gift from Victor and a symbol of his regard. Chapter 7 The identity of the narrator is revealed —a Russian-American academic and lepidopterist called Vladimir Vladimirovich. V.V. recounts his version of his meetings with Pnin, claiming that they first met when V.V. had an appointment with Pnin's father, Pavel, an ophthalmologist. V.V. had an affair with Pnin's ex-wife Liza just before Pnin's marriage, disparaged her mediocre "Akhmatovesque" poetry, and drove her to attempt suicide. V.V. patronises Pnin, and many of his claims conflict with events V.V. himself narrated earlier in the book. V.V., the new head of the Waindell Russian department, wrote to Pnin to urge him to stay, but Pnin leaves Waindell, taking a stray dog with him. The novel closes with Jack Cockerell, head of English at Waindell, beginning to tell V.V. the story of Pnin bringing the wrong lecture papers to Cremona, bringing the narrative full circle. Background Publication history Pnin was originally written as a series of sketches, and Nabokov originally began writing Chapter 2 in January 1954, around the same time Lolita was being finalized. Sections of Pnin were first published, in installments, in The New Yorker in order to generate income while Nabokov was scouring the United States for a publisher willing to publish Lolita. It was soon expanded, revised, and published in book form. Nabokov's original version of Pnin, which he sent to Viking, consisted of ten chapters and ended with Pnin's untimely death from the heart problem he suffers at the beginning of the novel. However, editor Pascal Covici rejected the idea and Nabokov heavily revised the novel, then titling the work My Poor Pnin, before finally settling on the current title. According to Boyd, Pnin is Nabokov's response to Don Quixote, which he had read a year earlier. Nabokov lambasted Cervantes for his cruelty to Quixote, seeming to encourage the reader to be amused by the eponymous character's pain and humiliation. The title of the book, Boyd claims, lends even more credence to this theory, as it sounds like and nearly spells "pain". Influences The novel draws from Nabokov's experience at American academic institutions, primarily Cornell, and it has been claimed that it is "teeming" with people and physical details from that university. The main character is based, in part, on Cornell Professor Marc Szeftel, who may have "somewhat resented the resemblance". The description of the Waindell campus, however, better fits