Vladimir Nabokov

Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Description

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

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 21 July, 2026

Describing Izumrudov's visit to Gradus (Shade's murderer) in Nice, 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) mentions the emerald waters of Zemblan northern shores:

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 20 July, 2026

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes his house in New Wye (a small University town in New England) and mentions the phantom of his little daughter's swing:

 

I had a favorite young shagbark there

With ample dark jade leaves and a black, spare,

Vermiculated trunk. The setting sun

Bronzed the black bark, around which, like undone

Garlands, the shadows of the foliage fell.

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 19 July, 2026

Describing the king's escape from Zembla, 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) mentions the words of a Russian general's faded wife, "War is an awful thing:" 

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko , 18 July, 2026

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 the phenomena in the Haunted Barn investigated by Hazel Shade (the poet's daughter) a few months before her tragic death and quotes in full Shade's short poem “The Nature of Electricity:”