Vladimir Nabokov: Pnin

[pontalba]

I'll bet Peder was just reading his head off while he was without his PC. We're probably in for a world of trouble from him now!

Don't you just adore Remains of the Day, pontalba?

Boy, you arn't kidding!

Well, if you and Steffee hadn't gon on and on about how great it was, and different to his others, I'd never have even tried it, and yes I do love it.....I can't believe it, but I do!!!!

 

[Peder]

Huh? What?

Steffee, Still, Pontalba
VN also said that that once you see it, you can't un-see it, it becomes so obvious. Like the monkey hidden in the puzzle picture. And as VN also said, "reread."

But it looks to me like the discussion is converging.
How many more? Maybe one, maybe none. Just guessing here. But I think three.

Anyone up for a Tom-puzzle? Or a dog-puzzle? While we are at it?

Rereading (and bookmarking, and then flipping back and forth twenty times) solves all, or at least it did for me, I think. And then you just have to admire the canny old codger.

Pontalba and Breaca will explain it all to us (per usual ) But it is more fun to discover and detect than hear with the ear. (Sorry! Blame it on Ada.)

Maybe when the time comes we can all post our guesses under whiteout. And then our reasons/evidence under more (big!) whiteouts. and then our further discussions.... but no!

I'm hoping that one of his novels is a straight-out mystery, given his apparent talents for writing one.

So, yours rereaderly,
Peder

 

[Peder]

Trouble, shmubble!

Maybe I can get back into good graces if I offer the following in response to a post way back there:

Tees,
Teas,
Flees,
Fleas,
Bream,
Preen,
Bleeze,
Please,
Pneez,
Pneen.

Or at least that's how I think of it,
Peder

 

[Peder]

Gee! I would hate to think I killed the conversation with that, but really guys! Maybe I should go stand behind the other curtain for a while.

 

[steffee]

No, Peder, we're all just thinking that's all.

I'm completely stumped with the narrator puzzle still, and have already done two and a half reads of it!

 

[pontalba]

Well Guys! I just got home from foraging in town. Its gray, sprinkley, and generally blah around here today. But not the mood! LOL

Now as far as narrators are concerned, we've already acertained that Vladimir Vladimirovich is the fictional VN. What else is he in the narrative?
Firstly, as we have already said, he is the one that Liza tried to kill herself over, and secondly, the one that has Pnin's proposal letter (with the signature cut off) in his possession. Thirdly, he also is from St. Petersburg, as the real VN is, (p.174 (chap 7.1), See the butterfly remark on p.174 and 178 (chap 7.2). Lastly, he is the one that is coming to take Prof. Hagen's place at Waindell, that Pnin swears that he will never work under. This is the "straw that breaks the camels back" so to speak for Timofey, he has to leave the place he has made for himself, and his new found home.

Now Breaca, you have maintained that Cockrell is another narrator. I am not so sure. I've re-read the last sections, and it seems to me to be Vladimirovich all along. BUT, the last two paragraphs do seem as though Cockrell is telling Vladimirovich of Pnin's wrong train, to bring the book around full circle.

There is one other theory of a narrator, does anyone else have any ideas?

BTW, Peder, now is the time to come out from behind the curtain....!

 

[Peder]

/Stepping out from obscurity, gingerly/

Pontalba, Breaca,
I'll definitely go along with Cockerel and Vladimir Vladimirovich, as characters from the story, who narrate the opening and closing chapters of the book.

Steffee, Still, mainly because of the very last paragraphs of the book (the chess move in the furthest corner) where those two men are speaking. And for other suppporting reasons as well, as pretty much outlined by Pontalba and Breaca.

It is the two chapters in the middle which seem uncertain and which, in retrospect, I would put down to the 'Omniscient Narrator' i.e. VN himself as author of the book.

So VN has himself in two roles as I see it. /sly guy! /
At least that''s how it seems from memory and while sitting in the dark here.
When the sun comes up again, who knows? Except that I'll be able to look things up for further discussion.
Peder

 

[steffee]

Ahh! I get it. No really, I really do get it. Woah. Sly Nabokov indeed.

Wow.

 

[pontalba]

It is the two chapters in the middle which seem uncertain and which, in retrospect, I would put down to the 'Omniscient Narrator' i.e. VN himself as author of the book.

So VN has himself in two roles as I see it. /sly guy! /
At least that''s how it seems from memory and while sitting in the dark here.
When the sun comes up again, who knows? Except that I'll be able to look things up for further discussion.
Peder

That is pretty much a replay of a conversation I had with Breaca this afternoon, we decided that "another narrator" must be the expected "Omniscient Author" of all novels.

Pnin is so upset that Vladimirovich is taking his friend and protectors place (Hagen), because VV has seen the letter Pnin wrote to Liza. The very fact that Liza actually gave said letter to VV is way beyond the pale IMO, and for that alone she should be held in complete contempt. Can you imagine? Pnin's most private feelings paraded before his "rival". What a Witch!!

 

[Peder]

...Pnin is so upset that Vladimirovich is taking his friend and protectors place (Hagen), because VV has seen the letter Pnin wrote to Liza. The very fact that Liza actually gave said letter to VV is way beyond the pale IMO, and for that alone she should be held in complete contempt. Can you imagine? Pnin's most private feelings paraded before his "rival". What a Witch!!

Pontalba,
I'm glad to see I'm in good company re the omniscient narrator. That only jelled for me tonight -- long after it was clear to yourself and Breaca.

While I hardly disagree with your assessment of Liza, I would have said that Pnin's anger at VV stemmed from the latter's cruel and unfeeling putdowns of her poetry (if I have the right person, and I think I do). Which is also why Pnin went out of his way to dispute VV's statements that he, Pnin, excelled in math (which was seemingly true), namely as an attempt to descredit the word of VV simply out of competitive spite. Unaccountably, I thought Liza showed the letter to VV as an ultimatum implying that "unless you take me now, I'm going with Pnin. Last chance!" That doesn't make sense, but that was what crossed my mind anyway, so I must be missing womething.

Female intuition, for one thing
Peder

 

[pontalba]

Peder You are exactly right in your assessment of Liza's reasoning in showing VV Pnin's letter. She had to prove to VV that someone else actually wanted her. Up the ante and all that balderdash. Spiteful, deceitful little Witch. Ah, you guessed, I can't stand Liza! Thats ever subtle me.

As far as reasoning as to why Pnin disliked VV, they are many. So I think we all can be right in that case. What is more obvious to me now is the tone of the narrator towards Pnin. I've been rereading up to their sailing to America and the manner in which the narrator speaks of Pnin is always on the down side, slightly ridiculing of Pnin. Not too too nasty. Just dismissive and a certain amount of a patronizing tone to it. As though to say, well what can one expect of that class of person. Remember during the telling of Pnin's youth, VV was at his (aunts I think) relatives house, a grand one with much property, and Pnin wanted to use a building on it for a playhouse. Pnin's father was a doctor, not one of the "aristocracy". Pnin and his friend had to petition the relative for use of the building. That implies a peon/grande relationship.

 

[pontalba]

Pnin denied knowledge of VV before Liza. On p.179-180, chap 7.3

He said he vaguely recalled my grandaunt but had never met me..........and noticing how reluctant he was to recognize his own past, I switched to another, less personal, topic.

Very next paragraph...

Presently I grew aware that a striking-looking young girl in a black silk sweater, with a golden band around her brown hair, had become my chief listener. ........Liza Bogolepov,a medical student who also wrote poetry. She asked me if she could send me for apprasisal a batch of her poems.

I wasn't sure of the sequence of events, so I had to check.... So there was a lot more to Pnin's resentment/dislike of VV.

 

[pontalba]

Pontalba,
I'm glad to see I'm in good company re the omniscient narrator. That only jelled for me tonight -- long after it was clear to yourself and Breaca.

Female intuition, for one thing
Peder

btw, not so long, we only decided that this afternoon.

And why, oh why does intuition have to be female?? Granted, but why? LOL

heh, heh, heh, /chuckling/

 

[pontalba]

Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years, by Brian Boyd

A bit of history on Pnin..p.225-- (1949)-

During June and July he also wrote a story about a Professor Pnin. Sending it to Katharine White at the end of July, he added a curious comment, decidedly out of keeping with his later admiration for Pnin the man: "He is not a very nice person but he is fun." He hoped that it could be the first of a series for the New Yorker: since it might be difficult to place Lolita, it was important to write something he could sell while publishers considered Humbert's macabre confessions.

I wonder why he changed his opinion of the character Pnin. Also the fact that it was written as a series, could explain the confusion/different narrators bit.

 

[Peder]

btw, not so long, we only decided that this afternoon.

And why, oh why does intuition have to be female?? Granted, but why? LOL

heh, heh, heh, /chuckling/

Pontalba,
Because only males can have male intuition? He he heee. /evil grin/
Peder

 

[StillILearn]

A bit of history on Pnin..p.225-- (1949)-

I wonder why he changed his opinion of the character Pnin. Also the fact that it was written as a series, could explain the confusion/different narrators bit.

pontalba, I think you may have just put your finger on it with this post. This is very helpful to me. Thank you!

 

[pontalba]

Hi SIL
yeah, it does make more sense. Although, knowing VN, he planned it anyhow! Although he was distracted by all the problems with Lolita at the time, although he always had lots of distractions it seems.

Lots of "althoughs" with Vladimirovich arn't there?

I highly recommend the two Boyd bios. Tons of very readable information to be had there.

 

[StillILearn]

pontalba, I'm curious. In my imagination you probably now have the largest collection of Nabokviana in the entire state of Louisiana. Have you ever counted? Will you? For us?

 

[pontalba]

pontalba, I'm curious. In my imagination you probably now have the largest collection of Nabokviana in the entire state of Louisiana. Have you ever counted? Will you? For us?

SIL! Certainly not the largest in Louisiana by a long shot I am sure! But I do have all his novels (I think), plus the two Boyds, and the Letters you have, along with another one similar called Dear Bunny, Dear Volodya the letters between Wilson and Nabokov. Um,
Lectures on Literature Vladimir Nabokov (intro by John Updike)
Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, A Casebook edited by Ellen Pifer
The Cambridge Companion to Nabokov edited by Julian W. Connolly
Nabokov at the Movies by Barbara Wyllie
Vera by Stacy Schiff
Lolita: A Screenplay by VN
The Two Lolitas by Michael Maar
Nabokov's Pale Fire by Brian Boyd
Nabokov's Ada by Brian Boyd
Strong Opinions by VN

I guess thats it. I bought the Selected Letters on account of you SIL! Your exerpts were so interesting that I had to read the whole thing! Haven't yet, but in process!

But I'm gonna have to put the brakes on Hard! Amazon will just have to limp along without me for quite awhile!

But the Screenplay is so interesting. To see what Nabokov did with Lo is wonderful. I believe I have mentioned that he had himself in the movie! As a butterfly hunter that HH asks directions from out in the West somewhere. Priceless! a la Hitchcock.

Anybody else wanna list?...........................

 

[Breaca]

tone[/I] of the narrator towards Pnin. I've been rereading up to their sailing to America and the manner in which the narrator speaks of Pnin is always on the down side, slightly ridiculing of Pnin. Not too too nasty. Just dismissive and a certain amount of a patronizing tone to it. As though to say, well what can one expect of that class of person. Remember during the telling of Pnin's youth, VV was at his (aunts I think) relatives house, a grand one with much property, and Pnin wanted to use a building on it for a playhouse. Pnin's father was a doctor, not one of the "aristocracy". Pnin and his friend had to petition the relative for use of the building. That implies a peon/grande relationship.

I'm not sure that VV had a dislike for Pnin. I think he found Pnin a curiosity to research and study. This brings to mind something VN threw in about VV's character:

'Some people - and I am one of them - hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm. Doom should not jam. The avalange stopping in its tracts a few feet above the cowering village behaves not only unnaturally but unethically. Had I been reading about this mild old man, instead of writing about him....'

I get the feeling VN brought this up to show two things - 1) a personal link between VV and TP and perhaps 2) that to know TP is to love him. Or at least have a fondness for the bumbling mild old man. I don't recall reading anywhere (although that's what rereads are for) in the book of anyone have a deep-rooted dislike for TP. Those characters who took the time to get to know TP seemed to have a genuine fondness and had an acceptance of his quirky nature.