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Pnin

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Pnin

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Overview

Pnin is a professor of Russian at an American college who takes the wrong train to deliver a lecture in a language he cannot master. Pnin is a tireless lover who writes to his treacherous Liza: "A genius needs to keep so much in store, and thus cannot offer you the whole of himself as I do." Pnin is the focal point of subtle academic conspiracies he cannot begin to comprehend, yet he stages a faculty party to end all faculty parties forever.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9785171378394
Publisher:	Corpus
Publication date:	11/24/2023
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	12 Years
Language:	Russian

About the Author

One of the twentieth century's master prose stylists, VLADIMIR NABOKOV was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. He studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, where he launched a brilliant literary career. In 1940 he moved to the United States, and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator. He taught literature at Wellesley, Stanford, Cornell, and Harvard. In 1961 he moved to Montreux, Switzerland, where he died in 1977.

Date of Birth:

April 23, 1899

Date of Death:

July 2, 1977

Place of Birth:

St. Petersburg, Russia

Place of Death:

Montreux, Switzerland

Education:

Trinity College, Cambridge, 1922

Read an Excerpt

INTRODUCTION by David Lodge
(Continues…)

Excerpted from "Pnin"
by .
Copyright © 2004 Vladimir Nabokov.
Excerpted by permission of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

What People are Saying About This

John Updike

Navakov writes prose the only way it should be written, that is, ecstatically.

From the B&N Reads Blog

Page 1 of

Editorial Reviews

Nabokov fans will be disappointed by narrator Stefan Rudnicki's stiff, staid performance in this audio version of the author's 13th novel. Told in a series of vignettes, the story follows Russian immigrant and professor Timofey Pavlovich Pnin as he boards the wrong train on his way to deliver a lecture, loses his luggage, struggles with the English language, hunts for living quarters, deals with his ex-wife, and throws a faculty party. Rudnicki's narration is clear and steady, but fails to capture the playfulness of Nabokov's prose and the humor of the text. Instead, Rudnicki's tone is variously stiff, needlessly booming, or monotone. He does, however, provide a wide range of voices for the cast of characters. His rendition of the title character—which sounds like a hybrid of Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat and Soviet comedian Yakov Smirnoff—is dynamic and entertaining. Listeners will be left wishing Rudnicki had infused more of his narration with those qualities. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"Nabokov writes prose the only way it should be written, that is, ecstatically." —John Updike

“Has there ever been a better novel written about a fumbling Russian émigré?” —Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author of Our Country Friends

“Hilariously funny and of a sadness.” —Graham Greene, acclaimed author of The Quiet American and The End of the Affair

“Pnin’s vita, though its essence is saintliness, is yet a work of brilliant magic and fabulous laughter.” —The New Republic

“Fun and satire are just the beginning of the rewards of this novel. Generous, bewildered Pnin, that most kindly and impractical of men, wins our affection and respect.” —Chicago Tribune

“Nabokov can move you to laughter in the way the masters can–-to laughter that is near to tears.” —The Guardian

From the Publisher