watching clumsy old men

and trying to find the traces of who they used to be

Fiction, 1957

There are moments—though, if you're lucky, they don't present themselves often—when everything is embarrassing. Pnin is a slice-of-life story of an ageing Russian professor whose entire existence seems to hinge on the moments that most of us don't dare to relay in journals or when drunk, for fear that any repetition might make them more real. 

Timofey Pnin, exiled from Russia, now wanders the academic circles of small-town America as an uncomfortable émigré. During the day, he rushes between the halls of the College, almost always rustling some letters between his hands and looking down upon them with a furrowed brow to avoid any sociable encounter with a colleague or student. One by one, the reader witnesses a series of mishaps in Pnin's life. He takes the wrong train; his position as faculty is tenuous at best, yet he's convinced he's getting tenure; he brings the wrong lecture notes, and he falls down the stairs in front of his prodigal son. When you're not cringing away from the page, you're laughing at him. But there are moments, like when he recalls his first wife, Mira, who has since been murdered at a concentration camp, when the jagged edges of Pnin don't seem so clumsy. They appear to be, like the rest of him, "ideally bald". Despite the undeniable tragedies of Pnin's life, there is so much mirth, all of which comes from a turn of phrase that Nabokov is a master at accomplishing. 

Sometimes, when the light reflects beautifully on the scene unfolding, and your stomach is satisfied enough, you find yourself a voyeur to such moments of embarrassment, and instead of turning away in fear of being stained by such an ugly scene, you are filled with the softest sense of witnessing a wholly human act. And once the rhythm of Pnin settles, it is this warmth that remains. 

Song - America - Simon & Garfunkel 

Film - The Holdovers