Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing Hugh’s and Armande’s last evening together, the anonymous narrators of VN’s novel Transparent Things (1972) mention a heavy piece of inscrutable sculpture catalogued as "Pauline anide:"

We are back in New York and this is their last evening together.

In VN’s novel Ada (1969) Van Veen (the narrator and main character) learns card tricks from Mr Plunkett (a reformed card-sharper):

According to Ada (the title character of a novel, 1969, by VN), she could dissect a koala but not its baby:

He discovered her hands (forget that nail-biting business). The pathos of the carpus, the grace of the phalanges demanding helpless genuflections, a mist of brimming tears, agonies of unresolvable adoration. He touched her wrist, like a dying doctor. A quiet madman, he caressed the parallel strokes of the delicate down shading the brunette’s forearm. He went back to her knuckles. Fingers, please.

In Canto Four of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) says that the title of his first book (free verse) was Dim Gulf:

Dim Gulf was my first book (free verse); Night Rote

Came next; then Hebe's Cup, my final float

In that damp carnival, for now I term

Everything "Poems," and no longer squirm.

According to 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), on his deathbed Conmal (the King’s uncle, Zemblan translator of Shakespeare) called his nephew “Karlik:”

Describing an extraordinary session of the Extremist government, 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 a copy of a French newspaper with the headline: L'EX-ROI DE ZEMBLA EST-IL À PARIS?:

According to 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), Gradus (Shade’s murderer) contended that the real origin of his name should be sought in the Russian word for grape, vinograd, to which a Latin suffix had adhered, making it Vinogradus:

In Memory of Hafid Bouazza

Shade’s murderer, Jakob Gradus (one of the three main characters in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) is a member of the Shadows (a regicidal organization):

In Canto Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) says that his daughter called her mother "a didactic katydid:"

                         She twisted words: pot, top

Spider, redips. And "powder" was "red wop."

She called you a didactic katydid.

Describing Shade’s murder by Gradus, 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) compares himself to a stone king on a stone charger in the Tessera Square of Onhava (the capital of Zembla):