Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing the visit of Alonso (a Spanish architect) to Ardis, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the Russian ‘hrip’ (Spanish flu) that Uncle Dan (the husband of Van’s, Ada’s and Lucette’s mother Marina) had caught:

A gong bronzily boomed on a terrace.

Describing his childhood, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions the splendid Hotel Mirana that revolved around him as a kind of private universe:

In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes a game of chess with his wife Sybil: 

"What is that funny creaking - do you hear?"

"It is the shutter on the stairs, my dear."

"If you're not sleeping, let's turn on the light.

I hate that wind! Let's play some chess." "All right."

On his first morning in “Ardis the Second” Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) asks Ada what had she actually done with the poor worms (the caterpillars in Ada’s larvarium), after Krolik’s untimely end:

She was on bad terms with memory. She thought the servants would be up soon now, and then one could have something hot. That fridge was all fudge, really.

Describing the king’s escape from Zembla, 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 lazy Garh, the farmer's daughter who shows to the king the shortest way to the pass:

In his Foreword and Commentary 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 Exton, a town near New Wye (a small University town where Shade and Kinbote live):

In his letter to Ada, written after Lucette’s suicide, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) uses the phrase “entered the picture” (and then repeats it in a slightly different form):

Ada:

In VN's novel Lolita (1955) Humbert Humbert is afraid that his wife Charlotte will bundle off Lolita to St. Algebra:

There was a woodlake (Hourglass Lake - not as I had thought it was spelled) a few miles from Ramsdale, and there was one week of great heat at the end of July when we drove there daily. I am now obliged to describe in some tedious detail our last swim there together, one tropical Tuesday morning.

Describing his professional dreams, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions a typo on every page and coins the word ‘skyscape:’

What are dreams? A random sequence of scenes, trivial or tragic, viatic or static, fantastic or familiar, featuring more or less plausible events patched up with grotesque details, and recasting dead people in new settings.

Describing his novel Letters from Terra, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the corpuscles of his bloodstream and a Mr Nekto’s ripe boil newly lanced in Nektor or Neckton: