Pnin

Yeah, man, Lolita, right? Heavy/sick!

Much prefer Pnin - sweetly forlorn Russian professor bumbles around Waindell College. Or, as he says (and the accent/vernacular is flawlessly done, of course), "Vandal College."

Rereading this last night, and he receives a visit from his ex-wife Liza Wind (amazing names!) who wants him to send spending money to/keep an eye on her son, who is going to school nearby. After her departure, Pnin sobs in the kitchen of the house where he's a boarder and sweet landlady Jean tries to cheer him up with cartoons from a New Yorker-type magazine (it's 1953)...the cartoon described has a man and a cat on a desert island, seeing a mermaid passing and the man's thought balloon is of a whole woman while the cats imagines a whole fish. Pnin is unmoved, says he doesn't get American humor and keeps sobbing...

FRIGGIN' SWEET!

(an amendation, from the "Fuck yes!" dept: http://www.amazon.com/Original-Laura-Vladimir-Nabokov/dp/0307271897/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242330673&sr=8-1)