Original artwork, not a still
Pnin · 1957
Discussion in class, which means letting twenty young blockheads and two cocky neurotics discuss something that neither they nor their teacher know.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
Nabokov's narrator wryly describes classroom discussion as an exercise in shared ignorance, where students and their instructor alike lack any real understanding of the subject being debated. The tone is satirical, mocking the pretense of intellectual exchange when nobody involved actually knows anything.
Context reviewed
