Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov

I finally finished this last night - it took me a week to read this book, which is ridiculous, because it's less than 200 pages. It was good, but it wasn't great, and I keep feeling like I wanted to read a different book, but I didn't want to start another one because I was afraid I'd never come back to this one. My new motto: no more half-finished and barely started books on my bookshelves! I made it through JR by William Gaddis, I can make it through anything. Anyway, it wasn't fascinating in a sick sort of way like Lolita was, and it wasn't quite as funny as Pale Fire, but it was still pretty funny. It was mostly just sad and depressing. Pnin wasn't such a bad sort, but he just couldn't catch a break. The most notable thing about this book for me was the narrator. This is the third Nabokov book I've read where he frames the story and gives his narrator an identity. Pnin's narrator in particular was troubling to me, though, because the he seemed to know things that only an omniscient narrator would know. How does he know details of Pnin's life and actions when no one else is around to observe them? Should we believe Pnin when he claims that the narrator is a liar? So it's a problematic book, but not in the same way that Pale Fire is, and it didn't have the emotional effect that Lolita did for me. But overall, it was decent. Nabokov could hardly write something bad, that's for sure.