Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing the first lap of his road trip across the USA with Lolita, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions the Mann Act and the Gods of Semantics:

In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes IPH (a lay Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter) and mentions gods, including the big G:

While snubbing gods, including the big G,

Iph borrowed some peripheral debris

From mystic visions; and it offered tips

According to John Ray, Jr. (in VN's novel Lolita, 1955, the author of the Foreword to Humbert Humbert's manuscript), he had just been awarded the Poling Prize for a modest work (“Do the Senses make Sense?”) wherein certain morbid states and perversions had been discussed.

The Poling Prize seems to hint at Linus Pauling (1901-94), an American scientist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954. Humbert Humbert’s landlord, Professor Chem, teaches chemistry at Beardsley College:

In the Tobakoff cinema hall Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) and his half sister Lucette watch Don Juan’s Last Fling, a movie in which Ada played the gitanilla:

‘Hey, look!’ he cried, pointing to a poster. ‘They’re showing something called Don Juan’s Last Fling. It’s prerelease and for adults only. Topical Tobakoff!’

Describing the political situation on Terra (Antiterra’s twin planet), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions Athaulf the Future:

When Andrey Vinelander (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Ada’s husband) falls ill, his sister Dorothy reads to him old issues of Golos Feniksa (“The Phoenix Voice,” a Russian-language newspaper in Arizona):

Gerard de Vries (“Three Notes on Ada”): In Strong Opinions Nabokov presents the text of Ada’s “first throb, the strange nucleus of the book that was to grow around it,” that “exists as an inset scene right in the middle of the novel” (310. See Ada 356-8). This text is a dream within a dream: Van dreams that someone called Eric Veen writes an essay called “Villa Venus: an Organized Dream” (346, 348).

Describing his life with Charlotte in Ramsdale, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions Miss Phalen and her sister:

The Humberts walked on, sandaled and robed.

In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions Hurricane Lolita and his wife’s portrait by Lang:

It was a year of Tempests: Hurricane
Lolita swept from Florida to Maine.
Mars glowed. Shahs married. Gloomy Russians spied.
Lang made your portrait. And one night I died. (ll. 679-682)

In VN's novel Bend Sinister (1947) Hamlet’s famous monologue in Ember’s version begins as follows:

Ubit' il' ne ubit'? Vot est' oprosen.

Vto bude edler: v rasume tzerpieren

Ogneprashchi i strely zlovo roka –