Oops, lost a few days while I sorted out how to renew my domain registration. Think I've got it all set now, but you never know. Good thing no one's reading this.



Here's Laura's summary of last week's classics reading group:

11 people turned out for tonight's discussion of Pnin by Nabokov. We met

in the same spot as last time (tucked away towards the back of the

left-hand side of the first floor, kind of near the poetry area) which

was a bit of a surprise to some longtime members who weren't at the

meeting, but, once everyone found it, I think there was general

consensus that it was agreeable spot (and it was nice of the library [sic]

staff to have it all set up and waiting for us)!



Most of the people at the meeting liked this month's book to one degree

or another and no one *strongly* disliked it. Everyone agreed that

Nabokov is a superb linguistic craftsman -- as usual with Nabokov, we

spent some time marveling at his command of English and how often he

sent this pretty literate group scrambling for a dictionary, with just a

little sense of shame that while English was not his native tongue (or

even maybe his second one), he had somehow managed to master it better

than we had. But there was some strong disagreement about how much

depth he gave to his main character - how much we really got to know

him. Some members of the group empathized with Pnin quite well; others

felt that the character was perhaps a bit hollow and that maybe those

folks who thought they were empathizing were really just projecting

themselves onto the character. We discussed the interesting use of the

"narrator" (was he Nabokov or wasn't he?) and one member pointed out the

striking similarity of the use of the narrator in Pnin with that in

Pushkin's Eugene Onegin - a book and author that Nabokov was

particularly enamored of . We discussed the Russian émigré experience in

America and tried to guess what real college Waindell College might be a

"pseudonym" for (if any). We discussed the sadness of many parts of the

book (despite it being quite humorous overall) and the possibly hopeful

note that it *might* be construed to end with.

Although this isn't necessarily a book that would stick with you the way Lolita does, I liked it a lot, as much for what it didn't do as what it did. Nabokov manages to create a number of literary motifs, interior monologues, social history, political commentary, all seemingly effortlessly and not done so obliquely as to scare off the non-academic reader. I'm always impressed with how readable Nabokov is, and this book was no exception. From the first chapter where the title character is introduced while in the process of missing his train and finding another means to get to his speaking engagement in time, you're immediately rooted in the setting and identifying with the character's foibles. At the end, as his supposed fellow professors all make fun of him in his absence, you've come to care about Pnin enough to feel sorry for him, and yet the book ends on a hopeful note, that maybe he'll be able to put things back together after all in some other place. For such a short book it made for a good discussion, and with a couple of naysayers in attendance to stir things up, the hour went by quickly.