful and there is plenty of witty parody of society, (and more specifically, academia), such as a French department director who will not hi...more...]]> 2 0 false false Tue Jul 14 20:58:11 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 28 17:23:57 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jun 11 19:08:54 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 16 21:09:01 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed Oct 29 06:00:42 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 30 08:49:02 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed Apr 08 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 10 07:47:55 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 08 05:20:10 -0700 2009
Second (maybe third) reading:

Nabokov is the master of description and patterning. To quote one of the book's char...more...]]>