Pnin is hapless, but as we follow him we must not laugh

By Roger K. Miller
Special to The Commercial Appeal
July 18, 2004

Comic self-mockery is the point of the campus novel.

As David Lodge, himself no slouch at the campus novel ("Changing Places" and "Small World"), says in his introduction to this new edition of Vladimir Nabokov's "Pnin," in the Everyman's Library series, campus novels are, like classic murder mysteries, a type. The fans of either type appreciate them not only for their cozily reassuring settings, but for their variations on familiar themes.

"Pnin," published in 1957, is a benchmark of the academic novel, in large part, admittedly, because its emotional range extends beyond its university setting.

Among Nabokov's many writings, "Lolita" is far more famous, and others, such as "Pale Fire," may be more celebrated, but "Pnin" is probably his most human and intensely felt novel. Critics have questioned whether it is, in fact, a novel or a collection of stories; Lodge leans toward "a novel of character."

The character evoked is Timofey Pnin, like Nabokov a Russian emigre intellectual and college teacher in his (and the century's) 50s. But there the similarity ends. Nabokov was a sophisticated, successful novelist; Pnin is a pitiful, bumbling, self-conscious drone, forever taking figurative pratfalls. It is no accident that his name, which the narrator calls a "preposterous little explosion," is so close to "pain."

There is, however, another Nabokov similarity, and that is to the nameless narrator, who in the first of the novel's seven chapters invites us to observe and laugh at this pathetic Pnin as he takes the wrong train to a distant city to give a speech, the only copy of which he mislays. Few things go right for Pnin, then or later.

Yet he is not unhappy in his solitary life lived in a series of rented rooms near the campus of Waindell College (reminiscent of Cornell University, where Nabokov taught). He has friends, though they smile at his naive antics behind his back. He has a rich past, the memory of which, as with most of us, cheers and saddens him. He has joys and hopes for the future.

One thing else Pnin has, and that is a noble heart. As we move into the novel, we realize how shameful it is for us and for the people at Waindell to have laughed at this good, generous, trusting, unselfish, innocent fellow.

This shift in our outlook seems to be encouraged by the narrator, once whimsical and sardonic but now more understanding of Pnin's travails. To the careful reader, the narrator can be a pleasantly puzzling conundrum, a shape-shifter who at times is omniscient, at other times a first-person, unnamed "I," and at still others even Nabokov himself.

One thing Pnin does not have is tenure, and the narrator will become, albeit unwillingly, a prime agent of Pnin's undoing. Upon his arrival at Waindell, the narrator offered Pnin a job under him, but Pnin's pride will not allow him to do this, and he drives off, wearing a ridiculous cap with ear flaps and accompanied by a recently acquired white dog, to face another homeless future.

In a larger sense, though, Pnin has been undone by the casual cruelty of academia's petty politics and ambitions, practiced upon him by those he considered his colleagues and friends. It is important, therefore, not to lose sight of the shadow of Nabokov hovering around the narrator. The author is telling us we can know little of another human being's pain, and so we must take great care not to laugh at it.

Though born in Russia, Nabokov always reminded people that he was an American citizen and, moreover, an American writer. I find it astonishing that a man who grew up with Russian and learned to speak French and German, can tell this lesson so poignantly and beautifully in English.

Roger K. Miller, a newspaper man for many years, is a freelance writer and reviewer for several publications.