How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Prior to the nineteen-forties, during the staid European era of his life, he had always worn long underwear, its terminals tucked into the tops of neat silk socks, which were clocked, soberly colored, and held up on his cotton-clad calves by garters. In those days, to reveal a glimpse of that white underwear by pulling up a trouser leg too high would have seemed to Pnin as indecent as showing himself to ladies minus collar and tie… (1.1.2)
To give an example of just how old-fashioned Pnin's style of dress was, let's just talk about clocked socks. You're probably thinking, what do clocks have to do with socks? Well, a clocked sock is a sock with some kind of decoration on the ankle or side. And guess when this style of socks started to be popular? The 1600s. So yeah, Pnin is pretty old-fashioned.
Quote #2
Pnin—who, like so many Russians, was inordinately fond of everything in the line of timetables, maps, catalogues, collected them, helped himself freely to them with the bracing pleasure of getting something for nothing, and took especial pride in puzzling out schedules for himself—had discovered, after some study, an inconspicuous reference mark against a still more convenient train… (1.3)
Apparently Russians like trains? Can any of our Russian Shmoopsters confirm? We're not really sure why the dwelling on Pnin's perusal of a train schedule, but we guess it's another way to say that Pnin is silly and foreign.
Quote #3
"Zdrastvuyte kak pozhivaete horosho spasibo" Entwistle rattled off in excellent imitation of Russian speech—and indeed he rather resembled a genial Tsarist colonel in mufti. "One night in Paris," he went on, his eyes twinkling, "at the Ougolok cabaret, this demonstration convinced a group of Russian revelers that I was a compatriot of theirs—posing as an American, don't you know." "In two-three years," said Pnin, missing one bus but boarding the next, "I will also be taken for an American," and everybody roared except Professor Blorenge. (2.2.18)
Oh man, poor Pnin! He probably doesn't even know how mean everyone is being to him right now. Basically, they're saying that he is so helpless before and that no one will ever take him for an American. Why do you think everyone believes that?