A Speck of Coal Dust: Vladimir Nabokov's Pnin and the Possibility of Translation

Pnin foregrounds the agonies of translation through a thematic treatment of pain, which is the white noise of the novel, a constant pulse throbbing in the background. The ideas of Wittgenstein and Elaine Scarry suggest that pain is fundamentally resistant to language; Pnin, which invokes both personal and historical suffering, stages a critical response to contemporary theories of translation that have attempted to transform human "suffering" into an "inhuman" linguistic phenomenon. Through the novel's cavalier play with ontological and epistemological boundaries—recreating author as character while invoking physical suffering and the immutable tragedy of the Holocaust—Nabokov creates a character who also "leaves his creator's desk," despite attempts by the narrative to translate, limit, ridicule, and appropriate him. This discussion presents a response to recent questions regarding the role of suffering in Nabokov's work raised by Zoran Kuzmanovich and Elena Sommers.