Vladimir Nabokov

Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Description

Please read Alexey Sklyarenko's annotations on Pale FireAda and other Nabokov works here.

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 9 November, 2023

According to John Ray, Jr. (in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955, the author of the Foreword to Humbert Humbert’s manuscript), Mrs. Richard F. Schiller (Lolita’s married name) died in childbed, giving birth to a stillborn girl, on Christmas Day 1952, in Gray Star, a settlement in the remotest Northwest:

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 9 November, 2023

Describing the difference between Terra and Antiterra (Earth's twin planet also known as Demonia), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions the details of the L disaster that happened on Demonia in the beau milieu of the 19th century:

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 7 November, 2023

In his Commentary to Shade's poem Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) describes his conversations with Shade and mentions Prof. Botkin and Russian humorists:

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 6 November, 2023

Describing the L disaster in the beau milieu of the 19th century after which electricity was banned on Demonia (Earth's twin planet on which VN's novel Ada, 1869, is set), Van Veen (the narrator and main character) mentions Faragod (apparently, the god of electricity):

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 5 November, 2023

When Demon Veen (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's and Ada's father) asks Van how is his wound (that Van received in a pistol duel with Captain Tapper, of Wild Violet Lodge), Van replies that he is in for another spell of surgery — this time in London, where butchers carve so much better:

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 4 November, 2023

In the Kalugano hospital (where Van Veen, the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, recovers from the wound received in a pistol duel with Captain Tapper, of Wild Violet Lodge) Dr Fitzbishop (a surgeon in the Kalugano hospital) tells Van that Philip Rack (Lucette's music teacher who was poisoned by his jealous wife Elsie and who dies in Ward Five of the Kalugano hospital) is

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 4 November, 2023

After three years of unsuccessful investigations Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) finally tracks down Clare Quilty (a playwright with whom Lolita escaped from the Elphinstone hospital) to Pavor Manor, a wooden house on Grimm Road: