{"product_id":"pnin-9780679723417","title":"Pnin","description":"\u003cb\u003eOne of the best-loved of Nabokov's novels, \u003ci\u003ePnin\u003c\/i\u003e features his funniest and most heart-rending character. Serialized in \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e and published in book form in 1957, \u003ci\u003ePnin\u003c\/i\u003e brought Nabokov both his first National Book Award nomination and hitherto unprecedented popularity. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"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.\" --\u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eProfessor Timofey Pnin is a haplessly disoriented Russian émigré precariously employed on an American college campus in the 1950s. Pnin struggles to maintain his dignity through a series of comic and sad misunder-standings, all the while falling victim both to subtle academic conspiracies and to the manipulations of a deliberately unreliable narrator. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eInitially an almost grotesquely comic figure, Pnin gradually grows in stature by contrast with those who laugh at him. Whether taking the wrong train to deliver a lecture in a language he has not mastered or throwing a faculty party during which he learns he is losing his job, the gently preposterous hero of this enchanting novel evokes the reader's deepest protective instinct.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne 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.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50611232866578,"sku":"9780679723417","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_1ff8a807-3961-4d1d-a149-c09e7d48c854.jpg?v=1755851752","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/pnin-9780679723417","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}