SOURCE: "The New Alrightniks," in The New Republic, Vol. 197, No. 10, September 7, 1987, pp. 36-38.

In the following review, Baranczak discusses Aksyonov's In Search of Melancholy Baby, pointing out that the account "illustrates two sides of the émigré's problem at once."

Every Nabokov fan remembers the scene in Pnin in which the hero, an émigré Russian scholar who has lived for years on an American college campus, attempts to purchase some sports equipment:

Pnin entered a sport shop in Waindell's Main Street and asked for a football. The request was unseasonable but he was offered one.

"No, no," said Pnin, "I do not wish an egg or, for example, a torpedo. I want a simple football ball. Round!"

And with wrists and palms he outlined a portable world. It was the same gesture he used in class when speaking of the "harmonical wholeness" of Pushkin.

The salesman lifted a...