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March132009

If Pnin is In, Does That Mean Kilgore Trout is Out?

Filed under: The Squib Report   Tagged: , , , , , ,

Martin Schneider writes:

Last week we posted the syllabus of Zadie Smith's fiction seminar at Columbia University. I noticed that one of the books was Vladimir Nabokov's Pnin. It triggered a memory: last October, on a New Yorker Festival panel with Hari Kunzru and Peter Carey, Gary Shteyngart answered moderator Peter Canby's request to name a favorite or most influential work by intimating that he reads Pnin "once a month."

I know the journalistic credo has it that once is an occurrence, twice a coincidence, thrice a trend. I have only the two mentions, yet nevertheless cry "Trend!" My impression is that Pnin is relatively obscure; it doesn't come up in conversation much, at least not with the people I know. I've read four Nabokov novels, and Pnin isn't one of them. As far as I know, Pnin is noteworthy for being somewhat more autobiographical than most of Nabokov's work, as it is about a Russian emigre who is working in the United States as a professor.

So much for this focus group of one. Have you been running into Pnin lately?

As it happens, Pnin has a slight familial resonance for me; my father used to tell how impressed he was with the original Pnin stories when they appeared in The New Yorker in the mid-1950s, so it feels like I've been aware of it for years. I'm now traveling and have a limited number of books at my disposal, but, triggered by Shteyngart perhaps, elected to bring that one with me. I'll get to it soon.

Comments

I can’t say I’ve noticed references to Pnin lately, though there were a few last year, when TNY published that posthumous story of Nabokov’s. You must let me know what you think of the stories.

It’s been so long since I read Pnin that I can’t trust my memory of it very well, but I have the impression that it, like almost everything else Nabokov wrote, seemed to require the regular and frequent humiliation of its main character. To the extent that the book’s humor rests on this, it’s mean-spirited and unpleasant. (As for the rest of its humor, it has the dated, flat-and-unfunny feel that Lucky Jim does.)

But as I recall, the reviews on the copy I used to own praised Nabokov for the way he brought out Pnin’s humanity, from which I infer that Nabokov, in addition to making fun of his hapless emigré , also evoked compassion for him. This seems unlikely to me, but I freely admit that when it comes to Nabokov, I’m an apostate and therefore untrustworthy. I revered him for a few years, but I’ve since revised my opinion. Though I still admire his brilliance and technical skill, I dislike his game-playing and his constant bullying of his characters and his readers.

All of which is to say that it would be interesting to see what a fair-and-balanced reporter such as yourself thinks of the Pnin stories.

I think we’re peas in a pod on Nabokov, although for slightly different reasons. For me, the virtuosic prose too often gets in the way of the unified work. In a way it’s miraculous that a book like Lolita could become so widely beloved—not because it’s shocking but because it’s overwritten! (As it were. By a master, to be sure, but it’s still not exactly typical of books that make the pantheon.)

As for the rest, I’m perhaps a bit more forgiving. Authorial mistreatment of/contempt towards characters can drive me up the wall too, but more often in movies (e.g., Coen Bros., Todd Solondz), but … I think in Nabokov’s case I perceive a more valid artistic justification for the e.g. dismantling of Charles Kinbote. Kafka was hard on his protagonists, too.

What I expect from Pnin is that the compassion will be there, but in refracted form. We’ll see!

Nabokov has been coming up, indeed, and just yesterday I decided to give Pnin a second reading this summer (summer is Nabokov’s season, if only for the butterflies). I recall it as the kindest of Nabokov’s books.

Confirmation!

Yes, “Pnin” is mostly composed of stories that were first published in The New Yorker: “Pnin” (Nov. 28/53); “Pnin’s Day” (Apr. 23/55); “Victor Meets Pnin” (Oct. 15/55); “Pnin Gives A Party” (Nov. 12/55). My own favorite Nabokov work is “Speak, Memory,” particularly Chapter 7, which first appeared in The New Yorker as the story, “Colette” (July 31/48) – one of the most exquisitely written short stories the magazine has ever published.

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