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Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov is a little gem I will come back to again. Reasons being (a) it is so good and (b) I love the character Professor Timofey Pnin. I did get lost in a couple of passages. I think this is due to the writing of Nabokov as it’s a bit too clever in parts for me, but I will make a point of understanding the whole thing one day. But I got 90% of it �� I think.

Pnin must have been a sight to behold, he had a bronzed bald dome, was clean-shaven and his absence of eyebrows were partially concealed by tortoise-shell glasses. He had a thick neck and a solid apish torso �� but his legs were disappointingly thin, and his feet were almost feminine.

Pnin is a hapless academic at the fictional Waindell College in America, he’s an é��������é, having to leave his homeland due to the Russian Revolution. We catch up with him, mostly, when he is in his fifties �� but Nabokov does move the reader around chronologically, these changes in timelines were sometimes difficult to spot for this reader �� hence, my confusion at times.

He was essentially homeless. He spent his entire career renting rooms from various faculty members. My favourite ‘room-lords�� were the Clements family. The father being a scholar offering a course on The Philosophy of Gesture, this family maintained a warm, understanding affection for Pnin throughout this story. His reasons for changing his lodgings so frequently (about every semester) were mainly sonic. Ha �� I love that! He was also quite a particular man. For example, every lunchtime he washed his hands and head. I also loved the way he extolled the virtues of having all his teeth removed, to anyone who’d listen, and the author’s description of his meaty tongue exploring his now cavernous fleshy mouth.

Like so many ageing college people, Pnin had long ceased to notice the existence of students on campus

This story has a persistent ribbon of sadness running between the laughs. Poor Timofey Pnin seems to maintain his love for his ex-wife, Liza. In fact, she asked Pnin to look after the son of her second marriage (to the guy she left Pnin for) while she galivanted around �� no doubt seeking a new suitor. Yes, she did marry a third time, but Pnin sobbed uncontrollably when he realised, she didn’t want to return to him. How sad. The son, Victor, did seem to be a nice lad though �� small blessings.

��.in a heated exchange between Professor Bolotov, who taught the History of Philosophy, and Professor Chateau, who taught the Philosophy of history: “Reality is Duration��, Bolotov’s voice would boom. “It is not�� the other would cry. “A soap bubble is as real as a fossil tooth��

You know when you read a passage in a book and it sends you into hysterics? Well the following was one for me, I LAUGHED OUT LOUD: re-read it and LAUGHED EVEN HARDER.

��..the housekeeper was married to a gloomy and stolid old Cossack whose main passion in life was amateur bookbinding. A self-taught pathological process

I’m still chuckling.

Be careful though, as we are presented with some stark reminders of the grim times of the Russian Revolution, their Civil War and WWII. Such as the time Pnin reminisces about Mira, a Jewish girl he loved when he was young. Poor Mira ended up dying in one of Hitler’s concentration camps, soon after she disembarked from a cattle truck. This made me put the book down and think, and ponder and imagine this horror happening not once, but over six million times. How can one not feel despair?

“Pnin-ian English�� was always amusing. Such as his persistent interpretation of Mrs Thayer as “Mrs Fire��. There are many examples throughout to saviour. Pnin finally found a house he wanted to buy; a small affair full of all sorts of “Pnin-isms��. Anyway, he held a house-warming party. Many people he invited found reasons not to attend, but the small gathering who did were all people who liked Timofey Pnin. There was a certain warmth about this gathering which I felt in my chest. I was happy for Pnin, and he did have a nice time.

I found myself liking the characters who liked Pnin and despising the ones who didn’t. I was certainly on Team Pnin and I don’t think I could be friends with “Anti-Pninists��. I think they would have a very mean soul to say the least.

The housewarming gathering occurs towards the end of this book, there is an interesting conclusion to the story �� I won’t say if it’s happy or sad, for those of you who haven’t read this work. The narrator stays anonymous throughout but more information regarding this phantom player are revealed in the last chapter, which to this reader, was an interesting reveal.

What an absolute delight. I am so glad to have met Timofey Pavlovich Pnin , he will stay with me for a long time.

5-stars

Now to savour the reviews of others and check out some professional analyses. The fun on this one has just commenced.