Faraday Discussions Vol. 129: Dynamics and Structure of the Liquid-Liquid Interface (Faraday Discussions 2005)

Book Description

This volume addresses the distinct approaches that have been taken to study liquid-liquid interfaces. The underlying theme is the convergence of the diverse experimental and computational approaches that have been pursued to understand structure dynamics and transport phenomena associated with liquid-liquid interfaces. Work is presented in the following areas; theory and simulation of liquid-liquid interfaces; spectroscopic and structural studies of the liquid-liquid interface; kinetic and thermodynamics of transfer across interfacial boundaries; charge transfer processes; bio-mimetic systems; fundamental aspects and applications of emulsions; and applications of liquid-liquid processes including metal deposition solvent extraction drug delivery and two-phase synthesis. Faraday Discussions document a long-established series of Faraday Discussion meetings which provide a unique international forum for the exchange of views and newly acquired results in developing areas of physical chemistry biophysical chemistry and chemical physics. The papers presented are published in the Faraday Discussion volume together with a record of the discussion contributions made at the meeting. Faraday Discussions therefore provide an important record of current international knowledge and views in the field concerned.

Interfacial Dynamics (Surfactant Science)

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Interfacial Dynamics (Surfactant Science)
Nikola Kallay
Manufacturer: CRC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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An examination of the theoretical foundations of the kinetics and thermodynamics of solid-liquid interfaces, as well as state-of-the-art industrial applications, this book presents information on surface and colloidal chemical processes and evaluates vital analytical tools such as atomic force microscopy, surface force apparatus measurements, and photon correlation spectroscopy.

Molecules in Interaction with Surfaces and Interfaces (Lecture Notes in Physics)

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Molecules in Interaction with Surfaces and Interfaces (Lecture Notes in Physics)

Manufacturer: Springer
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 354020539X

Book Description

The study of the interaction of molecules with surfaces and interfaces is of great importance for the understanding of adsorption and catalysis on solid surfaces, the complex properties of molecules on fluid interfaces and the relationship between structure and functionality in macromolecular biological systens. It is the aim of this volume to present and analyse in a comprehensive and accessible way the methodical achievements and the recent progress in this field. The broadness of both scope and selection of the topics should help in particular non-expert readers to become familiar with this exciting field of research.

Dynamics of Adsorption at Liquid Interfaces (Studies in Interface Science)

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Dynamics of Adsorption at Liquid Interfaces (Studies in Interface Science)
S.S. Dukhin , G. Kretzschmar , and R. Miller
Manufacturer: Elsevier Science
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0444881174

Book Description

As the first of its kind, this book provides a valuable introduction for scientists and engineers interested in liquid/fluid interfaces and disperse systems to the rapidly developing area of adsorption dynamics. It is the first extensive review available on the subject of dynamics of adsorption and gives a general summary of the current state of adsorption kinetics theory and experiments. Current progress in recently designed set-ups and improved and generalised known methods for studying interfacial relaxations is reviewed. In addition, the role of the electric charge of surfactants in the adsorption process is discussed in terms of a non-equilibrium distribution of adsorbing ions in the diffuse layer.

Present theories of the effect of dynamic adsorption layers on mobile surfaces, such as moving drops and bubbles, based on both diffusion and kinetic controlled adsorption models are described and efficient approximate analytical methods to solve the mathematical problem of coupling surfactant transport and hydrodynamics are introduced. The role of a dynamic adsorption layer in bubble rising, film drainage and film stabilisation and in complex processes such as flotation and microflotation is discussed.

Containing more than 1100 references, the book is essential reading for industrial scientists and graduate and post-graduate students in physical, surface and colloid chemistry, physico-chemical hydrodynamics, water purification and mineral processing.

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The second in Library of America's three-volume collection of Vladimir Nabokov's novels, Novels 1955-1962 contains his most acclaimed and popular works. The short, often anthologized Pnin is included, as is Pale Fire, Nabokov's most elaborate fictional joke: it's a novel masquerading as a 999-line poem accompanied by a professorial pedant's extensive annotations. But this deluxe volume is most valuable for its inclusion of Lolita alongside the screenplay that Nabokov wrote for Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick's film is quite different from the version Nabokov intended, and Novels 1955-1962 offers the opportunity to compare Lolita's two Nabokovian incarnations with Kubrick's film and with the recent, very controversial movie directed by Adrian Lyne and starring Jeremy Irons.

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The best of Nabokov.......2004-03-29

Three classic novels and a solid screenplay adaptation -- Vladimir Nabokov's literary genius is perhaps best shown in the second volume of Library of America's collections. The classic "Lolita" is paired with its own screenplay adaptation, and the comic "Pnin" and witty "Pale Fire."

"Lolita" is the tale for which Nabokov is best known. The redundantly-named, middle-aged (dirty old man) Humbert Humbert is haunted by some teenage love he had long ago, and which he thinks he has refound in the prepubescent Delores Haze (called "Lolita" by Humbert). He sets out to seduce the unsuspecting girl, but her mom is standing in the way...

"Pnin" is a gently comic tale about Timofey Pnin, a timid, moderately neurotic Russian professor who now lives in the United States. He's amazed by technology, fussy, a bit weird about his health, and has problems with American train schedules. The unfortunate Pnin stumbles from one problem to another, trying to keep everything under control in uncontrollable circumstances.

"Pale Fire" is perhaps the best literary satire out there. Poet John Shade wrote the sprawling 999-line poem "Pale Fire," shortly before being murdered. After his death, the poem is being painstakingly dissected and annotated by his neighbor, Charles Kinbote. Except Kinbote is a nutjob, who interprets "Pale Fire" as being all about him, and will come up with weird symbolism to justify his belief.

"Lolita: A Screenplay" is almost a different version of "Lolita." Here Nabokov recounted the same events of the novel, but from an ominiscent perspective -- that of the person who would be watching the movie. Very rich, very well-adapted, very evocative for a screenplay, this is almost as good as a book in itself.

Nabokov could handle just about any kind of writing, this collection shows us. From the opulent poetry of "Pale Fire" to the solid screenplay, from the erotic drama of "Lolita" to the chuckling comedy of "Pnin," he handles it all. His writing is detailed and lush, rich almost to the point of choking. He shifts perspectives, tells a story through annotation, sees through the eyes of a pedophile, and does it all with a certain winking flair.

Nabokov's writing is a combination of believable characterizations and rich language. Humbert Humbert, for example, is a horrendously believable person, especially since he makes constant excuses for his pedaphilic behavior -- the characterization is so good, in fact, that newcomers might even think (incorrectly) that Nabokov sympathized with the creep. At the same time, he creates the rather pitiful, absentminded Pnin, the self-serving nutcase Kinbote -- and they're all delightfully three-dimensional. You could bump into people like these on the bus at any time, and they would be just as he describes them.

Comedy, drama, satire and screenwriting are collected in the second Library of America collection of Nabokov's novels. Sexy, funny, brilliant and exquisitely written, these are among the best of Vladimir Nabokov's works.

Nabokov a hard act to follow for other serious writers.......2000-08-31

Picture Vladimir Nabokov. In the hall of mirrors that is popular culture, he is the dirty man who wrote the dirty book "Lolita," about a 12-year-old "nymphet" -- he invented the term, by the way -- and her affair with an older man.

Angle the mirror another way, and he is one of the founders of the modernist novel, which to some people -- myself included -- that's a damning phrase. "Modernist" and "post-modernist" literature seems a) self-referencing to the point of egotism; b) dedicated to the advancement of decedent themes, and to score big points as a writer, pile it on, brother; and c) obsessed with the discovery that the "arts" -- whether books, pictures or movies -- are artificial, and that we use them to create, well, books, pictures and movies.

Unless you think I am making it up, here's an example drawn from real life: a few years back, a Charlotte museum mounted an exhibition of a painter's work, one of which was a canvas whose front side was turned toward the wall, exposing a paint-stained frame. A newspaper reviewer breathlessly informed the reading public that the artist did this "to inform the viewer that most paintings are recetangular."

Now, a reasonably intelligent person could probably reach that conclusion without much effort, but discoveries like these seem to drive those who tread into the "modern" era of art.

So Vlaidmir Nabokov's reputation is caught between two very opposing poles. He either panders to the worst tastes of man, or the worst tastes of art.

Fortunately, he is neither, and the Library of America agrees. The non-profit publisher throws its reputation behind Nabokov as a writer worth reading by publishing all of his English-language novels in three volumes. The first volume covers his work from 1941 to 1951: "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight," "Bend Sinister," and his memoir, "Speak, Memory." The middle work contains the notorious "Lolita," "Pale Fire," "Pnin," and the "Lolita" screenplay Nabokov wrote for Stanley Kubrick. The concluding volume contains "Ada," "Transparent Things," and "Look at the Harlequins!"

But of these works, only "Lolita" stands alone. It is not a dirty book, and one should pity those American and British tourists who, in the mid-1950s, bought the pale olive-green two-volume paperbacks published in Paris by the notorious Olympia Press. Those expecting frankly pornographic stories like "The Story of O" and "How to Do It" would have been sorely disappointed in Humbert Humbert's self-confessed defense of his rape (not "seduction," which implies a willingness to be seduced) and exploitation of Delores Haze, "Lolita, light of my life,fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta."

Even Olympia's publisher was taken in, telling a mutual friend that he though Nabokov was Humbert, and that he was attempting to popularize nymphet love.

What does become apparent after reading through the volumes (and aided by an excellent two-volume biography by Brian Boyd) is that there is much more to Nabokov than meets the eye. Delving deeper in his works reveals a funhouse hall of mirrors that can lead to a definitive end, and there's not much in modernist fiction that could substantiate that claim.

What sets Nabokov off from other writers is his use of the language. Raised in Tsarist Russia, Nabokov was a child prodigy who was taught Russian, French and English at an early age. His prose is elegent, his command of English astounding. It's close to the prose of Henry James, but except for the foreign phrases, which the Library editions provide translations and explanations, far more understandable.

Descriptions pulled at random from "Lolita" ring as if English was a newly minted language, capable of expressing humor ("The bed was a frightful mess with overtones of potato chips") and snobbish anger ("Lo had grabbed some comics from the back seat and, mobile white-bloused, one brown elbow out of the window, was deep in the current adventure of some clout or clown").

Even, when Humbert meets his Lolita long after she escaped his clutches, when he believes that he still loves her, heart-rending: "In her washed-out grey eyes, strangely spectacled, our poor romance was for a moment reflected, pondered upon, and dismissed like a dull party, like a rainy picnic to which only the dullest bores had come, like a humdrum exercise, like a bit of dry mud caking her childhood."

This is not casual reading, but neither is it reading-as-masochistic exercise, with furrowed brows and an exasperated flipping of once-read pages. There is a surface meaning that is easily accessible, but there are deeper meanings, in-jokes, ironies and moral questions worthy of consideration.

The best volume of the three is the second, which contains "Lolita," the screenplay he wrote for Stanley Kubrick (which was not used), the comic novel (for Nabokov at least) "Pnin" and "Pale Fire."

But good works can be found in the other volumes as well. "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight," in the first volume, is the author's account of his biographical research on his half-brother, the brilliant writer Sebastian Knight, who had died recently of a heart condition after writing a half-dozen novels. It bears all the hallmarks of the post-modernist novel replete with a self-absorption with writers, spurious biography, an unreliable narrator and ironical references. "Speak, Memory," also in the first volume, is Nabokov's memoirs about growing up in Russia.

Indeed, the only disadvantage to reading Nabokov is that it may cause a nagging niggling in the back of your head, while reading novels in the future, that they just cannot compare to those composed by the American from Russia.

Nabokov's Best.......1998-08-05

This is a compact, sturdy and high quality edition of the first novels Nabokov wrote entirely in English. It's the central volume in a three-volume set of Nabokov's autobiography and English fiction (excluding the short stories), including his finest achievements -- Lolita, Pnin and Pale Fire. The two versions of Lolita (as novel and screen adaptation) are illuminating to read together: the novel is created within Humbert's subjective and self-serving memory, while in the screenplay Nabokov reimagines the story as objective action. I was also intrigued to find that some obvious departures from the novel in Kubrick's film -- such as the opening scene of Humbert shooting Quilty, or the high school prom scene -- are ideas taken from the Nabokov screenplay (in turn fragments of the novel excised in the final version). Brian Boyd offers an impeccable text, much improved over the paperback editions, with a chronology of the author's life. This is the volume to choose if you u! nravel Nabokov's narrative patterns with your own marginal notes and comments, and want a volume that won't disintegrate in a nymphet's span of years.

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Short But A Great Read - But Not Like Nabokov's Other Novels
A Russian In America
A Gentle, Merry, Sad and Clever Book
Short but sweet
Poor Pnin

Pnin
Vladimir Nabokov
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0679723412
Release Date: 1989-06-18

Book Description

Pnin is a professor of Russian at an American college who takes the wrong train to deliver a lecture in a language he cannot master. Pnin is a tireless lover who writes to his treacherous Liza: "A genius needs to keep so much in store, and thus cannot offer you the whole of himself as I do." Pnin is the focal point of subtle academic conspiracies he cannot begin to comprehend, yet he stages a faculty party to end all faculty parties forever.

Customer Reviews:

Short But A Great Read - But Not Like Nabokov's Other Novels.......2007-01-20

Nabokov is famous both for his non-fiction analysis of literature and for his fictional works, especially on topics such as obsession and compulsive behaviour. The book is less intense that Lolita or Laughter in the Dark.

I started to read all of his works and eventually made my way to Pnin. I had not read any comments or reviews on the book prior to reading the story.

This is a compelling read. It is well written; and, in many ways it is a powerful novel. I found it hard to put down once underway. Technically - just as a short novel - it is almost faultless as are many of Nobokov's other works. He is a master story teller and he is very skilled in the construction of a literary novel.

Some might not like the subject, and the story of the bumbling professor is slightly depressing. The story - we can assume - must be based in part on Nabokov's own experiences and academic acquaintance in upstate New York where he was a professor. Many people in the academic world have come across Pnin characters in their own careers: an aging assistant professor not protected by tenure doing marginal research.

Pnin is a man with seemingly little self confidence and caught in a mediocre academic career. He had been a bit of a dashing figure in his youth in Europe, but has floundered as an academic in America. I short, he is a bumbling and naive fool unaware of his own limitations.

The story contains much subtle humour and pathos. We follow his tenuous marriage, his false teeth, reunions with other Russian émigrés, and his career as the bumbling professor. He is a misfit and is depicted here as always doing things incorrectly or with no style. Pnin is not a symathetic character, although their is a degree of pity for the man generated by Nabokov.

It has a surprise ending which should be left as a surprise.

A Russian In America.......2006-01-12

This book is truly a masterful work by Nabokov. In a brief summary, the book is like Kafka with a great sense of humor. Yet Kafka never really has a sense of humor, so it is unique to Nabokov. The story depicts a Russian immigrant to the US. He never really integrates the manner and pronunciation of English in the American manner. Much of his commentary is funny. Many of the events that besiege him are hilarious. Often one can do nothing but outright laugh at Nabakov's description and depiction.

Yet after the first two thirds of the book, things take a turn. Prof. Pnin, a caricature of Russians in America, is besieged by some bad luck. He takes all this news in stride, but is nonetheless devastated by some of the pronouncements his good friend and protector announces to him.

In the end, there is no humor, just a vast emptiness. The amusement that the author gives the reader disappears in the last third of the book. The story of abject failure on the part of Prof. Pnin is the subject of the end of the book. And like so many other disadvantaged people in American, once the die is caste, there is no turning away from American Xenophobia and prejudice. These are the societal elements that Nabokov relies on as he puts together this brilliant narrative.

The book is recommended for all Nabokov readers, and well as those looking to understand the treatment of foreigners in American Society. It is a pleasure to read and would be also recommended for all highly interesting contemporary style.

A Gentle, Merry, Sad and Clever Book.......2006-01-10

PNIN must surely be one of the most gentle, merry, sad, and clever books in the English language today. All of these marvelous characteristics rely, of course, on the ability of its creator to weave visual tapestries from his word-hoard, and a superb weaver he is indeed. Vladimir Nabokov is an artist who paints fascinating images for us, with words as his paint and a pen as his brush. That English is a second language for the Russian-born Nabokov merely increases our incredulity at his skill in manipulating it so adroitly with such apparent ease.

In this one slim volume, readers will, on occasion, find a wry, sardonic grin spread across their faces at the description of the ubiquitous college campus, its students, its not-too-illustrious faculty and their pretensions, its too-efficient librarian, and the machinations of campus politics. They will smile with compassion at Timofey Pnin's efforts, never quite successful, to master the peculiarities of English, one chapter, for example, being devoted to his hosting a "house-heating" party. They will feel their protectiveness rise for this essentially good man who continually suffers the slings and arrows of cruel fortune.

Analyses of PNIN speak of the instances of bathos in the book, but that word, to me, suggests an exaggeration of pathos so great that the reader is repulsed by its artificiality. I do not find Nabokov's writing to be that crude or "over the top." Rather, the pathos is almost understated. For instance, when he learns that his ex-wife's son, fathered by her second husband, is to visit him on college vacation, Pnin buys him a fine leather football (which we Americans would call a soccer ball), and we are treated to a bit of humor at the linguistic confusion in the store while still understanding that, in Pnin's eyes, this is a delightful gift for any young athletic man on campus. He is so proud of the gift that he removes the rumpled brown wrapping paper so that Victor's first sight of the ball will be of its excellent leather cover. In hopeful conversation between the station and Pnin's rented room, Pnin excitedly brings up the topic of football only to discover that Victor has no interest in the sport whatsoever. Finally at the rooming house, while Victor is yet engaged in pleasantries with the landlord, Pnin slips upstairs and opens the window. The magnificent leather soccer ball is consigned to the storm.

Such sad conflicts are part and parcel of Pnin's life. The pleasure of meeting Victor is counterbalanced, at least in the reader's mind, by the disappointment of the failed gift. The pleasure of Pnin's marriage to Liza is offset by her obvious lack of commitment, to which Pnin seems oblivious, and her abandonment of him for Dr. Wind. The pleasure of having given a wonderful "house heating" party is supplanted by the despair of learning that he is to lose his job at the college. And so it goes from event to event-happiness is always offset by disappointment.

Pnin is an innocent, truly and thoroughly naive, who is thrust into life's ambushes without the benefit of any useful weapon at all. Yet, Nabokov does not permit him to be destroyed. He appears always accepting and even at times oblivious to the ambushes and, at the end, when he has lost his job at the college, he drives off "up the shining road, . . . narrowing to a thread of gold in the soft mist where hill after hill made beauty of distance, and where there was simply no saying what miracle might happen."

In addition to painting a verbal portrait of a guileless émigré, thoroughly lovable despite, or perhaps because of, his amusing malapropisms with his new language, Nabokov also treats the reader to an exhilarating romp with that language. One of the author's linguistic jokes actually sent me on a search for its meaning! In Chapter 3, Nabokov shares with us that, during the academic year, Pnin "existed mainly on a motuweth frisas basis." Motuweth frisas? What in the world? Latin? No. Russian? No. Purely English. Look at the first two letters of each weekday (except for Sunday from which you must take only one letter). What fun!

PNIN is a truly beautiful book, both for its pathetic, naive professor whom we quickly come to love and for the author's admirable use of our language in evoking that response in us. If your literature courses, like mine, inexplicably bypassed the works of Vladimir Nabokov, PNIN is a fine example of his art with which to rectify that omission!

Short but sweet.......2005-11-30

While not the most extraordinary work Nabokov has written, I think the story was nice. There was a normalcy about Pnin that I liked. He wasn't an amazing hero, but he was a regular, quirky person. It is nice to read about someone like that, especially when the author is Nabokov.

Poor Pnin.......2005-07-21

This novel is bitterly funny as well as subtly tragic. Pnin is a Russian expatriate during the mid 20th century who teaches language in an American college. His so-called friends and colleagues see him as a risible crackpot. Although he is sort of a random tornado of words and thoughts, Pnin is also deeply passionate and intellectual.

The most striking aspect of this novel was, in my opinion, Pnin's disconnect from humanity. I broke the threshold of tears in the last few pages where Pnin, bitterly leaving his pitiful life and associates behind, is seen driving off, suitcases packed in his car with a little white dog panting out the window (this is the first time the dog appears).

This is also a story on the experience of Russian expatriates during the Cold War era (since WHEN is the Russian language "obsolete"?). It is also, like Lolita, a thesis on the contrast between American and European intellect.

Great read. MOVING and sometimes outright silly. If Nabokov were alive, I would hug him for being such a brilliant writer.

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Pnin
Vladimir Nabokov
Manufacturer: NY: Avon, 1957
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Gesammelte Werke 09. Pnin.
Vladimir Nabokov , and Dieter E. Zimmer
Manufacturer: Rowohlt, Reinbek
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 3498046470

Istinnaia zhizn Sebastiana Naita. Pnin. Prosvechivaiuschie predmety.

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Istinnaia zhizn Sebastiana Naita. Pnin. Prosvechivaiuschie predmety.
Nabokov Vladimir.
Manufacturer: AST (M.)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000R151VA

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PNIN
Vladimir Nabokov
Manufacturer: Penguin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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A Satiric Novel by a Master Stylist

Pnin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
Manufacturer: Atheneum
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0007G1CXQ

Customer Reviews:

A Satiric Novel by a Master Stylist.......2005-08-28

Vladimir Nabokov is so often called a "master stylist" that it is easy to forget that he is an adept storyteller as well. Even though PNIN, one of his lesser known works, threatens to disappear under the gorgeous stylistic turns, it is ultimately the pathetic title character and his nemesis/narrator who drive this novel. Pnin is a Russian instructor at a college, and, due to his solitary existence and his failure to grasp the subtleties of English, he has become a running joke to most of his colleagues. He is fussy, awkward, and usually clueless. The novel reads as episodes in Pnin's life: losing his lecture notes on a train he should never have been on; his weekend with other Russian immigrants; the crushing love and hope he experiences when his ex-wife visits him; a party he gives for his colleagues. The narrator's the biting and hilarious commentary about Pnin and those he associates with keeps the reader from taking these events too seriously. But should we?

In the writing of this work, Nabokov breaks all the rules. His shifts in points-of-view, his sometimes favoring of lengthy exposition over scene, his dropping of plots and subplots just as they get going all work precisely because he is such a skilled novelist and knows the effect of abandoning conventions. In dashing the reader's hopes, his style takes tenacious hold of the reader's imagination; we learn to trust the voice - even if we shouldn't. This last is what is truly brilliant about the novel: we allow ourselves to be swept into a story of non-events and pathos, laughing along the way and becoming in essence yet another of Pnin's mocking colleagues.

Students of literature and book discussion groups can discover a wealth of topics here: Is the narrator reliable? How can the narrator be both omniscient and a specific character? How does the touching story of Pnin's first love fit with the mocking tone in the rest of the novel? What is the range of the Russian immigrant experience Nabokov supplies? Is Pnin heroic or merely pathetic?

While PNIN is hardly the masterpiece that PALE FIRE or LOLITA is, it has its own rewards. Once I advanced past the first chapter, I didn't want to leave this odd, Old World character. Highly recommended, especially if you've already read one or more of Nabokov's other works.

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Pnin
Vladimir NABOKOV
Manufacturer: Avon T-323
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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Pnin
Vladimir Nabokov
Manufacturer: Doubleday and Co.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Pnin
Vladimir Nabokov
Manufacturer: Bard Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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