Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In VN's story Time and Ebb (1944) the narrator mentions the savage vulgarity of Hitler or Alamillo:

Telling Van to stop his affair with Ada, Demon Veen (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s father) says that he believes in Van and his common sense: 

Demon regained his composure (if not his young looks) and said:

‘I believe in you and your common sense. You must not allow an old debaucher to disown an only son. If you love her, you wish her to be happy, and she will not be as happy as she could be once you gave her up. You may go. Tell her to come here on your way down.’

Before the family dinner in “Ardis the Second” Demon Veen (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s father) tells Van that the Ladore pastures should be got rid of gradually, if the local squires don’t blow up that new kerosene distillery, the stïd i sram (shame) of our county:

In a poem that, according to spectral narrators of VN's novel Transparent Things (1972), Hugh Person had published in a college magazine the sun is setting a heavenly example to the lake:

According to the spectral narrators of VN's novel Transparent Things (1972), at the beginning of a poem that Hugh Person (the main character in Transparent Things) had published in a college magazine suspension dots were mentioned:

The main character in VN's novel Transparent Things (1972), Hugh Person is the son of Henry Emery Person:

At the picnic on Ada's sixteenth birthday Mlle Larivière (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, the governess of Van's and Ada's half-sister Lucette) mentions an English novel of high repute in which a lady is given a perfume called "Ombre Chevalier," which, according to Mlle Larivière, is really nothing but a fish:

Describing the picnic on Ada's twelfth birthday, when he walked on his hands for the first time, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions his adult incapacity to ‘shrug’ things off and wonders if it was only physical or did it ‘correspond’ to some archetypal character of his ‘undersoul:’

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 Faragod (apparently, the god of electricity):

The action in VN's novel Ada (1969) takes place on Demonia, Earth's twin planet also known as Antiterra. Describing the phenomenon of the Terra planet, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in Ada) says that minds bien rangés (not apt to unhobble hobgoblins) rejected Terra as a fad or a fantom, and deranged minds (ready to plunge into any abyss) accepted it in support and token of their own irrationality: