Some things to like about Pnin - but not about Lolita

OK I'll go a little easier on Vladimir Nabokov today, not that he can't take it, but there are some endearing moments in his 1957 novel Pnin - about a Rusiaan prof at what is most likely Cornell who's kind of the anti-Nabokov, a shlemiel, a misfit, a bumbler in love and in language (although please, give him a break - so what if his Engish isn't flawless, how's your Russian?). The first section - Pnin en route to deliver a lecture to "ladies' club" - is the most sarcastic about America and Americans - maybe this section was a rehearsal for or a reprise of VN's most renowned and notorious novel, Lolita (not sure which came first, Pnin I think) - but the rest of the novel is not quite as bitter and narcissistic: we see Pnin prepare for the awkward visit of his ex-wife's son, and we see him visit with some fellow Russian emigres at a private summer colony, and it's hard not to like the poor guy. But you can also see that this novel is a collection of sketches and segments - today, if would be sold I think as a series of "linked stories," as there's no single conflict or action that develops around Pnin, he faces no particular problem or dilemma of conflict, he just bumbles along. VN's account of P's fledgling driving experiences on American back roads is quite funny. So it's kind of a fun but light novel - a "pale" version of Lolita (a novel with serious problems and issues of its own - the most serious being the indifference to what is clearly child abuse and predatory behavior). Lolita, however, is in some ways about discovery, of self, of America, whereas Pnin is much more flat - the Pnin that we know by page 120 or so (about 3/4 through the novel) is not really any different from the Pnin of page 10. It's been said many times that one of the two basic plots begins: A man/woman goes on a journey - and that is where Pnin begins, but after that first section Pnin returns home and we have neither a journey nor the other trope (a stranger comes to town) - P's journey, from Russia to America - is in the rear-view mirror.