Commentaires client les plus utiles
|
|
5.0étoiles sur 5
Pnin, Mai 9 2004
The overwhelming success and notoriety of Lolita has sometimes had the unfortunate effect of obscuring some of Nabokov's other treasures. Pnin is one such gem, being his third English novel, fragments of which were published during the 50's in the New Yorker.
It is the account of a Timofey Pnin, professor of Classical Russian Literature at Waindell College, a course failing year after year to garner deserved interest. The novel is a succession of carefully blended time morphs, the beginning and end forming a kind of cycle, wherein the reader is made privy to various comical blunders of Pnin's academic life, as well as his painful memories of an exiled Russian past, bloody revolutions and a war-torn Europe. Pnin is proud to have adopted America as a new home, being largely oblivious of his total incompetence in the English language and his role as the butt of many cruel and childish jokes, perpetrated by the rest of Waindell staff. He lives alone, with the pangs of unrequited love and a son whom he barely has the chance to see. Pnin is a charming character, capable of inspiring a spectrum of different emotions.
Such is the plot on surface, deceptively simplistic, though having a complex clockwork running behind scenes. Things take a surprising turn when the narrator is revealed, and Nabokov himself (Mr.N) makes a bewildering appearance in his own book, inviting a complete re-interpretation of many key events. The careful reader will be left pondering the motifs of the squirrel, the identity of the novel's 'Evil Maker' and the significance of Pnin's flashbacks. Some logical paradoxes are posed by the novel: there are puzzles to be worked out.
The work is slender and as such is considered one of Nabokov's more accessible novels, which can be enjoyed on a few different levels. Vladimir Nabokov did rely on a number of his own experiences, being a professor throughout several colleges in the U.S. (Stanford, Cornell, Harvard), to poke a little fun at the mechanism of academic life, though unlike poor Pnin, he possessed an unmatched control and execution of the English language. Much of the novel's translucent beauty is captured so perfectly in Nabokov's prose that many sentences deserve to be re-read several times for full appreciation of what John Updike called the 'ecstasy' effect that is evident in the late master's writing. "A score of small butterflies, all of one kind, were settled on a damp patch of sand, their wings erect and closed, showing their pale undersides with dark dots and tiny orange-rimmed peacock spots along the hindwing margins; one of Pnin's shed rubbers disturbed some of them and, revealing the celestial hue of their upper surface, they fluttered around like blue snowflakes before settling again." (Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin) In such thrilling undulations of verse will the memory of this novel preserve itself in the mind of its sensitive reader.
|
|
|
4.0étoiles sur 5
You can hear a "Pnin" drop..., Mars 29 2004
One of Vladimir Nabokov's lesser-known works is "Pnin," a gently comic story about a perpetually lost Russian expatriate and the chaos that is his life. Nabokov slyly lampoons America, expatriates, psychiatry and fussiness through Pnin, but he managed never to be mean-spirited about it.Timofey Pnin is a timid professor of the Russian language at an American college, who moves every semester. Originally from Russia himself, he struggles with English, trains, appliances, dental work, and his relationship with his manipulative ex-wife, who insists that he give financial aid to her young son. The offbeat Russian expatriate drifts through his life, trying to arrange things the way they should be. At first glance, Pnin looks like a clueless, absentminded loser. However, after Nabokov shows us his lost loves, his absurd little life, his reminiscences, we see him differently. Okay, he's still a clueless, absentminded loser. But he's a loser with depth! "Pnin" has pessimism, but there's a certain sense of comic optimism as well (despite Nabokov's explanation that he dislikes happy endings). Pnin's theme song should be "I Will Survive." Nabokov's writing is less rich here than in many of his other novels, in keeping with the humorous plot. Perhaps the funniest chapter is when he describes Victor's lack of psychiatric complexity, making fun of shrinks everywhere. But there's plenty of subtlety with the satire, such as the tragic story of Mira, a woman Pnin loved who was killed by Nazis. Or how Pnin washes the dishes after a disastrous party. Pnin is ethical, generous and forgiving as well as fussy, picky and more than a little strange; he's perhaps the most sympathetic character Nabokov ever made. Nabokov pokes fun at Pnin while making us like him for his essential kindness. He's no buffoon, but a person who could really exist. The other characters aren't quite as vivid, although Victor (Pnin's ex-wife's son) is very good: the hapless artist son of two shrinks, who disappoints them by not having any weird complexes. In the end, Nabokov's "Pnin" is a sort of personal Don Quixote who is dealing with the strangeness of his own life. Comical and a bit saddening, this is an undeservedly little-known book.
|
|
|
5.0étoiles sur 5
Needles and Pnin, Janv. 20 2004
With this book, Timofei Pnin takes his place along side Leopold Bloom, Rabbit Angstrom, Holden Caufield, and Col. Aureliano Buendía among the great protagonists of 20th century literature.A linguistics professor, the often hapless and despairing and always comical Mr. Pnin has an unexplainable pride and an obsessive-compulsive personality. Like the book's author Vladimir Nabokov, Mr. Pnin is a quirky Russian expatriate in middle class America: he would be hard pressed to be more foreign. And yet he is a wonderful illustration of everyone's fruitless attempts to control what cannot be controlled in their lives. He is a stinging parady of himself, of Mr. Nabokov, of us. In my mind, Pnin surpasses even Mr. Nabakov's masterpiece Lolita, simply because so much of the story of unforgettable Lo-li-ta has become so cliché that much of the author's artistry is obscured from modern readers' eyes. But with Pnin, Mr. Nabokov's deft and subtle hand is plain to see.
|
|
|
Commentaires client les plus récents
|
de Vladimir Nabokov
de Vladimir Nabokov
de Vladimir Nabokov
de Anton Chekhov
de Vladimir Nabokov
