To: ALL Date: 10/09
From: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Time: 12:10 PM
PNIN, by VLADIMIR NABOKOV *** I'll take a stab at starting
the discussion of PNIN, though I still have a ways to go in
the book--which I'm finding to be delightful, BTW. I think
Nabokov is a really stellar stylist, and I'm sure his satire
of academia will ring very true for anybody who's been
there.
To be fair, I think my fondness for Professor Pnin isn't a
totally unselfish one. This guy's so hapless, he makes me
feel almost suave by comparison.
My only quibble, and it's a small one, is that Nabokov
occasionally gets so carried away with language that a
description turns so cerebral and convoluted (the
professor's mysterious seizure in the park, for instance)
that I have a hard time figuring out--in the timeless phrase
of an old newspaper editor I knew, who had pretensions to
sophistication--"exactly what the douche is going on."
Funny, funny stuff, though.
>>Dale in Ala.
=============== Reply 1 of Note 14 =================
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 10/13
From: VMMN97A FELIX MILLER Time: 11:18 AM
Dale,
I finished PNIN last week, and can agree with your
comments. I laughed out loud many times, a sure sign that
either the author is demented in the same peculiar way I
am, or he is very skilled. I think the consensus would be
that dementia felix is not the case with Nabokov. He's just
good.
I, too had problems with the virtuoso use of language in
the book. I had to re-read (slowly) numerous passages to
figure out what was going on. One good side effect was that
my dictionary got a very thorough dusting by the time the
book was finished. (and I'm still looking for the
defintitions of some of the words)
I had the same problem, especially with names, with LOLITA,
which I've read several times. Especially the many plays on
Clare Quilty's name. Of course, my main problem is that I
barely get along in my native tongue, much less acquire
other languages like tourist souvenirs, as Nabokov did. He
and Conrad always make me feel very un-lettered.
Back to Pnin, the hapless accidental professor of Russian.
I could really identify with his bumbling progress through
his life; things always seemed to be happening to him,
rather than because of him. And not happy things, often. A
greatly sympathetic character, I thought, and not just to a
fellow klutz like myself.
As contrasted to the narrator, who began to suspiciously
resemble Nabokov himself (I believe Nabokov was a collector
of butterflies, like the narrator). And I noticed at least
one bit of self-reference, when the narrator listed Russian
emigre writers, he cited Sirin, which I believe was
Nabokov's pseudonym during his early career.
I'll need more time to completely digest this book, which
is a comment on the skill of the author, also, considering
how short it is. But even without understanding all of the
subtle bits, a very enjoyable read.
Soon to head for Nashville,
Felix Miller
(http://pages.prodigy.com/TN/mountaineer/ursus.html)
10/13/95 11:18AM ET
=============== Reply 2 of Note 14 =================
To: VMMN97A FELIX MILLER Date: 10/13
From: TQWX67A ANN DAVEY Time: 6:06 PM
Felix,
So glad to hear that I am not the only one who needs a
dictionary at hand to read this book. I like it very much so
far, although I still have most of the book to go.
Ann
=============== Reply 3 of Note 14 =================
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 10/13
From: VRCH78A ALLEN CROCKER Time: 11:53 PM
Dale, thanks for getting the PNIN thread started. I have
requested the book via inter-library loan and will make it
my first priority to read it once I have it in hand. New
Orleans and its aftereffects have rather played havoc with
my reading schedule, which was nothing to shout about to
begin with, and I want very much to get the book group back
on track. I'll be back as soon as I have something useful
to add to the discussion!
Allen
=============== Reply 4 of Note 14 =================
To: VRCH78A ALLEN CROCKER Date: 10/14
From: SFKX01A PATRICK WILCOX Time: 7:33 PM
Pnin's bumbling is comical, of course, but I the book
resonates deeper than comedy. I have to avoid spoiling it
for anyone, but there are contexts late in the book in which
skill and success, as well as tragic depth, occur to Timofey
Pavlovich; these are set off well by the comic moments.
I am thinking of his weekend in the country, when he
deftly fashions his handkerchief into a hat, and a glowing
triumph at the end which I shan't divulge.
Forgive the long absence, life has been complicated...
-Patrick
To: SFKX01A PATRICK WILCOX Date: 10/15
From: TQWX67A ANN DAVEY Time: 5:01 PM
I finished PNIN yesterday and would like to thank whoever
suggested this book. Never having read any Nabokov, I would
never have come to this book on my own. As has already been
noted, parts of this book are very funny. I found my self
laughing out loud, for example, at Pnin deciding to give a
"house-heating soiree"(house warming party).
In fact, Nabokov's use of language is one of the most
fascinating things about this book. Much of the humor
derives from the butchering of English by Pnin and the other
emigres in this book. Yet, Nabokov himself, also a Russian
emigre, has such an amazing mastery of English. He can write
so beautifully, as in the following:
"Again, on serene afternoons, huge, amber-brown Monarch
butterflies flapped over asphalt and lawn as they lazily
drifted south, their incompletely retracted black legs
hanging rather low beneath their polka-dotted bodies."
However, his use of unusual words, occasionally so unusual
that I could not find them in the dictionary, was sometimes
disconcerting to this reader. I started to wonder if he used
to read the dictionary as a hobby. Speaking of a soccer
ball, for example, Nabokov writes that "Pnin disposed of it
by defenestration." I couldn't help wondering why he didn't
just say Pnin threw it out the window. But this is a minor
complaint, because overall I think that this book was
beautifully written.
As Patrick mentioned, it is not all humorous, by any means.
I think that what gives this book its power is that Nabokov
has managed to create a character whom he can poke fun of,
but who at the same time is very touching. For Pnin is
basically displaced, from his country, from his language,
and from intimacy with his fellow human beings. The scenes
where he is suddenly transported back in time and sees his
parents, friends and old sweetheart in pre-Revolutionary
Russia are very moving. The narrator recalls Pnin as the
"erudite young author of several admirable papers on Russian
culture." This indicated to me that, had Pnin not been
forced to leave his homeland, his career would not have been
such a hopeless failure. As a human being, I think that he
was more successful. I am thinking particularly of his
kindness to young Eric.
Patrick, you mentioned a glowing triumph at the end. I'm
afraid that I didn't really see it that way, but I would
like to. Please elaborate.
Ann
To: TQWX67A ANN DAVEY Date: 10/16
From: YHJK89A CATHERINE HILL Time: 0:21 AM
Defenestration is really a popular Balkan sport and seems to
be the principal way of getting rid of people. I think it's
something to do with the size of the windows and lack of
screens. Anyway, I think the word and the concept are much
more usual in Nabokov's part of the world than in ours.
Cathy
To: YHJK89A CATHERINE HILL Date: 10/16
From: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Time: 12:08 PM
Cathy: Isn't there the Defenestration of Prague, or some
such? Of course that's central Europe and not the great
Slavic east. Maybe it's the rage east of the Oder-Niese?
Dick in Alaska where the passion for defenestration has been
cooled by short, stumpy sub-arctic construction
To: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Date: 10/17
From: YHJK89A CATHERINE HILL Time: 0:33 AM
I've read references on this board to the Defenestration of
Prague, and I'm just plain going to have to look it up.
Seems hard to defenestrate a whole city, but the Balkan gang
could undoubtedly find a way if they worked hard enough.
The only defenestration in Prague I know anything about is
the murder of patriot Jan Masyrk(?) in the late '40s.
cathy
To: TQWX67A ANN DAVEY Date: 10/17
From: SFKX01A PATRICK WILCOX Time: 7:27 AM
Ann,
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, oddly enough, spoke
English before mastering Russian. Also, since he had a
French governess like most upper-class Russian children, he
knew French quite early as well. He notes in STRONG
OPINIONS that at age 13 he had read all of Shakespeare in
English, all of Flaubert in French and all of Tolstoy in
Russian. It is such a shame that he is known far and wide
for only one of his 40 or so books, and that it is widely
thought to be pornographic - LOLITA.
Anyway, my view of Pnin's final triumph is a very
selective one. warning, plot spoiler ahead>>
Yes, he loses his job at Waindell, but the triumph I am
thinking of is the glass bowl Victor has given him. Near
the end of the book he drops a nutcracker into the sink
where the bowl is sitting, and the bowl doesn't break. To
call a non-happening a triumph is a little tendentious on my
part, yes, but bear in mind that everything has stubbornly
gone wrong for him all along.
In CRITICAL ESSAYS ON VLADIMIR NABOKOV there's an
interesting essay on PNIN pointing to its realtionship to
the "Cinderella" story. The comparison seems strained at
best, the sort we excoriate literary critics for coming up
with, but it's actually kind of neat, the paralells: Pnin
tells the garbled story of how the glass slippers came to
be, noting that the original story said "vair" - white
squirrel fur - and a bad translator mistook that for "verre"
- glass. Squirrels show up several times in PNIN, often
with nuts. The bowl is made of glass. Cinderella is a
character for whom a lot of things go wrong until suddenly
things go right. Even if that's a totally ad-hoc and
ridiculous reading, the text is sufficiently complicated to
support a large number of interpretations, I think.
-Patrick
To: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Date: 10/17
From: SFKX01A PATRICK WILCOX Time: 7:35 AM
A further thought on defenestration:
VVN says somewhere when Edmund Wilson has criticized him
for using "difficult and obscure words" that "It does not
seem to occur to Mr. Wilson that I had something difficult
and obscure to say."
He does not have Pnin simply "throw the ball out the
window" because he _revels in the texture of language_ and
believes it is not simply a transparent medium for getting
your point across, but a thing in itself. And he thinks
people SHOULD be sent to the dictionary every now and then,
because like William Safire says it can "awaken a few
sleepyheads." -P.
To: SFKX01A PATRICK WILCOX Date: 10/17
From: TQWX67A ANN DAVEY Time: 11:11 PM
Patrick, thanks for the information on Nabokov. I wondered
as I was reading if perhaps he had an English governess as a
child. Certainly, imperial Russia, where Nabokov spent his
early years, was a far more cosmopolitan society than the
USSR. I taught English as a second language for four
years, and I didn't think that anyone could attain Nabokov's
mastery of English if he had learned it as an adult. As you
have pointed out, being sent to the dictionary now and then
is not such a bad thing. The last book I read when this
happened was CORELLI'S MANDOLIN, another wonderful book.
As you no doubt remember, Shakespeare was also a favorite
of Pnin, who, unfortunately could not understand him in the
original and missed the comfortable Russian translation he
had known in his youth. Even those things about American or
English culture which should have been familiar to Pnin were
not. Another example was when he wanted to buy Victor a
famous Jack London book and discovered he wasn't nearly as
popular in the US as in Russia. Once again, I felt that
Nabokov was emphasizing the loneliness and alienation of the
immigrant experience. The author could not have experienced
Pnin's problems with language, but he must have felt it in
other ways.
I wondered about the Cinderella story. I did notice the
squirrel motif and, in fact my Vintage International edition
has a squirrel the cover. Equating Pnin with Cinderella
seems to be stretching it to me, but it certainly is an
interesting interpretation. I must agree with you that the
fact that Victor's bowl did not break was very significant
and it did leave me with hope that SOMETHING would go right
for Pnin in the future. As the author describes Pnin
driving off in the distance, he also says "there was simply
no saying what miracle might happen." However, he also warns
us in chapter 3 that the ending will not be happy. The
narrator says, "Some people--and I am one of them--hate
happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm." I identified
the narrator with the author, didn't you? Why do you think
Pnin was so determined to refuse any help from the narrator?
I have never read LOLITA. Is it erotic? What other books by
Nabokov would you recommend?
Ann
To: TQWX67A ANN DAVEY Date: 10/18
From: SFKX01A PATRICK WILCOX Time: 6:46 AM
Pnin does not like or trust the narrator because Liza had
an affair with the narrator. When Pnin proposes to Liza, she
rushes with Pnin's letter to the narrator himself, which is
why he is able to reproduce it. He's not meant to be
Nabokov exactly, I think, but near enough to set off the
wondering.
I think "Pnin" is the funniest of VN's books, and "The
Real Life of Sebastian Knight" - a tragically neglected
novel - is the most beautiful. "Pale Fire is very
comlplicated and pleasing in a sort of cerebral way.
"Lolita" is a clever story, and is prudishly cleanly
rendered without a single dirty word.
The novel involves an aging European man in raucous
young America who, searching for a replica of a childhood
sweetheart, undertakes to seduce a preteen girl. It ends up
quite the other way round, however, and the results are
tragicomic. The taboo surrounding the subject matter is
understandable, but it must be understood to be fiction, and
fictional constructs can set up temporary moral zones in
which a lot of different things can happen.
-Patrick
To: SFKX01A PATRICK WILCOX Date: 10/18
From: YHJK89A CATHERINE HILL Time: 11:16 PM
Now you've got me wondering about the origins of the
Cinderella story. A squirrel fur slipper? Well, that would
be a small foot or an awful lot of squirrels, but somehow
you don't think of fur footwear among the Western European
nations - which I infer this is because of the French
translation. I know Santa Claus was originally from Turkey
(Smyrna, I think); now what about Cinderella?
Cathy
To: SFKX01A PATRICK WILCOX Date: 10/19
From: TQWX67A ANN DAVEY Time: 8:29 PM
Patrick,
Yes, I am sure that Pnin would have nothing to do with the
narrator because of his prior relationship with the beloved,
but worthless, Liza. I wondered if the major complaint
against the narrator was the fact that he ruthlessly
criticized her poetry, rather than the implied sexual
affair. Incidentally, wasn't that letter of proposal that
Pnin wrote to Liza priceless? I loved the following: "I am
sending you under separate cover a pamphlet published in
Prague by my friend Professor Chateau, which brilliantly
refutes your Dr. Halp's theory of birth being an act of
suicide on the part of the infant." Nabakov certainly
got in some good digs at the psychology profession.
Thank you for your recommendations regarding Nabokov's other
books. I definitely intend to read more and hope that the
discussion of the occasionally challenging vocabulary hasn't
put off anyone who was thinking about reading this book. It
is really very good.
Ann
To: TQWX67A ANN DAVEY Date: 10/20
From: BUYS59A BARBARA HILL Time: 0:54 AM
I loved the book and at the end when his little sedan swung
boldly past the front truck and spurted up the road I felt
despite all his setbacks he was really undefeatible.
Barbara Hill in OR
To: BUYS59A BARBARA HILL Date: 10/20
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 2:03 AM
I enjoyed PNIN tremendously. As the kind of person who
always knocks over the wine, or falls up the front steps and
who would rather be boiled in purest virgin olio d'olivo
than get gussied up and go to a cocktail party to make
conversation with people she hardly knows, I can identify.
Poor man. Whenever I think I'm looking pretty spiffy and
walk into someplace I should have known better than to go to
in the first place, like Neiman Marcus, say, and my clothes
immediately wrinkle on my body, my hair instantly becomes
Medusa with dead snakes and my makeup starts to slip off my
face, I know exactly how PNIN felt.
But better than that was the pure delight of the language.
I adore watching someone who is so seamlessly and smoothly
clever. It's writing that makes me laugh over the its every
sleight of hand. I had no idea Nabakov could do this. I
was glad to learn from someone here that he learned English
as a child. I thought I being completely put to shame by
someone writing in his second language. No prob with the
vocabulary, in fact I thought it was great. God, I love it
when someone can write like that. It's like looking at the
lace on a Sargeant portrait and realizing it's just flick,
flick, flick with the paintbrush. (How did he do that?)
This book is about as heavy as a Sargeant portrait, and just
as much fun.
I read LOLITA when there was first a furor over it way back
when. It pains me to admit, but I read it because it was
supposed to be a naughty book. I remember being bored out of
my skull and perhaps not even finishing the book. I was
probably racing through looking for the "dirty" parts.
Sigh. What can I say? I was young and foolish.
Ruth, in Redlands, where her wrist is much improved and who
is putting more Nabakov on her TBR list.
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 10/20
From: SFKX01A PATRICK WILCOX Time: 7:45 AM
Ann et al., VN wrote in the preface to "King, Queen, Knave"
that "the delegation from Vienna is not invited. My trains
and tunnels will remain trains and tunnels." His distaste
for Freud and psych. in general is legendary: "Let the
credulous and the vulgar continue to believe that their
personal woes can be solved by the daily application of old
Greek myths to their private parts. I really do not care."
He calls Freud "the Viennese witch doctor" and "that figure
of fun."
Cathy, "vair" is translated "white Russian squirrel fur."
And ah, Ruth, yes, the comparison to John Singer Sargent is
apt. They share that almost-Mannerist attention to making
the difficult look easy: "sleight of hand." I've always
loved Sargent for just that "flick, flick, flick" quality,
especially of his watercolors, which are excellent...
-Patrick in Washington,
recently march-trampled but
doing fine
To: SFKX01A PATRICK WILCOX Date: 10/20
From: TQWX67A ANN DAVEY Time: 2:20 PM
Barbara, Ruth, Patrick,
I was delighted to see your notes on PNIN. I can't resist
quoting one more part that impressed me deeply. The
following refers to Pnin's old sweetheart who was murdered
by the Nazis.
"In order to exist rationally, Pnin had taught himself,
during the last ten years, never to remember Mira Belochkin
- not because, in itself, the evocation of a youthful love
affair, banal and brief, threatened his peace of mind (alas
recollections of his marriage to Liza were imperious enough
to crowd out any former romance), but because, if one were
quite sincere with oneself, no conscience, and hence no
consiousness, could be expected to subsist in a world where
such things as Mira's death was 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 to an extermination camp 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. And since the exact form of her death had
not been recorded, Mira kept dying a great number of deaths
in one's mind, and undergoing a great number of
resurrections, only to die again and again, led away by a
trained nurse, inoculated with filth, tetanus bacilli,
broken glass, gassed in a sham shower bath with prussic
acid, buned alive in a pit on a gasoline-soaked pile of
beechwood."
There is a quote from Grahm Greene on the cover of my book:
"Hilariously funny and of a sadness." It is the combination
of humor with depth of feeling that really impressed me
about this book.
Ann
To: SFKX01A PATRICK WILCOX Date: 10/22
From: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Time: 2:16 AM
Patrick: If my downloads don't deceive me, "Pnin" was your
recommendation, and it is a wonderful book. I've been
lagging, since I decided to go best, two falls out of three
with George Elliot, about a week ago, and I'm only half way
done so far. Nabokov is funny, but I think the tragic
elements are apparent even early on -- think of this man. A
survivor of the Russian Revolution, emigre to Paris where he
struggles through a devastating marriage and loss, sneaks
out one step ahead of the Nazis, is betrayed for a second
time by his wife even as they escape, and ends up in America
-- a place where he can't understand the advertisements or
the cartoons, and where his ex-wife pursues what money and
self-respect he has managed to accumulate with a ruthless
cynicism that is breathtaking. And yet, he maintains his
dignity, his selfness -- he is Pnin, a person and a scholar
and the possessor of those lovely new teeth.
This story reminds me of the parents of a dear friend of
mine, Joseph Chomski, who died a couple of years ago at far
too young an age. Joe's father was born in Warsaw, Poland
about 1900. He studied medicine in Paris in the 1920's and
early 1930's and met the lovely Masha, who was from a Riga
trading family and who was studying art at the Sorbonne.
They fell in love and married, just in time for the Nazis
to take the Paris excursion. Like many Jews, Dr. and Mrs.
Chomski fled the occupied zone (only about the northern
one-third of France was occupied after the defeat in 1940;
the remainder of the country was occupied by the German Army
in response to the Allied landings in North Africa in
November 1942) to live in Marseille. When Marseille was
occupied, they and some others fled into Spain, taking over
100 Jewish children with them over Pyranees, and ultimately
to Lisbon, where they sailed to the United States as
refugees. When Dr. Chomski arrived in New York, he spoke
little English and needed to take 2 years of remedial (!)
medical education in America before he could practice.
Of course, he did take that training, and became a succesful
doctor in Manhattan, raising up one son, Joe, who was my
good friend for many years. I was fortunate enough to know
Dr. and Mrs. Chomski and to visit them in New York when Joe
and I were young men, starting our own families. After a
huge breakfast of strawberry blintzes at the old Russian Tea
Room, Dr. Chomski would walk us up 5th Avenue, each arm
linked through one of Joe's and one of mine, talking to us,
pointing out the sights, leaning his pink, white-tufted head
first to one of us, then to the other. Masha and our wives
would walk a few paces behind, because that was how they had
learned to do it. Joe used to tell me that, as a boy
growing up in Manhattan, they would go to the movie, or be
walking down the street, and someone would call out -- "Dr.
Chomski, Dr. Chomski!" And they would turn, and the person
would come up and say, "Dr. you don't know me, but you
delivered my sister on the boat from Lisbon. We have a
picture of you at home." Or, "Dr. Chomski, you took care of
my Grandmother when she was dying in 1950, and you never
charged us -- and we will never forget you."
When Joe died in 1993, he had only his mother and a cousin
from Israel surviving from both families; Dr. Chomski had
died in 1991 and Masha passed away just a few months after
Joe. All the rest of both families had disappeared from 1933
to 1945.
I think, sometimes, that we in America can only imagine the
kind of courage that people like Nabokov and Dr. Chomski
exhibited to survive and prevail. Without a doubt, Patrick,
"Pnin" is more than a humorous book.
Dick in Alaska
To: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Date: 10/22
From: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Time: 7:43 AM
Dick: I was about to post Graham Greene's great quote about
PNIN, "Hilarious and of a sadness," when I saw that Ann had
beaten me to it. Right on the money, I think, especially in
such wonderful scenes as the visit of his ex-wife and its
aftermath. What a piece of work Liza is...getting his
emotions all roiled by demanding the mysterious urgent
meeting, only to tell him she (a) needs more money and (b)
hates his new suit. (I think some of us have been there.)
And I love the part where Pnin is going through his
landlady's cabinets looking for the whiskey and soda--or
"viscous and sawdust," as he puts it.
What a remarkable dignity he has, in the face of a
cosmically snake-bitten life.
>>Dale in Ala.
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 10/22
From: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Time: 11:22 AM
Re: LOLITA as pornography.
I've had this theory for some time that it is hard
for a good writer to write a successfully dirty book. The
good writer keeps wanting to tell you how sex really is,
and the pornographer wants to tell you how sex really isn't.
The essence of the pornographic fantasy is that some
impossibly attractive person is completely enthralled with
you and available to do whatever whenever. This strikes me
as sort of the sexual equivalent of the doctrine of
unmerited grace (and may explain the attraction of
televangelists to loose women, but that's a topic for my
next lecture).
The serious writer keeps pointing out that nobody looks
like a Playmate of the Month, even Playmates of the Month
-- it's all makeup and photography. That sort of realism
destroys the erotic mood. Or as a friend of mine likes to
say, the most effective form of birth control for the
middle-aged is leaving the lights on.
I am always amused by the reviewers who seeing
something intentionally erotic comment either that it isn't
a very good book or it isn't erotic. Although a few people
may get close (D.H. Lawrence, Nicholson Baker), I am
convinced that the two genres are mutually exclusive.
-Jim in Oregon (who naturally only has an academic interest
in the subject)
To: ALL Date: 10/22
From: NMTT86A JAMES HEATH Time: 6:16 PM
One aspect of Nabokov that stands out for me is his
immersion in seemingly trivial detail. For example, the
chapter about the awkward visit between Pnin and his son(?)
Victor concludes:
Presently all were asleep again. It was a pity nobody
saw the display in the empty street, where the auroral
breeze wrinkled a large luminous puddle, making of the
telephone wires reflected in it illegible lines of black
zig zags.
Possibly someone can dig a metaphor out of this, but
I'm inclined to believe that Nabokov's response to the
tragedies of Pnin's life is to think about something else
like patterns in puddles or washing dishes . The hard thing
about defeat is that there isn't much you can really do
about it except bumble off in your blue sedan to see what
might happen next.
I think about a comment in the morning paper by a
member of Oregon State's perpetually hapless football team
(1-6 at the moment with a good chance of being 1-10 at the
season's end). In words of football players from decades
past, he commented, "We are learning lessons here that will
last all our lives."
The only lesson I can see is from Garrison Keillor:
"When the odds are all against you, chances are you'll
lose. That's what the odds mean, isn't it?"
Perhaps the lesson from Pnin is that losing isn't as
important as is generally supposed.
--Jim in Oregon
To: SFKX01A PATRICK WILCOX Date: 10/22
From: KGXC73A GAIL SINGER GROSS Time: 6:28 PM
greetings PATRICK...
thank you for selecting this priceless gem...and for
listing some of VN's others works....and A HUGE THANKS for
all who have contributed their insights and perceptions...i
sit here and sigh...so much food for thought...i am oncemore
exhilirated by your literary discussion....
gail..a passionate reader who marvels at the quality of
the posts on CR....AS i sit here in sunny and cool SAN
FRANCISCO thinking which VN book i want to tackle next...as
if i didn't have enough books queuing to be read.....
To: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Date: 10/22
From: YHJK89A CATHERINE HILL Time: 10:22 PM
Dick, you reminded me of another group of Russian emigres,
ones who apparently stayed in Paris through the Nazi era
without to much problem. This was a large group of White
Russians, some noble, who were honest to God taxi drivers.
I always thought that stuff about noble Russian taxi drivers
and such was just an exaggerated literary fad, but seems
there was at least some truth in it. The White Russian
Chorus, apparently a volunteer organization, was available
for the 1951 recording of BORIS GODONOUV made at the Sale
Wagram in Paris. I read that the place was solidly
surrounded by taxicabs while these guys recorded.
Cathy
To: YHJK89A CATHERINE HILL Date: 10/23
From: EUCR61A RICHARD HAGGART Time: 3:12 PM
Cathy: White Russian exiles figured prominently in the early
LeCarre books (along with exiled Balts of all varieties). I
don't know about Paris, but Washington D.C. maintained a
ghostly presence of that sort for many years -- the
Lithuanians had a functioning embassy in Washington all the
years from 1940 until they liberated themselves in the 80's.
It was really spooky -- you could go up to the door and
these very old people would let you in; it smelled like
furniture polish and dust and god knows what. Of course, we
were convinced we were on KGB cameras. Anyway, they would
give you all sorts of information about Lithuania, and the
"activities" of the government in exile. Very shabby, very
rundown and very gentile. Kind of reminds me of Pnin again.
I got into this by meeting a friend of a woman friend who
(the friend that is) was from Riga, who was very big on
liberating the Baltics. He had been a small boy at the time
of the Soviet annexation; his family was prominent and
wealthy. Anyway, his father signed on with the Germans, big
time, in 1941 -- became a judge in the Nazi/Latvian courts.
When the Red Army came back through, the mother fled with
the children, and the father stayed behind, never to be
heard from again (supposedly). Anyway, this got me all
interested in the Baltic Republics and related issues. Quite
a few years later, I was reading some original material
(well, it was translated) on Soviet war crimes
investigations and prosecutions in the Baltics. There, big
as life was this guy's dad -- accused, tried, convicted and
shot for sending 17,000 or so Latvian communists, jews,
gays, and library fine scofflaws to the countryside for a
permanent vacation. I had long since lost touch with the
fellow, and wonder to this day if he knew what his dad was
doing for a living. Another possibility is, of course, that
it was a different person with the same name -- since the
restoration of independence, I've noticed several people in
the Latvian government with the same surname as is involved
in the story, so perhaps it's all a coincidence. Tend to
think not, however.
Dick in Alaska, where we are accumulating some world class
slush
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 10/23
From: WSRF10B SHERRY KELLER Time: 4:14 PM
Patrick, let me add my thanks for suggesting this book.
When I started reading PNIN I was sitting in the airport. As
I came to page 10 "....and languid Eileen Lane, whom
somebody had told that by the time one had mastered the
Russian alphabet one could practically read 'Anna
Karamozov'" I laughed aloud. A lady sitting next to me
said, "What are you reading? It must be funny." I said yes,
but then realized how hard it would have been to try to
explain it to someone without sounding patronizing or
idiotic.
What do you all think the squirrel motif means? During one
of Pnin's slippages into the past he visualizes this: "Near
his bed was a four-section screen of polished wood, with
pyrographic designs representing a bridle path felted with
fallen leaves, a lily pond, an old man hunched up on a
bench, and a squirrel holding a reddish object in its front
paws. Timosha, a methodical child, had often wondered what
that object could be (a nut? a pine cone?). . . ." As soon
as Pnin awakens from his reverie or "attack" (he had been in
a park on a bench) he sees a squirrel with a peach pit. Why
a peach pit? Was this the answer to the riddle of his
childhood? Even so what does it mean? It's easy to compare
Pnin to a squirrel. A simple everyday animal who adapts
most easily to any situation--city, country. A toiler, who
saves and does not appear remarkable. There are several
appearances of the squirrel including once when Pnin serves
it water from a fountain. His little animal spirit guide?
Somewhere there was a literal translation of the word
"squirrel." I couldn't find it. Could someone help me out?
Sherry in Milwaukee who is luxuriating in being in my house
all by myself
To: WSRF10B SHERRY KELLER Date: 10/23
From: EUCR61A RICHARD HAGGART Time: 6:11 PM
Sherry: I think the source of the word squirrel was supposed
to be the latin "shadow tail" (my Webster's concurs). What
it all means remains a mystery to me -- like the scene
where's runs the water fountain for the ungreatful little
rodent, while thinking of himself as the "water father". I'm
still not done so perhaps the scales will fall from my eyes
in the next hundred pages or so.
Dick in Alaska
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 10/23
From: KGXC73A GAIL SINGER GROSS Time: 8:56 PM
greetings to all in our COMMUNITY OF CR's..... relating to
PNIN...would you believe in this week's TIME MAGAZINE..under
the BOOK SECTION...a long awaited collection of short
fiction by VLADIMIR NABOKOV....edited by NABOKOV's son
Dimitri, the ominibus brings together 65 tales and
sketches....most have appeared at least once in previous
collections..many are translations of originals written
during the 1920's and '30s for Russian emigre publications
in BERLIN and Paris...
the collection's stunning opener, THE WOOD-SPRITE is a tale
in whose mere three pages NABOKOV concentrates of essence of
heartache and playfulness that distinguishes the best of his
work....
much to anticipate....... gail..a passionate reader who is
seeking THE REAL LIFE OF SEBASTIAN KNIGHT for my next
NABOKOV selection....
To: KGXC73A GAIL SINGER GROSS Date: 10/23
From: SFKX01A PATRICK WILCOX Time: 9:46 PM
Dick/Sherry,
My favorite squirrely detail in PNIN is when Timofey is
in the Waindell library with a card-catalog drawer, which he
takes "like a big nut, to a secluded corner and there
make[s] a quiet mental meal of it" (p. 76). I posted a note
earlier about the connection between Pnin, the squirrel, and
"Cinderella," which I think helps explain the repeated use
of the furry little ones. I'll look for that essay and try
to clarify its points here soon. Dick, among your splendid
posts you mention Riga, which plays a large part in another
VN book I've just finished, GLORY. And Gail, do read THE
REAL LIFE... it's by far my favorite. -p.
To: SFKX01A PATRICK WILCOX Date: 10/23
From: YHJK89A CATHERINE HILL Time: 10:32 PM
Of course, Riga to me means first and foremost COMMODORE
HORNBLOWER, my absolute favorite of that series. The
Russian sequences are both action and detail packed. This
was the novel in which Hornblower committed the first
adultery allowed in the SATURDAY EVENING POST - the
beginning of the end for them, undoubtedly. Forester's
reason for this breach of etiquette was that he wanted
Hornblower to contract typhoid, and that was the easiest way
for a man in his position to do it.
Cathy
To: WSRF10B SHERRY KELLER Date: 10/23
From: LQYA01B HUNTEROSE SANDMAN Time: 10:32 PM
Greetings Sherry, CR's . . . (one and all):
Re: this squirrel mystery of Nabakovs . . .
I've read a few ancient Celtic myths involving [as translated]
our busy friend, the squirrel . . . I
interpreted only one consistency in representation : he was
a messenger of information. What kind, I do not know --
perhaps, it is more like revelation that he carries? I'll
look for the poems(not Irish proper, but the older broader
Celtic mythology)
No promises since you people are late turning me on to
Nabakov. I'm rushing to buy/consume this author on my
"never-read" list ( CR gets my mind interested in so many
new things that, without my bookstore, a life of crime would
be necessary)
I hope that Nabakov is as interesting as the posts in CR on
him!
Morpheus . . . who actually enjoys the oddly epic style of
Atlanta journalism during the World
Series. Whowhatwhenwhere? No ones worshiping at the
"pyramid" this week! {i'm sure dale is laughing over that one.}
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 10/28
From: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Time: 10:43 AM
I finished "Pnin" day before yesterday, and have spent some
time casting about for squirrel information. So far I've
come up with an absolute 'zero' -- does anyone have a
Russian-English dictionary, to determine the Russian for
squirrel? I was thinking maybe Sirin (Nabokov's penname) had
some linkage to the name for the species: sciuridae. Then
there's checking into Russian folk tales and myths -- why
this could take weeks.
Dick in Alaska, who has an ENTIRE weekend to mess around
with stuff like this
To: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Date: 10/28
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 3:56 PM
Dick,
The Russian for "squirrel" is "byelka, stress on the second
syllable.
Ruth, who has a Russian-English dictionary which she
acquired before her trip a few years back, but who
nevertheless, never learned to read the Cyrillic alphabet
fast enough to get off at the right Metro stop.
=============== Reply 4 of Note 2 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 10/28
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 6:26 PM
correction from Leif, stress goes on the "e". Word has 2
syllables.
Ruth
=============== Reply 5 of Note 2 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 10/28
From: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Time: 10:16 PM
Ruth: thanks for the Russian; seems I'm up the wrong creek
again, paddle or no. Got to Borders today to crib some
Nabokov info, and came across a two-volume ditty by a guy
named Brian Boyd. Really meaty stuff; makes Middlemarch look
like Reader's Digest material. Anyway, his chapter on PNIN
is interesting: the narrator was clearly Nabokov (as in the
flesh), according to VN's correspondence with the original
publisher. Very autobiographical, which was reasonably
apparent. And, as to squirrels, Brian Boyd was as much at
sea as the rest of us -- he has at least three pages devoted
to the squirrel motif in PNIN, and frankly, they were
largely unintelligible. Of course I was skim reading in
the stacks once again, staying one step ahead of store
security who believe that if you imbibe more than 10 per
cent of anything on the shelf, you're a constructive
shoplifter. So I may have missed a thing or two. Anyway,
the squirrel (ala Boyd) has to do with vital life forces,
scampering irrepressibly, ever seeking, woodland imagery
from old Russia and what not.
Earlier in the day, I had checked my tattered old Bartlett's
for squirrel quotations, on the odd chance something might
turn up. Turns out that of 5 squirrel quotes, 2 are from
Emily Dickinson and one from George Eliot. Given the last
few days on this board, I don't think that's a coincidence.
Anyway, I think perhaps Miss Emily hit the nail on the
rodent skull, when she wrote:
Experiment to me
Is everyone I meet
If it contain a Kernel?
The Figure of a Nut
Presents upon a Tree
Equally plausibly,
But Meat within, is requisite
To Squirrels, and to Me. (No. 1073, ca. 1865)
Seems there is some Pnin in there someplace.
Finally, squirrels notwithstanding, VN was going to kill off
Pnin at the end of the book, originally. His publisher or
agent (I'm not sure which; remember, I'm stealing
information here, under the watchful eye of a corporate
bookstore) convinced him otherwise, and Pnin sailed away
down the road at the end of the book. AND, according to Boyd
reappears as a tenured, successful professor of Russian at
another university, in PALE FIRE, a book that I think I read
30 years ago, but is now gone except for the title.
Dick in Alaska, where he's been cribbing like mad
To: FBED59A EDWARD HOUGHTON Date: 10/29
From: YHJK89A CATHERINE HILL Time: 0:39 AM
The DAYS was another work altogether, and the article
mentioning it stated the thing was pretty well forgotten
nowadays. The only reason I ran into a reference to it at
all was that it was the source of Puccini's TURANDOT.
Puccini was a bold man, but not even he could have made an
opera of much of the Burton. Obviously Scheherazade's
father didn't censor her reading.
Cathy
=============== Reply 7 of Note 2 =================
To: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Date: 10/29
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 1:14 AM
Dear Dick,
The mountain and the squirrel
Had a quarrel,
And the former called the latter 'Little Prig;'
Bun replied,
'You are doubtless very big;
but all sorts of things and weather
Must be taken in together,
To make up a year
And a sphere.
And I think it no disgrace
To occupy my place,
If I'm not so large as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry,
I'll not deny you make
A very pretty squirreltrack;
Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;
If I cannot carry forests on my back,
Neither can you crack a nut.'
Hope this helps,
Sincerely,
Ralph Waldo Emerson
To: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Date: 10/30
From: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Time: 6:31 PM
Dick & All Nabokovians, This item just in...
On Saturday I'm having dinner with an old high school
student of mine, a brilliant kid who went on to major in
Russian and teaches it at a college here in town.
He's quite a student of Russian lit and has spent a lot of
time in that country, so when I see him on Saturday I'm
hoping to get to the bottom of this Nabokov/squirrel
question once and for all.
>>Dale in Ala.
=============== Reply 9 of Note 2 =================
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 10/30
From: EUCR61A RICHARD HAGGART Time: 7:38 PM
Dale: When you find out, e-mail that Brian Boyd who wrote
the two volumes on Nabokov -- he needs to know too.
Dick in Alaska, where TSSP is next up after I finish gail
singer gross' recommended Sixteen Pleasures (I think that's
it) by Hellenga. Remarkable book in that a man tried to
write a story from the perspective of a 29 year old woman.
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 10/31
From: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Time: 0:30 AM
Ruth: Your Emerson poem on squirrels got me looking through
the odd book on this end, and I came up not only with the
Emerson, but a William Cowper, a W. B. Yeats and two "anon."
This was in the Child's Treasury of Animal Verse, which
usually does me better than some of the other collections.
Unfortunately, none of these authors seems to have been
acquainted with either Nabokov or Pnin, and vice-versa. I
have high hopes for Dale's former student, however. And, I
forgotten Fowles completely, but that's a good one.
Dick in Alaska, where we have a sick pup
=============== Reply 12 of Note 2 =================
To: ZRPD32A RICHARD HAGGART Date: 10/31
From: SFKX01A PATRICK WILCOX Time: 7:40 AM
Ruth/Dick/Dale,
Coincidentally, I read THE COLLECTOR just last month. I
was very fond of THE MAGUS and sort of enjoyed THE FRENCH
LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN and DANIEL MARTIN. I thought "Ferdinand"
a very odd bug indeed: a specimen to be examined through the
mesh of his fictional net and released. I see no real
connnection betwixt him and V.N., who studied entomology at
Harvard and discovered a new species of butterfly, now named
after him: Lycidae sublivens nabokov.
A neat piece, Updike on Nabokov, is the cover story in
this week's New York Times Book Review, by the whale.
-Patrick
To: ALL Date: 11/08
From: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Time: 9:35 AM
PNIN, by NABOKOV *** Dick & All: The powers at *P won't let
me reply to the PNIN thread, punishment no doubt for my long
absence of late, so I had to start a new note.
I had a wonderful visit last weekend with my old writing
student the Russian major. He's a great fan of Nabokov, and
of PNIN in particular, and says he's even more in awe of the
man's genius after reading him in both languages.
Moreover, as David says, "Just to further disabuse
ourselves of the notion that life is in any way fair, we
should keep in mind that Nabokov didn't even begin studying
English until he was well into his 20s." Amazing.
Like any scholar worth his/her salt, David promised to do
further research on the squirrel question and get back to
me. But he did have the following observations to make:
--The Russian word for squirrel is "byelka," as someone
here has pointed out, and in Russian a "ka" ending in nearly
always diminutive. In fact, two of the earliest Soviet
"cosmonauts" were a pair of dogs named Byelka and Strelka.
The latter word means "Little Arrow," which is especially
ironic considering that there were no plans to recover the
space capsule upon re-entry.
--Russians admire the squirrel not for its physical
cuteness, as Americans do, but because it's canny,
unpretentious, sturdy, and industrious--in short, a
survivor, as Russians have had to be throughout their
difficult history. (That makes me see in a somewhat
different light the great scene where Pnin gives a drink of
water to the ungrateful squirrel.)
--Nabokov's pseudonym, Sirin, translates as "The Grey One"
and could well be a squirrel reference. (An interesting
sidelight: Translating Cyrillic characters into English is
problematic, David says, because Russian vowels--unlike
ours--have only one pronunciation each, no possibilities for
long, short, etc. Therefore "Sirin," in English without the
Cyrillic version to verify, could also be translated as "The
Cheese." Not quite the same ring, somehow.)
>>Dale in Ala., who continues to learn more from his
students than vice versa
=============== Reply 1 of Note 21 =================
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 11/09
From: SFKX01A PATRICK WILCOX Time: 7:14 AM
Dale,
"If you become a teacher, by your pupils you'll be
taught." I enjoyed your note on the squirrels but I'm
afraid there are some biographical bits that seem in need of
clarification, in the interest of accuracy. I don't have
VN's memoir at hand but I do have STRONG OPINIONS, in which
he says (p. 5) that he spoke English before age 5, and that
at age ten he was reading Poe, Browning, and Wells in
English (p. 43). In any case he must have been more than
fluent in English in his 20's, or else he would have had a
very difficult time studying literature at Cambridge at age
19.
And as for "Sirin," I have read several places that it
was his father's pseudonym as well and means "bird of
paradise," (see The New York Times Book Review, Oct.
29, p. 7, as well as SPEAK, MEMORY). There's a character in
VN's last Russian novel, THE GIFT, named "Shirin," which, my
girlfriend tells me, may be either "the grey one" or "the
cheese."
-Patrick
Who doesn't like to rain on
parades but thinks VN
has a right to accurate
representation
=============== Reply 6 of Note 12 =================
To: MXDD10A DALE SHORT Date: 11/14
From: VRCH78A ALLEN CROCKER Time: 0:05 AM
If I might interrupt the moral philosophy symposium for
a bit, I'd like to *finally* talk about the original sub-
ject of this thread, PNIN, which I at last finished yester-
day evening -- a mere month after the discussion began. (I
bet some of you were thinking, "I knew this was the slow-
motion reading group, but I didn't think you meant THAT
slow!") I immediately called up and read the notes that had
accumulated in the Pnin thread, and found that I'd had many
of the same reactions -- in fact there were some passages
I'd meant to quote that you folks had beaten me to. Like
all of you I had revelled in Nabokov's masterly use of the
English language, particularly his original and apt meta-
phors ("two lumpy old ladies in semitransparent raincoats,
like potatoes in cellophane"). I found the reading slow
going but smooth; it demands one's attention but richly
repays the effort one invests. Convinced that he must have
been speaking and reading English from an early age to be
able to use it with such skill, and was astonished at what
turned out to be an incorrect statement that he'd only
started with this tongue in his 20s.
This has all been so thoroughly gone over that I won't
elaborate any further at this late juncture. (I will note
that I completely missed the squirrel motif, possibly
because I read the second half of the book three weeks
after beginning it; possibly because this kind of detail
rarely interests me anyway.) I did note a couple of things
that I'd like to mention, though. For one: I had, not long
before starting PNIN, seen it described somewhere as a
collection of connected stories rather than a novel. I
know if I would describe it as such, but it's true that
there's little by way of a continuous plot thread holding
the narrative together. I noted that some of the chapters
had been published separately in the New Yorker. Perhaps
you could label PNIN, if you had to have a label, an
episodic character portrait and
=============== Note 1
Something else that piqued my interest is the unusual
narrative voice that VN uses here. Ostensibly the story is
told by someone who knew Pnin personally, and who enters
the novel himself in the last chapter. But through most of
the book, events and descriptions are being related as if
by the accustomed omniscient narrator who stands outside
the action entirely -- for example, we get certain visual
details of scenes where no one is around, or when Pnin is
alone. This struck me as rather odd; certainly it's some-
thing I've never run into in fiction anywhere else. Has
anyone seen this peculiar mixing of narrative voices
elsewhere, or can you enlighten at all as to what Nabakov
is up to here?
I truly regret that I wasn't able to get in the thick
of things when the discussion was at it peak; there's so
much we could talk about here. However, it's time to get
cracking on THE STRANGER so I at least won't be so far
behind my own theoretical schedule; I hope to have read
it by next Monday. Let me close by adding my own thanks to
Patrick for recommending PNIN to us; it's highly unlikely
that I'd have otherwise encountered it, and am grateful
for this introduction to an author I've obviously been
neglecting for far too long.
Allen
|
Vladimir Nabokov
What a piece of work Liza is...getting his
emotions all roiled by demanding the mysterious urgent
meeting, only to tell him she (a) needs more money and (b)
hates his new suit. (I think some of us have been there.)
And I love the part where Pnin is going through his
landlady's cabinets looking for the whiskey and soda--or
"viscous and sawdust," as he puts it.
What a remarkable dignity he has, in the face of a
cosmically snake-bitten life.
Dale in Ala.
Nabokov is funny, but I think the tragic
elements are apparent even early on -- think of this man. A
survivor of the Russian Revolution, emigre to Paris where he
struggles through a devastating marriage and loss, sneaks
out one step ahead of the Nazis, is betrayed for a second
time by his wife even as they escape, and ends up in America
-- a place where he can't understand the advertisements or
the cartoons, and where his ex-wife pursues what money and
self-respect he has managed to accumulate with a ruthless
cynicism that is breathtaking. And yet, he maintains his
dignity, his selfness -- he is Pnin, a person and a scholar
and the possessor of those lovely new teeth.
Dick in Alaska
|
