Pnin

Vladimir Nabokov's Pnin was first published while his Lolita was still banned. It was this novel that established him as a great writer (amazing that his masterpieces are written in English and not in his mother tongue, which is Russian).

This is a brilliantly written sad and funny novel about Pnin, a Russian professor who is trying to make his home in smalltime America having moved to this country as a result of all the convultions in Europe in the first-half of the 20th century. You just can't help but to feel for him in his misadventures.

This is what Nabokov wrote about the character:

"In Pnin I have created an entirely new character, the like of which has never appeared in any other book. A man of great moral courage, a pure man, a scholar and a staunch friend, serenely wise, faithful to a single love, he never descends from a high plane of life characterised by authenticity and integrity. But handicapped and hemmed in by his incapability to learn a language, he seems a figure of fun to many an average intellectual..."

Good and rewarding reading !

Synopsis

Professor Timofey Pnin, late of Tsarist Russia, is now precariously perched on a college campus in the fast beating heart of the USA. In a series of funny and sad misunderstandings, Pnin does halting battle with American life and language.