Vladimir Nabokov

Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Description

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

By Alexey Sklyarenko, 19 July, 2023

Describing his meeting with Ada (now married to Andrey Vinelander) in October, 1905, in Mont Roux, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions his dialogue with Lucien (the concierge at Les Trois Cygnes):

 

arriving mont roux bellevue sunday

dinnertime adoration sorrow rainbows

By Alexey Sklyarenko, 14 July, 2023

One of the three main characters in VN’s novel Pale Fire (1962), Kinbote (Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) is the son of King Alfin and Queen Blenda. Alfin 250mg Tablet is an antifungal medicine. The name of the mother of Charles Xavier Vseslav seems to hint at Blend-a-med, a popular toothpaste produced since 1951 by Blendax GmbH (Mainz, Germany). Queen Blenda is a horsewoman:

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko, 12 July, 2023

In his Index 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) mentions a very courageous master builder who was poisoned in the royal kitchens, together with his three young apprentices, Yan, Yonny, and Angeling:

 

By Alexey Sklyarenko, 6 July, 2023

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 says that it snubbed gods, including the big G:

 

While snubbing gods, including the big G,

Iph borrowed some peripheral debris

From mystic visions; and it offered tips

(The amber spectacles for life's eclipse) -

How not to panic when you're made a ghost: