Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In his Commentary to Shade’s poet 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) says that Shade shared with the English masters the noble knack of transplanting trees into verse with their sap and shade:

Line 49: shagbark

In March, 1905, Demon Veen (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's and Ada's father) perishes in a mysterious airplane disaster above the Pacific. Describing his father's death, Van mentions a maussade Lebanese beauty of fifteen sultry summers:

Describing his dialogues with Ada in "Ardis the First," Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions ‘minirechi’ (‘talking minarets’) of a secret make that they had evolved in Tartary:

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 the L disaster that happened on Demonia in the beau milieu of the 19th century:

At Kingston (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's American University) there is a first-rate madhouse:

On Demonia (aka Antiterra, Earth's twin planet on which VN's novel Ada, 1969, is set) Ilemna (a subarctic monastery town) was renamed Novostabia:

After Van's first tea party at Ardis Marina (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother) tells Van that he can see the Tarn from the library window and Ada introduces the view to Van pollice verso:

When Lucette (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's and Ada's half-sister) visits Van at Kingston (Van's American University) bringing him a letter from Ada, Van quips that it is terrible for a window not to be able to turn its paralyzed embrasure and see what is on the other side of the house:

‘I think I’ll take off my jacket,’ she said with the usual flitting frown of feminine fuss that fits the ‘thought.’ ‘You’ve got central heating; we girls have tiny fireplaces.’

In Canto Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes a TV program that he and his wife Sybil saw on the eve of their daughter's tragic death and mentions Frost (the poet):

I was in time to overhear brief fame

And have a cup of tea with you: my name

Was mentioned twice, as usual just behind

(one oozy footstep) Frost.

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions diamonds of frost:

Retake the falling snow: each drifting flake

Shapeless and slow, unsteady and opaque,

A dull dark white against the day's pale white

And abstract larches in the neutral light.

And then the gradual and dual blue

As night unites the viewer and the view,

And in the morning, diamonds of frost