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Chapter 5 of Pnin is a masterpiece
This is my first foray into Nabokov, and while the whole book has been wonderful, the fifth chapter has blown me away.
For the uninitiated, Pnin is the eponymous main character of this novel, a longtime emigre and refugee from Bolshevik Russia. He has found himself in the United States of the 1950s as a Russian language professor at a New England region liberal arts college.
The book up to this point has presented itself as a lighthearted comedic portrait of a funny sounding Russian fish out of water. His mannerisms are quaintly foreign, he is subject to cruel impressions by the natives at parties - you know. It's been an easy going study of alien-ness, and Pnin is easy to like.
We've seen glimpses of his before-life - an exwife who comes to ask for money for her son under the pretense of a social visit, some glimpses of his parents and childhood interests. But our perspective has mostly been that of another American watching and shaking our proverbial head.
Enter chapter 5, wherein Pnin visits a Russian emigre enclave in the form of a summer getaway, whose owners invite other Russians to gather for a time in the forest. The chapter is essentially the entire novel in miniature. At the start, Pnin wanders his automobile through the woods, wholly lost due to bad directions from an American gas attendant. But finally he arrives.
Suddenly, Pnin is shown to be loved and lovable. His quirks, when surrounded by his own people, are shown to be no quirks at all. His previously awkward tendency to ramble over tiny details is shown to be appreciated. He excels at croquet. He has friends who embrace him.
And here is the genius. Nabokov has taken our fish and placed him back in his water, to deliver a crushing sadness - an offhand comment, triggering a quiet moment remembering a lost love, murdered in the camps, an affront to the very idea of goodness. Even here, among his friends, he is alone - alone with his private grief, his past tormented by civil war and world war and death.
I'm not sure if I've ever been as moved by \~20 pages from the middle of a book as I have been here. It's a masterclass in framing, structure, character, and emotion. None of this moment works if Nabokov hadn't spent the previous chapters hiding this grief from us. In a place surrounded by friends, a moment of vulnerability.
"Only in the detachment of an incurable complaint, in the sanity of near death, could one cope with this for a moment."
I haven't a clue whether I've explained myself clearly, but I encourage any and all to read this novel.
#entertainment
source
This is my first foray into Nabokov, and while the whole book has been wonderful, the fifth chapter has blown me away.
For the uninitiated, Pnin is the eponymous main character of this novel, a longtime emigre and refugee from Bolshevik Russia. He has found himself in the United States of the 1950s as a Russian language professor at a New England region liberal arts college.
The book up to this point has presented itself as a lighthearted comedic portrait of a funny sounding Russian fish out of water. His mannerisms are quaintly foreign, he is subject to cruel impressions by the natives at parties - you know. It's been an easy going study of alien-ness, and Pnin is easy to like.
We've seen glimpses of his before-life - an exwife who comes to ask for money for her son under the pretense of a social visit, some glimpses of his parents and childhood interests. But our perspective has mostly been that of another American watching and shaking our proverbial head.
Enter chapter 5, wherein Pnin visits a Russian emigre enclave in the form of a summer getaway, whose owners invite other Russians to gather for a time in the forest. The chapter is essentially the entire novel in miniature. At the start, Pnin wanders his automobile through the woods, wholly lost due to bad directions from an American gas attendant. But finally he arrives.
Suddenly, Pnin is shown to be loved and lovable. His quirks, when surrounded by his own people, are shown to be no quirks at all. His previously awkward tendency to ramble over tiny details is shown to be appreciated. He excels at croquet. He has friends who embrace him.
And here is the genius. Nabokov has taken our fish and placed him back in his water, to deliver a crushing sadness - an offhand comment, triggering a quiet moment remembering a lost love, murdered in the camps, an affront to the very idea of goodness. Even here, among his friends, he is alone - alone with his private grief, his past tormented by civil war and world war and death.
I'm not sure if I've ever been as moved by \~20 pages from the middle of a book as I have been here. It's a masterclass in framing, structure, character, and emotion. None of this moment works if Nabokov hadn't spent the previous chapters hiding this grief from us. In a place surrounded by friends, a moment of vulnerability.
"Only in the detachment of an incurable complaint, in the sanity of near death, could one cope with this for a moment."
I haven't a clue whether I've explained myself clearly, but I encourage any and all to read this novel.
#entertainment
source
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