Vladimir Nabokov

Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Description

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

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 12 February, 2023

According to Ada, she and Van will have four pairs of eyes in paradise:

 

Nirvana, Nevada, Vaniada. By the way, should I not add, my Ada, that only at the very last interview with poor dummy-mummy, soon after my premature — I mean, premonitory — nightmare about, ‘You can, Sir,’ she employed mon petit nom, Vanya, Vanyusha — never had before, and it sounded so odd, so tend... (voice trailing off, radiators tinkling).

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 11 February, 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) speaks of Charles Xavier’s chaste romance with Fleur de Fyler and mentions his new boy pages from Troth, and Tuscany, and Albanoland:

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 10 February, 2023

Describing his childhood trips with his father, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions a cummerbunded Dutchman who told another that Demon was a famous gambler:

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 9 February, 2023

Describing the picnic on Ada's sixteenth birthday, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions a company of strangers who walked into the forest across the road and sat down there to a modest colazione of cheese, buns, salami, sardines and Chianti:

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 7 February, 2023

At the picnic on Ada's sixteenth birthday Greg Erminin (Grace's twin brother in VN's novel Ada, 1969) notices a company of strangers and Van asks ‘Kto sii (who are they)?":