Initially an almost grotesquely comic figure, Pnin gradually grows in
stature by contrast with those who laugh at him. Whether taking the wrong
train to deliver a lecture in a language he has not mastered or throwing a
faculty party during which he learns he is losing his job, the gently
preposterous hero of this enchanting novel evokes the reader's deepest
protective instinct. Serialized in The New Yorkerand published in book form
in 1957, PNINbrought Nabokov both his first National Book Award nomination
and hitherto unprecedented popularity.