Here’s a David Lodge essay I missed from last year on Nabokov’s Pnin (and this is an excerpt from the introduction that appeared in the Everyman’s Library version). The novel, as we all know was an insurance policy in the event that Lolita couldn’t find a publisher. But Lodge offers some valuable info on Pnin’s inspiration, which was, in all likelihood, historian Marc Szeftel. Lodge is quite right in acknowledging Pnin as a prototype of the campus novel, but I wish he had conducted a more thorough inventory of Pnin‘s influence, which is broader than even Lodge gives credit for. Updike’s Bech books, for one, is clearly inspired by Pnin.

Alex Beam tears Joe Queenan a new one, pointing out Queenan’s hypocrisy in complaining about “the jackass at The Boston Globe who always gives my books bad reviews” and Queenan’s measly sales. Queenan Country only sold 6,124 copies. (via Bookdwarf)

My bed was too comfortable today. I didn’t want to leave. I had found one of the five good spots on my futon. There was interesting stuff on the radio. And now I am contending with overpaid boors who throw temper tantrums over picayune crap.

Like Jimmy Beck (though sans hangover), the Cruel Overlords of Life are preventing me from posting witty ramblings, or even going into nice reminiscences about grandmothers. Factor in chronic insomnia and you get the sluggish portrait in full. It’s going to be light today and tomorrow because of assholes. We apologize, but we’re chipper. The bastards haven’t gotten us down and we’re pro-active.

PEN/Faulkner nominees: Jerome Charyn’s The Green Lantern, Edwidge Dandicat’s The Dew Breaker, Ha Jin’s War Trash, Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, and Steve Yarbrough’s Prisoners of War.