The hero of the novel, Timofey Pavlovich Pnin, was born in 1898 in St. Petersburg, in the family of an oculist. In 1917, his parents died of typhoid. Timothy joined the White Army, where he served first as a telephone operator, and then in the Office of Military Intelligence. In 1919 he fled from Constantinople from the Crimea taken by the Red Army. He graduated from the University of Prague, lived in Paris, from where he emigrated to the United States with the outbreak of World War II. During the novel, Pnin is an American citizen, a professor who earns his living by teaching the Russian language at Weindell University.
Once in the United States, Pnin quickly became Americanized: despite his age, he gladly changed the prim European style of clothing to a carelessly sporty one. Pnin speaks English pretty well, but still makes funny mistakes. Add to this an extraordinary appearance (a completely bald skull, a nose with potatoes, a massive body on thin legs) and an indestructible absent-mindedness, and you will understand why he often becomes the object of ridicule, however, good-natured. Colleagues treat him like a big child.
The first chapter takes place at the end of September 1950. Pnin takes an electric train from Vindell to Cremon, a neighboring town (two and a half hours away). There he should give a lecture at the Ladies' Club and earn fifty dollars in this way, which will be very useful to him. Pnin continually checks to see if the text of the lecture he is about to read is in place. In addition, in his usual absent-mindedness, he made a mistake in the schedule and runs the risk of being late. But in the end, thanks to a happy coincidence (in the form of a passing car), Pnin arrives at the Ladies' Club of Cremona on time.
Faced with the audience, Pnin seems to be lost in time. He sees himself as a fourteen-year-old boy reading at the gymnasium evening a poem by Pushkin. Pnin's parents are sitting in the hall, his aunt in false letters, his Friend, shot by the Reds in Odessa in 1919, his first love ...
Chapter Two brings us back to 1945, when Timothy Pnin first appeared in Weindell. He rents a room in the Clements' house. Although in everyday life Pnin behaves like an outraged brownie, the owners love him. With the head of the family, Lawrence (a teacher at the same university), Pnin discusses all sorts of scientific subjects. Joan maternally takes care of this ridiculous Russian, who, like a child, is happy looking at the operation of the washing machine. And when his ex (and only) wife should come to Pnin, the Clements delicately disappear from the house for the whole day.
Lisa Bogolepova and Timofey Pnin got married in Paris in 1925. Timofey was in love, but the girl needed some support after an unsuccessful romance that ended in her attempted suicide. In those days, Lisa studied at the medical faculty and wrote poetry, imitating Akhmatova: “I put on a modest dress, and I’m more modest nuns ...” This, however, did not prevent her from changing poor Pnin left and right immediately after her wedding. Allying with a psychoanalyst (fashionable profession!) Eric Wind, Lisa abandoned her husband. But when the Second World War began, Lisa suddenly returned to Pnin, already pregnant at the seventh month. They emigrated together: Pnin was happy and even prepared to become a father to a future (alien) child. However, on the ship going to America, it turned out that the practical Lisa and her new husband simply used Pnin to get out of Europe at the lowest cost.
And this time, Lisa recalls Pnin for selfish purposes. She parted with a psychoanalyst, she has the following hobby. But her son, Victor, must go to school, and Lisa wants Pnin to send him money, and on her behalf. Kind Pnin agrees. But, secretly hoping for a reunion, he suffers a lot when Lisa, having discussed matters, immediately leaves.
The third chapter describes the usual works and days of Timothy Pnin. He gives Russian language lessons for beginners and works on the Small History of Russian culture, carefully collecting all sorts of funny cases, absurdities, jokes, etc. Being careful about the book, he hurries to submit to the library the still needed eighteenth volume of Leo Tolstoy’s works, because Someone signed up for this book. The question of who this unknown reader, who is interested in Tolstoy in the American wilderness, is very interesting for Pnin. But it turns out that the reader is himself, Timothy Pnin. The misunderstanding arose due to an error in the form.
One evening, Pnin watches a documentary Soviet film from the late forties in a movie theater. And when real pictures of Russia appear through Stalinist propaganda, Pnin cries about the forever lost homeland.
The main event of the fourth chapter is the arrival of Victor Lizin’s son to visit Pnin. He is already fourteen years old, he is gifted to genius with the talent of an artist and has an intelligence coefficient of 180 (with an average of 90). In his fantasies, the boy imagined that the unknown Pnin, who was married to his mother and who teaches somewhere mysterious Russian, is his real father, a lonely king, expelled from his kingdom. In turn, Timofey Pavlovich, focusing on a certain typical image of an American teenager, by the time he arrives, buys a soccer ball and, having already remembered his childhood, takes Jack London’s book “Sea Wolf” in the library. Victor is not interested in all this. Nevertheless, they really liked each other.
In chapter five, Pnin, who recently learned to drive a car and bought himself a battered sedan for one hundred dollars, with some adventures gets to the estate called "Pines." Here lives the son of a wealthy Moscow merchant, Alexander Petrovich Kukolnikov, or American-style Al Cook. This is a successful businessman and silent, cautious man: he comes to life only occasionally after midnight, when he starts talking with Godmothers-friends about God, about Lermontov, about Freedom ... Cook is married to a pretty American. They have no children. But then their house is always hospitably open for guests - Russian immigrants. Writers, artists, philosophers here have endless conversations about high matters, exchange news, etc. After one such conversation, Pnin has a vision - his first love, a beautiful Jewish girl, Mira Belochkina. She died in the German concentration camp Buchenwalde.
Chapter Six begins with the fall semester of 1954 at Weindell University. Timofei Pnin finally decides, after thirty-five years of homeless life, to buy a house. He long and carefully prepares for a housewarming party reception: compiles a list of guests, selects a menu, etc. The evening was a success, at the end of it Pnin learns from the university president that he is being fired. In frustrated feelings, the now retired professor washes dishes after the guests and almost broke a beautiful blue cup - a gift from Victor. But the cup remains unharmed, and this gives Pnin hope for the best and a sense of self-confidence.
In the last chapter, the seventh, we finally meet face to face with someone who, in fact, told us the whole story. We call it conditionally the Storyteller. The narrator recalls his meeting with Timofei Pnin in Petersburg in 1911, when they were both gymnasium students; Pnin's father, an eye doctor, was extracting a painful speck from the Storyteller's eye. It becomes clear that it was precisely because of the Storyteller, a fashionable Russian emigrant writer, Liza Bogolepova who poisoned the tablets in Paris in 1925. Moreover, she handed the Storyteller a letter in which Pnin proposed to her. On top of that, the Storyteller is the very person who was invited to take Pnin's place at Weindell University. He, being kind to Pnin, in turn offers him a job. Pnin, however, reports that he has finished teaching and is leaving Weindell.
On the evening of February 14, 1955, the Storyteller arrives in Weindell and stops at the dean of the English faculty of Cockerell. At dinner, the landlord talentedly depicts Timofey Pavlovich Pnin, with all his habits and quirks. Meanwhile, Pnin himself hadn’t left yet, but just hid and answered in a changed voice over the telephone: “He is not at home.” In the morning, the Narrator unsuccessfully tries to catch up with Pnin, who is leaving in his old sedan - with a white dog inside and a van with things behind. At breakfast, Cockerell continues his numbers: he shows how Pnin arrived at the Ladies' Club of Cremon at the end of September 1950, got on stage and found that he had taken the wrong lecture that was needed. The circle closes.
