Funny, I don't recall the smallness of Pnin's feet - but his beetle-browed large domed head - that I do recall. You know, about Bailey I asked the question because I don't know the answer. However unless evidence to the contrary turns up, I simply have to assume that he simply doesn't find him worthy of comment. It's hard not to imagine someone who, knowing the Russian language, couldn't worship at the feet (and I do think they were probably small, and he certainly had a way of describing small women's feet) of Pushkin. But Nabokov is still an acquired taste. I personally do not take Iris Murdoch seriously as a novelist - I simply don't find her interesting.

Carolyn

p.s. KUSC is playing Liadov and other Russian music and the host, the irrepressible Jim Svejda of Czech extraction, mentioned the senselessness of Pushkin's death. Personally I take it as a form of suicide. Pushkin was very unhappy with his life at court and with what precipitated the duel in the first place, his wife's careless and flirtatious behavior, making him, at least so he believed and with good reason, the laughing stock of society. He'd written his masterpieces. What did he have to look forward to? I personally think that many early deaths were forms of suicide - from Mozart to Schubert and almost certainly Purcell. Death by duel, death by poisoning - possibly self induced in the case of Mozart (hitzigis Hirnfeber? give me a break) and in the case of Schubert possibly untreated syphilis. It was easier in those days. Purcell's death has never been explained in any rational way.

*I only mention it because he can't for the life of him pronounce Tschaikovsky correctly - he says chai-cowf-sky. I have tried to tell him -- there is no cow in Tschai-cough-sky. To no avail.