Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In VN’s novel Ada (1969) Dorothy Vinelander (Ada’s sister-in-law) marries a Mr Brod or Bred who subsequently directs archeological reconstructions at Goreloe (the ‘Lyaskan Herculanum’):

In VN’s novel Pale Fire (1962) John Shade writes his last poem and dies in July. According to Kinbote (Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla), the poem was begun at the dead center of the year, a few minutes after midnight July 1 (note to Lines 1-4).

In Canto Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) calls the little scissors with which he pares his fingernails “a dazzling synthesis of sun and star:”

The little scissors I am holding are

A dazzling synthesis of sun and star.

I stand before the window and I pare

My fingernails and vaguely am aware

Of certain flinching likenesses: the thumb,

Our grocer's son; the index, lean and glum

When Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) makes a pass at her on his first morning at Ardis, Blanche (a French maid at Ardis) looks at a sparrow hopping up the paved path toward the bit of baby-toed biscuit she had thrown to him:

In VN’s novel Ada (1969) Andrey Vinelander (Ada’s husband) addresses his father-in-law (Demon Veen, son of Dedalus) “Dementiy Labirintovich” and calls him balagur (a wag):

Describing a conversation at the Faculty Club, 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) calls one of the interlocutors “Pink:”

In the epilogue of VN’s novel Ada (1969) old Van and Ada wonder who of them dies first:

In Canto Three of his poem Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions Hurricane Lolita that swept from Florida to Maine:

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. 679-82)

In Canto Four of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) speaks of two methods of composing, A and B:

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) mentions the baton of life passed to him by Shade in a sublime relay race: