Pete (PeteCT) - Georgetown, CT (43 books)

Pete gave

to:

Nothing Is Quite Forgotten in Brooklyn
by Alice Mattison (Goodreads Author)

read in December, 2011

My rating:

Pete gave

to:

The Other Walk: Essays
by Sven Birkerts

read in November, 2011

My rating:

Pete gave

to:

Chronicle of a Death Foretold
by Gabriel García Márquez

read in September, 2011

My rating:

Pete gave

to:

Pnin (Everyman's Library)
by Vladimir Nabokov

read in September, 2011

My rating:

Nabokov's Pnin is a great character piece centered on Waindell College's Assistant Professor Pnin--a bumbling cartoonish Russian who teaches Russian--that reads like a warm-up for the Charles Kinbote character of Nabokov's next novel Pale Fire. The ...moreNabokov's Pnin is a great character piece centered on Waindell College's Assistant Professor Pnin--a bumbling cartoonish Russian who teaches Russian--that reads like a warm-up for the Charles Kinbote character of Nabokov's next novel Pale Fire. The book Pnin is enjoyable, although there isn't much by way of plot, intrigue, or puzzles, like the masterpiece PF. Pnin strikes me as a long short-story, and I love the artistry, like this description of...

"…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."

I find the point-of-view choice interesting, and again, it points toward Pale Fire's more complex (and more satisfying) exploration of truth in narration and other meta-stuff. Pnin is written in first person, and we don't learn the narrator's identity until the end. The narrator is condescending to Pnin, referring to him as "Our hero", calling his actions distinctly "Pninian", etc., with a wink to the reader that he's laughing--chortling, probably--at his quirky subject.

By the end we know the narrator has had no direct contact with Pnin, except for a brief encounter decades prior. Instead the narrator has learned Pnin's story through the faculty of Waindell College, and perhaps from only one faculty member who holds Pnin in low regard. This fact casts the character of Pnin in a new light--did we get the real Pnin? Probably not. So if Pnin isn't the caricature the narrator described, then who is he, and then--doesn't this story say more about this mysterious narrator than the subject?

In Pale Fire, Nabokov turns the key a few times more, and we get a deeper twist into this puzzle of narration, truth, and meaning in fiction. It is also a more artful approach. PF is more successful because the narrator is a consequential character to the story, and also because Nabokov blatantly puts art (Shade's 999 line poem) at the forefront, contrasted with Pnin, where Nabokov questions the meaning of fiction at the end when we see the narrator getting Pnin's story second-hand.

Pnin is like a reflection in a mirror, while Pale Fire is the infinite mirrored room of a fun house. But not to take away from Pnin, which I can recommend to any lover of Nabokov.(less)

Pete marked as to-read:

The Financial Lives of the Poets
by Jess Walter

My rating:

Pete gave

to:

The Stranger
by Albert Camus

read in September, 2011

My rating:

"The Stranger" is a philosophical allegory representing an array of -isms that I would have studied in Philosophy 101 had I taken it in college. Luckily I have Wikipedia instead, so: absurdism, nihilism, and existentialism, and maybe others. Here's...more

Pete marked as to-read:

The Ginger Man
by J.P. Donleavy

My rating:

Pete marked as to-read:

The Blood of the Lamb: A Novel
by Peter De Vries

My rating:

Pete marked as to-read:

Magnetic Field(s)
by Ron Loewinsohn

My rating:

Pete gave

to:

How Fiction Works
by James Wood

read in July, 2011

My rating:

This is a somewhat philosophical and historical look at the techniques of realist fiction, the author's favored style. James Wood is a highly evolved life form. I would take leader-seeking aliens to him without reservation.

"How Fiction Works" giv...more

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Pete gave to: Nothing Is Quite Forgotten in Brooklyn by Alice Mattison (Goodreads Author) read in December, 2011	My rating:
Dec 07, 2011 02:29pm
Pete gave to: The Other Walk: Essays by Sven Birkerts read in November, 2011	My rating:
Nov 30, 2011 06:48pm
Pete gave to: Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez read in September, 2011	My rating:
Oct 02, 2011 04:43pm
Pete gave to: Pnin (Everyman's Library) by Vladimir Nabokov read in September, 2011	My rating:
Nabokov's Pnin is a great character piece centered on Waindell College's Assistant Professor Pnin--a bumbling cartoonish Russian who teaches Russian--that reads like a warm-up for the Charles Kinbote character of Nabokov's next novel Pale Fire. The ...more
Sep 20, 2011 06:23pm · see review
Pete marked as to-read: The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter	My rating:
Sep 09, 2011 08:42am
Pete gave to: The Stranger by Albert Camus read in September, 2011	My rating:
"The Stranger" is a philosophical allegory representing an array of -isms that I would have studied in Philosophy 101 had I taken it in college. Luckily I have Wikipedia instead, so: absurdism, nihilism, and existentialism, and maybe others. Here's...more
Sep 07, 2011 09:11am · see review
Pete marked as to-read: The Ginger Man by J.P. Donleavy	My rating:
Aug 22, 2011 08:47pm
Pete marked as to-read: The Blood of the Lamb: A Novel by Peter De Vries	My rating:
Aug 21, 2011 06:37pm
Pete marked as to-read: Magnetic Field(s) by Ron Loewinsohn	My rating:
Aug 21, 2011 06:31pm
Pete gave to: How Fiction Works by James Wood read in July, 2011	My rating:
This is a somewhat philosophical and historical look at the techniques of realist fiction, the author's favored style. James Wood is a highly evolved life form. I would take leader-seeking aliens to him without reservation. "How Fiction Works" giv...more
Aug 17, 2011 07:06am · see review

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